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I'm sorry...some modern drivetrains are stupid

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I'm sorry...some modern drivetrains are stupid

Old 03-31-20, 09:52 AM
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I'm sorry...some modern drivetrains are stupid

Not only ugly, but contrived, heavy and fragile.

Derailleur so far offset from axle looks like a poor engineering decision analysis effort, especially given gravel riding and the bumps and pounding it takes. Fat and almost flat probably cushions much of the blow.

The future of road bike cycling = mechanically challenged, but fat and nearly flat will absorb the lack of sophistication (and make us all faster in the long run?). Probably applies to sub-900gm CF frames, as well.


?How large a spoke protector is needed? Maybe the gravel wheel spoke protector is a disc wheel. The next great product in the evolution of 1X drivetrains = tough gravel disc rear wheels! Made out of lightweight CF = the newest $5000 component.
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Old 03-31-20, 09:59 AM
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I thought Olivetti made typewriters.

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Old 03-31-20, 10:02 AM
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A bit of a challenge to the eye, first time I took a look at this style of bike. Now, I have no issue with the appearance and cannot help but wonder about ride quality. Perhaps, this summer the guys at Fresh Air Experience will let me try one out for a bit.
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Old 03-31-20, 10:02 AM
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Those transparent pedals are super light and awesome!
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Old 03-31-20, 10:04 AM
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Give me a lever long enough and I can shift the position of the Earth. Assuming the lever is sufficiently stiff and durable.
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Old 03-31-20, 10:23 AM
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anyone care to explain the fork?
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Old 03-31-20, 10:34 AM
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Originally Posted by droppedandlost
anyone care to explain the fork?
Clearly, it takes some of the some of the stress and loading off that one fulcrum point right below the lower headset and shifts it instead to the steerer tube on top. Since stress and loading on that point isn't a problem for other off-road bicycles, no, I can't explain it.
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Old 03-31-20, 10:34 AM
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Originally Posted by droppedandlost
anyone care to explain the fork?

Rule of cool?
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Old 03-31-20, 10:35 AM
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Originally Posted by Wildwood
Not only ugly, but contrived, heavy and fragile.

Derailleur so far offset from axle looks like a poor engineering decision analysis effort, especially given gravel riding and the bumps and pounding it takes. Fat and almost flat probably cushions much of the blow.

The future of road bike cycling = mechanically challenged, but fat and nearly flat will absorb the lack of sophistication (and make us all faster in the long run?). Probably applies to sub-900gm CF frames, as well.


?How large a spoke protector is needed? Maybe the gravel wheel spoke protector is a disc wheel. The next great product in the evolution of 1X drivetrains = tough gravel disc rear wheels! Made out of lightweight CF = the newest $5000 component.
Actually no, this is just a Shimano "direct mount" RD. that ends up about in the same physical alignment as a traditional RD with hanger (and mounting knuckle). The DM mounting is stiffer and more precisely standardized than RD hangers to boot. The odd visual is purely camera alignment and gearing. Sadly the DM standard hasn't caught on, but it is superior....so it is probably going away in the dustbin of history.

That frameset having slider dropouts--you could change the wheel/axle to a fixed SS or IGH or just about anything. It is a very flexible platform.


Spoke protectors are great...if you're the sort that ignores your low-limit screw.
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Old 03-31-20, 10:35 AM
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Originally Posted by droppedandlost
anyone care to explain the fork?
Looks like an unsuspended "girder" style fork.
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Old 03-31-20, 10:48 AM
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"Olivetti" a cool brand name from the past for me! Reminds me when my Dad brought home a wide carriage Olivetti typewriter from his office, for me to use when I was doing book reports in gradeschool. I felt superior to my classmates knowing that they were using "regular" typewriters to do their homework. They do their stuff on Remingtons and Royals, I do mine on an Olivetti! I guess it was like I was driving a Ferrari for me. My dad got worried when he noticed me one day admiring the IBM Selectric on his secretary's desk though, he did not take me to his office on weekends that much after that......
Regarding modern drivetrains, just looking at a modern cassette freewheel shortcircuits my C&V senses. Soooooo many cogs and teeth! Could I really use all that? Wouldn't that weigh too much on a race bike? The bicycle had totally totally lost the beautiful, efficient and elegant simplicity it had in the 80's. Heck, I would not be surprised these days if modern bike actually has "Non user servicable" components on them.....just like our mostly plastic and over-teched cars today.

