Hello Vital MTB Visitor,
We’re conducting a survey and would appreciate your input. Your answers will help Vital and the MTB industry better understand what riders like you want. Survey results will be used to recognize top brands. Make your voice heard!
Five lucky people will be selected at random to win a Vital MTB t-shirt.
Thanks in advance,
The Vital MTB Crew
The electronics are more crucial when you consider the narrow-wide cassette teeth and how the chain moves on the ramps. SRAM could easily make a mechanical direct mount derailleur (NX maybe) but only work with the older style eagle cassette and have zero issues. That's truly what I want; the better shift quality is a plus for me but not critical - the durability is far more desirable.
I don't know where you're getting that from. The electronics help the derailleur shift as soon as there is a shift ramp, so it's a perfect shift every time. The mechanical drivetrain will work, but it won't work as well.
You probably have more info than me, but to me it just seems like a specific delay per gear, I haven't seen any evidence of a position or resistance sensor. So the first shift gets fired off at any point on the cassette. Your fingers ability to sense the amount of effort required to move into the next gear could perform the same task. Or perhaps some kind of clutch in the shifter that only allows X pressure to be applied to the shifter cable.
I'm getting it from reading people's inexperienced opinions and you're also making my point. It DOES NOT have to be electronic to shift "well" and if you read those who have experience it's not "perfect shifting every time." That would be the SRAM marketing dept. Durability on the other hand does seem to set it apart which is certainly not electronic dependent.
That requires knowledge and experience, something most people don't have when it comes to shifting gears...
Hey Jesse, I know you're a trained engineer and you're probably smarter than me and work for SRAM and I'm just some guy, but I've read that the SRAM Transmission does not use electronics to sense the shift gates in the cassette in order to sync the derailleur movements to match in time. Instead, the shift movement of the derailleur cage is instantaneous when you hit the button, and the delay you observe is from the chain waiting for a shift gate in the cassette to travel through the gate and change gears. The pronounced shift gates in the cassette (and perhaps the proprietary T-type chain shape) are what allow seamless shifting under load, not the derailleur per se. So it doesn't need to be electronic to shift real good like.
Thanks for the compliments but we all know you're not just 'some guy', and I'm just a bike nerd like the rest. What you are saying makes sense.
All I really have is a lot of ride time on the new Transmission, as well as the older AXS on some of my other bikes. All I said was the electronics help when the derailleur will shift. It doesn't 'sense' this, it just has a map of all the of ramps in the cassette. So it knows the gear you are in, which way you have shifted, and roughly how long the delay will be until the chain hits the shift ramp, so it puts the derailleur into position to catch the ramp, and then finishes the shift when the ramp is met. Like the guys said previously, we have been able to do this with our thumbs on downshifts, slightly pressing the lever and letting the derailleur catch the ramp before finishing the click. Transmission does that by itself, and the best part about that is I will come into a climb I didn't expect and be able to press a button and be turning over into an easier gear while only thinking about cranking up the steep pitch. I wasn't bold enough before to shift while under significant load like that for fear of breaking my chain, that fear was probably unfounded as Shimano does make a great drivetrain, but now I don't have that worry. I do like the idea about the clutch in the derailleur where it will only shift under certain pressure, that could be the solution for mechanical.
But I haven't been able to do that on upshifts. On transmission I personally feel this is when I need to grab a handful of gears trying to get back up to speed. If I have to go click-click-click, it won't mangle 3 gear shifts at once, instead it's a steady, consistent shift for 3 gears.
So good to hear from the horses mouth! I've been curious about that myself. The one thing I can't help but reckon is that SRAM should integrate Transmission with a cadence sensor such as that of the Flight Attendant system. Hence the timing could be even more precise, allowing the transmission to speed up when the cadence is very high, instead of predicting the required time between shifts based on an average cadence (I'm making assumptions here please correct me if I'm wrong).
The main point here is definitely to do single shifts only. With normal mechanical shifters you were able to shift up to 5 gears at one push. This would be way to fast to synchronise the chain and the cassette and you would end up with the chain being mismatched with the narrow-wide teeth. Shimano introduced mechanical linkglide xt two years ago, it does almost the same thing as transmission, it uses a stronger narrow-wide teeth profil and more pronounced shift ramps to make sure each shift is perfectly synchronised. The matching mechanical shifter is an "E-Bike" shifter, that only allows for single shifts and therefore slows down the shift speed significantly. So from my point of view there is no real reason why transmission could not be mechanical, but to shift properly, it would need an single push/single shift shifter, like the ones that are common on ebikes for years. I think this would a pretty hard sell for sram and they can easily hide that by going electronic. On the wireless shifter they can "cue" the shifts and change gears slowly without the user noticing it.
Sram already have mechanical single click shifters on ebikes…
Apparently there was on of the omnious formula dc enduro forks for sale on a swis website. I was a bit o late to the party so another guy was given the nod.
the seller told me that there is till plans to release but the covid crisis made it hardto get materials. So who knows.
https://traildevils.ch/Market/Formula-Prototype-Selva-Dual-crown-29-180…
Someone is testing rims up at whistler…
Looks like Pinkbike racing team to me (Conti tires+ Manitou), so testing proto reserve wheels ? I'm wondering what would be the updates on those.
What animal is that on the proto badge? Goat?
Looked like a goat or a sheep…
Goat = Minnaar = Santa Cruz Syndicate spec DH wheels = Prototype Reserves
I saw this yellow GT with the same sticker on the bar. I think it looked more like an angry sheep than a goat. The stem had some writing on it too.
don't think anybody's pointed it out yet, but I just noticed these are using the same bleed screw as the DB8s, implying they're running mineral oil. incoming mineral oil Codes?
It's the lever for the new DH brake that we've seen some pit photos of. People have been saying their name is Maven.
Not so sure about the Magura brake hose though, unless that just happens to be a part swap.
there were already pictures posted of these upcoming brakes being bled which pretty much confirmed they‘re mineral oil.
or it might be a special sram dot 5.099 fluid which they made green in appreciation of the tech rumors thread
Same one that is BOD just with different bar and stem?
Does anyone know anything about an update for the altitude and instinct ? In France, they're 30% off at the moment
Tbf most bikes in Europe are 30% right now :o'
Honestly yeah looks a lot like the bike I saw…. That has a pile of FSA parts in front of the tent they had here….maybe they are testing some new stuff?
re: shifting speed between old axs and transmission, we highlighted this in our transmission video when it launched - cruise to 11:36 to see it. transmission is slow and steady vs old axs goes as fast as you click the shifter
FSA
Ah, good catch ! I did not take attention to the hose. Anyway, it seems to match with the GT from the BOD... I understand those are prototypes wheels from FSA (like the stem/bars from the other pic) then
Full Sheep Ahead?