alexdi profile

I wrote this on another site:

> They'll focus on the easy and wave away the hard like so many other startups. Shifting is easy (which is to say, attainable if you throw seven-figure development money at it). Transferring torque at competitive weight, cost, efficiency, durability, and compatibility will be impossible. A year from now, they'll have a heavy, enormously expensive prototype made mostly of carbon, with bespoke wheels and frame compatible with nothing, conventional gears that mate without rotating bearing sets, and efficiency comparisons to a dirty chain. And it'll still be limited to recreational power outputs and small riders. Then they'll either refinance and pivot some other direction, or die.

I'm posting it here because I'm fully willing to eat crow if it turns out they can build a bicycle to which physics and materials science don't apply.

Fellow gay chiming in. I can't say sexual orientation comes up much in my riding groups. Usually it's in the context of limitations; wife won't let me do X, etc. Mostly they just care if you can keep up and shred. My other sport is climbing and it's similar. I've generally been impressed with the caliber of folks I've met. 

But then, I live in a big city. You can't throw a rock without hitting one of us. Anti-gay sentiment would immediately put you in an ostracized minority, so while I don't wear my sexuality on my sleeve, I wouldn't fear mentioning a relationship or an interest if it was relevant.

Tempted by the OneUp v2, but too many reports of short maintenance intervals. I've had my 185mm Revive on the bike for two or three seasons and haven't done a thing to it. Works like new. It's just not worth saving $150 at the outset, especially when you get almost all of it back on resale. If you resell. The only reason I'd swap this post out is for a little more travel.

I was definitely more enthusiastic about these hubs in mid-2018 when they were first announced. Some surprising failures in execution. The forum warnings to 'carefully open the hub and fettle these components with this specific grease' remind me too much of Mavic. The wheelset I'd planned to build around XTR will probably end up on DT again.

I installed the 5100 11S iteration of this drivetrain on a 26er Cannondale with 2" tires. Cage had to have been 4" off the ground. Good shifting. Surprisingly good for a 135 bike, though Boost would have been more efficient in the big sprockets. Tuning was a surprise-- this is only Shimano RD I've seen that wants a slack cable in the smallest sprocket, to the point where the cable isn't even resting flush on the guide. 6100 (also installed on an older 29er) appears to be the same group save for the 10T. 

Shifter throws are kind of long; definitely preferred my XX1 shifters. And I'm of two minds about the clutch. It works a little too well. Shifting into bigger sprockets on the stand is butter when it's off and noticeably difficult when it's on. I didn't notice it on the bike as much just spinning around and certainly wouldn't on a trail, though would have liked to have seen a tension adjustment.

But as you say: it's cheap as chips. I paid something like $200 for the RD, shifter, cassette, and chain, plus another $15 for a Shimano-compatible ring to pair with an existing double. I priced out Advent, discounted Box, etc.-- nothing came up a better value.

I stand corrected. Same opinion, though.

Better than nothing, and yet still parsimonious. I'd argue a $15K S-Works fits in the "hyper-expensive" category. Same non-transferable warranty.

IME, gold tier includes Ritchey, BikeYoke, Kuat, Raleigh, and Diamondback. Cannondale requires some documentation but has come through for me on a few parts that repeatedly broke.

I don't value warranties as they exist now. Besides the fine print and the overhead, they're almost all non-transferable. That's a joke to me. Buy a used Hyundai and you'll get the balance of that 60,000 mile warranty. Spend the same money on a used Specialized (or Enve, or nearly every other brand, "premium" or not), and you can go pound sand.

To me, you either stand behind your product or you don't. The original owner already paid you for the warranty; if you negate that support when the product changes hands ten minutes later, you're treating that compensation like a windfall. One more liability to strike from the balance sheet! Hooray for you. But if that product breaks from an engineering or manufacturing defect, you can bet I'll be crowing about it in forums like this, and there won't be any "and they stepped in to make this right" to offset the bad taste.

That aside, most MTB products don't have "lifetime" utility. My first dropper was 150mm and $400. I replaced it two years later with a $300 185mm dropper, and that one will be replaced with a $200 200mm as soon as my next frame becomes available. An extended warranty on an obsolete product or one likely to rapidly drop in price just isn't that interesting. The warranty is mostly relevant to deal with infant deaths that occur in the first two years when I'm not eying a replacement for other reasons. 

For a customer-focused company, though, I'd say 7 years is the right span, few or no questions asked. And if someone contacts you about your thing from a decade ago and you make an exception here and there, they'll praise you to the heavens.

Great stuff, Cam. Will bookmark this one.

Excellent review, thanks for taking the time! I particularly appreciate the assembly notes.

I've made a worksheet of a potential build that brings the bike just under 27 pounds, though the bigger question is whether to go full-29 or take the plunge to a 69er.* How much flexibility did you have on the color scheme and logos?

• I just realized the 34T thing could be a problem with a 69er. I run 32T with a 29x2.5" and a 10-42. If I downsize to 27.5 in the back, the ring has to come up to 32 to keep the top end. Hmm.