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Old 03-31-20, 11:48 AM
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Originally Posted by droppedandlost
anyone care to explain the fork?
They're called truss forks. The earliest example is likely the mid-1890s Pedersen bicycle, though these did not catch on. The style was subsequently used on early motorcycles and the bicycle industry took their lead from that. They were popular on American bicycles from the the Great War period though the 1950s, when it was popular to have bicycles styled like motorcycles, with faux gas tanks, double top tubes, axle mounted kickstands, etc. The leading truss strengthens the fork while allowing blades of smaller diameter and thinner material, without the forks collaspsing. Basically, it gives the best strength to weight ratio.
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Old 03-31-20, 11:58 AM
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No offense Wildwood but is your off-the-cuff rant against the Shimano MTB drivetrain motivated by experience, or speculation? Having used the 1x Deore XT drivetrains in the past on both mountain and "gravel" bikes, it works quite well and I don't think anybody reports any issues with fragility. The designs have been OEM on mountain bikes for many years now and I'd think if the issues you're bring up are real, the many hundreds of thousands of people who have actually ridden the components off-road would have mentioned them.
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Old 03-31-20, 12:17 PM
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The truss fork is fixing a problem that does not exist, however it is great product differentiation, and I suspect that is the sole reason this company uses it. As for direct mount derailleurs, I suspect Shimano has something up their sleeve in the future to make use of the "superior" properties of the direct mount. If it is just to create a new standard, then it, too is fixing a problem that does not exist.
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Old 03-31-20, 12:26 PM
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Those truss forks can set you back the cost of a nice, vintage Cinelli bike.
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Old 03-31-20, 12:30 PM
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Originally Posted by Wildwood
Give me a lever long enough and I can shift the position of the Earth. Assuming the lever is sufficiently stiff and durable.
Chuck Norris wouldn't need a lever.
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Old 03-31-20, 12:30 PM
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Originally Posted by TiHabanero
The truss fork is fixing a problem that does not exist, however it is great product differentiation, and I suspect that is the sole reason this company uses it. As for direct mount derailleurs, I suspect Shimano has something up their sleeve in the future to make use of the "superior" properties of the direct mount. If it is just to create a new standard, then it, too is fixing a problem that does not exist.
A problem does exist, is the issue, and people have gotten desensitized to it because of how bad it is.

The RD hangar isn't even really a "standard". You bend a hangar-what do you do? There are ten million and "n" different hangers for every different frame ever made through all time that hangars are replaceable and all of them are unique snowflakes one-offs for one specific make and year and tier and model--and none of them put the RD in the same exact spot WRT the axle and cassette. The only thing "standard" about it is that the bolt threading for the RD is the same--otherwise it is a free-for-all.

The DM standard is very precise about where things goes, it also apples-apples shifts better. I've used it on the same frame with the same RD. Don't take my word for it--I asked Paragon Machine Works about this and this is what Mark Norstad of PWM said:

Our Direct-mount hanger specs are taken directly from Shimano's
standards. The difference in position you're seeing is probably a
result of where the conventional hanger is located. Standards for
conventional hangers are not as well defined, and typically have a lot
of leeway, sometimes as much as 6 mm total tolerance, depending on which
standard is being used.

True, it is a longer lever arm, but it's probably still stronger than
the link that Shimano supplies, and DM eliminates the link and extra
bolt for what could be considered a stouter hanger.

My personal experience with DM is that it is a big improvement over
previous systems.
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Old 03-31-20, 12:31 PM
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Originally Posted by scarlson
I thought Olivetti made typewriters.
So did I. And although the font style looks similar, I don't think there's a relationship between the two. The bikes are from Boulder CO, and bear names like "Thunder Pig".

That Valentine, BTW, was designed by Ettore Sotsass, and came with a beautiful case as well:



My very first computer was also an Olivetti. An M15 laptop with a detachable keyboard and two 3.5" floppy disk drives:



OK, back to American bikes.
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Old 03-31-20, 12:37 PM
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Originally Posted by Marcus_Ti
Actually no, this is just a Shimano "direct mount" RD. that ends up about in the same physical alignment as a traditional RD with hanger (and mounting knuckle). The DM mounting is stiffer and more precisely standardized than RD hangers to boot. The odd visual is purely camera alignment and gearing. Sadly the DM standard hasn't caught on, but it is superior....so it is probably going away in the dustbin of history.

That frameset having slider dropouts--you could change the wheel/axle to a fixed SS or IGH or just about anything. It is a very flexible platform.


Spoke protectors are great...if you're the sort that ignores your low-limit screw.
It's been my understanding that direct mount derailleurs were devised to eliminate the impact that larger cross-section carbon fibre stays and thru-axles were having on the crowding of the traditional derailleur mount. The solution was to move the move the mounting hole further away from the axle. However, yes they maintain the same parallelogram and jockey wheel alignment.
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Old 03-31-20, 12:38 PM
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Originally Posted by TiHabanero
The truss fork is fixing a problem that does not exist,
https://www.jonesbikes.com/
- Jeff Jones uses a truss for, along with fat tires, for "suspension" ~ sorry, that's not the right wording, but in lieu of a spring / damper assembly, he's selling a truss fork and fat tires.

Oddity Cycles
- another purveyor of modern day truss forks.

- as to the OP, I prefer a more traditional 2x8 or 3x8. Maybe the new 1x ZY set ups are better than the old stuff. I don't know. It seems like the rear ends of the modern bikes keep getting wider and wider to accomdate a 1 x 13? 1 x 20? when they gonna stop? how wide a rear-end on a bike? 200mm?
I would love to get something like a 135mm rear hub with a 3X5 gearing and a lot less dish on the wheel. Wouldn't that give a long lasting durable rear wheel set up? I think so. It's OK to say tell me how I'm wrong. (and yep, I'm still talking rim brakes....)

ciao!
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Old 03-31-20, 12:49 PM
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Originally Posted by Marcus_Ti
The DM standard is very precise about where things goes, it also apples-apples shifts better. I've used it on the same frame with the same RD.
That's a worthwhile comparison if you're deciding how to set up a particular derailleur on a particular frame, but it doesn't really allow a direct comparison on the merits of the hanger standards. A "direct-mount" derailleur on a "direct-mount" hanger is no more direct than a traditional derailleur on a traditional hanger; instead, and ironically, so-called "direct-mount" could be said to open the door for indirect mounting when a "direct-mount" derailleur is used on a traditional hanger, which is what you're comparing to.

That said, the standardization of DM placement is an improvement, and the placement is probably better insofar as having a derailleur's upper knuckle start behind the rear axle sort of makes sense.
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Old 03-31-20, 12:56 PM
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Originally Posted by mrv
It seems like the rear ends of the modern bikes keep getting wider and wider to accomdate a 1 x 13? 1 x 20? when they gonna stop? how wide a rear-end on a bike? 200mm?
I'm waiting for chainrings and cassettes to be mounted on universal joints to straighten the chainline
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Old 03-31-20, 01:14 PM
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Originally Posted by TenGrainBread
No offense Wildwood but is your off-the-cuff rant against the Shimano MTB drivetrain motivated by experience, or speculation? Having used the 1x Deore XT drivetrains in the past on both mountain and "gravel" bikes, it works quite well and I don't think anybody reports any issues with fragility. The designs have been OEM on mountain bikes for many years now and I'd think if the issues you're bring up are real, the many hundreds of thousands of people who have actually ridden the components off-road would have mentioned them.

Are you attempting to imply it is a more attractive drivetrain from a different angle?


I have no experience with 1X drivetrains except a 1X1 and 1X5 - definately not an upscale drivetrain.


for the mountain bikes and mountainside off-roaders I do not choose to dictate components. The need for mud clearance and components that do not jam in heavy dust/dirt and withstand a bit of bashing. The Olivetti seems to be in that camp.

If it is not catching on, there are probably multiple issues from various industry camps so 'superiority' may prove elusive. You should collect a bunch for their future value.
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Old 03-31-20, 01:27 PM
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It seems to me the size of the cassette dictates the sliding drop-outs to keep the rd out of the cogs across any range of adjustment (and for disc brakes too)


I do agree with whoever said it's so superior it's guaranteed for the dustbin.

Like OS2 Warp from IBM was better than Windows.
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Old 03-31-20, 01:27 PM
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Tuss frames and forks have already proven to have merit. Moulton's come to mind. Airplanes too (except 'bailout' Boeing)

This police auction space frame sold for $600 in TO.
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