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This.
I've seen teams underestimate the effort required for an electronic product a few times.
My conclusion of this is: it's just a complicated way to solve the problem, which doesn't make it too favorable in my book.
And IF you put so much work into a solution I'd rather see it go towards simplicity / durability / serviceability / smoothnes / etc. of a mechanical solution.
Guess I'm just an old nostalgic.
There was an interview with Sacki sometime around the release of the latest n greatest Reverb where he related Sram asking him for a post and he mistakenly thought there was the potential for a licensing arrangement. Turns out it was for reverse engineering purposes to find a way to circumvent his patents. Sure it happens and woe for assuming, but not even paying for the thing is a poor showing.
The MVP startup model and it's consequences have been a disaster for US based product dev and manufacturing.
I like the fact that when they don't work One Up will pretty much just send you a new cartridge without worrying if the post is in it's warranty period or not. They even sent me some socks one time since I had a spate of bad cartridges. They also sent me 50% off after losing an EDC pump when one of their older thinner pump straps broke.
The OneUp post is pretty much the only product on my bike that's failed multiple times that I am still a diehard fan of because of the simplicity of the rebuild and the outstanding customer service. US thinking I guess.
Make a well engineered but expensive to manufacture component that is reliable.
Or.
Make a cheap but unreliable component and just keep replacing it.
A large number of the components will never actually be used enough to fail anyway (and so are very profitable) and those that are will be replaced immediately (and cheaply). Customers remember 'the outstanding customer service' rather than having a component that never actually needed it in the first place and associate that with being a good product.
eg, Trek spec the '1248' freeehub body on a load of wheelsets, it's absolute garbage and fails constantly. It is a £6 part. A better quality one might be £10 and never fail but they make an extra £4 on every single wheel and that offsets the 15-20% of failures (and the store has to suck up the labour).
And people are always super happy when you fix their broken bike for free.
It's weird.....but it works and makes more money for the manufacturer.
Hardly fair to imply the OneUp post falls into the cheap but unreliable category. You'll find outliers that have replaced a number of cartridges, others who occasionally service them, and yet others still who've more or less never had to service them. Other than cleaning the collar and adding slick honey to the seal head, I've never had to do a take-apart service of any of my oneup posts after years of use.
Where were you for the first 5 years of dropper posts? Maybe you've moved the goalposts since but 90% of the stuff from that era is going to be my example of what an actually unreliable post looks like.
Not sure what bikeyoke models you've worked on but I find them a dream to rebuild - the devine (?) post without an IFP is so simple inside it makes a real mockery of all the brands that use an IFP but have terrible reliability. Personally I think everyone should be copying them (but at least pay for a post if you are going to do that!)
Seriously as great of an invention the dropper post is, they are still far from perfect and Bikeyoke proved it doesn't need to be as complicated as others have made out
As for the OG thing - is seems to me like they had discussions and maybe OG jumped the gun before a contract was signed - if so, then tough luck. If they went ahead developing a product which wasn't what BY was after then without a contract thats on them IMO. I do hear of that kind of thing in all industries - heck I get a lot of people hitting me up for testing and development advice but I know full well if I start looking in to it without agreeing on some kind of payment then I'm basically doing it for free. And I'm fine with that, but I have to accept that if I sink a bunch of time in to testing without some kind of agreement then I probably won't get anything back from it
I've only ever had to Grease the seal head, otherwise i dont touch them... several v2's that have been going for years. got 2 x v3's and they are even better.
I had several Fox transfers fail, PNW fail... but never a failure of a oneup.
zink bikes officially open
https://www.vitalmtb.com/community/ZinkBikes/blog/12/07/2024/entry/128126
I’m confused by why you guys are promoting some Chinese knockoff electronic shifting on Instagram, doesn’t seem very on brand.
Times are tough and a lot of riders (or influencers, I don't know which "guys" you're talking about) need to find another source of income fast?
I think he’s triggered by this
Programmable sprocket count and size certainly brings something new to the party. Review when?
Edit: although I'd be pretty wary of the app...
Correct, basically just reposting an ad by a Chinese company, with no 3rd party assessment. Maybe it’s a great product, but I thought vital was more of a review site, rather than an advertising platform.
Simple things like there are no 14 speed cassettes yet, and no real way to set the indexing between sram and shimano standards (although very small) and the obvious name of “GX” coincidentally the same letters SRAM uses for their lower end wireless drivetrain, make seem like another low effort Chinese product with a lot more refining to be done before brought to market.
It literally says its a sponsored post...
The text “sponsored post” down at the bottom ought to clear up the confusion.
People got bills to pay.
and we will have a review of it.
Looks like they offer a short cage option with the ability to pick the number of speeds in software. It could be super cool on a DH bike if it’s built well.
It doesn’t look like the battery is swappable though which would be a major negative.
Looks a helluva lot like my Status
Not too into the whole GX lookalike. But other than that, I hope it's decent as I'm offended by AXS not letting me set a different # of gears etc, maybe this'll be a bit more open. Not that I'd be in the market for a wireless derailleur, but there's just no reason not to let people choose what cassette to run the RD with(*).
* ..I'm aware of step size and geometry etc playing a role, but that's a worthy trade off.
Doesn't SRAM hold the patent on removable derailleur batteries?
Exactly, even granted in China https://patents.google.com/patent/CN103693155B/en
Either they found a way around it somehow or simply don't care
I'm far from an expert on patents (and that one is especially hard to read) but I'm not seeing anything where it mentions removable batteries or power sources.
I found what I think is the original SRAM patent and I'm also not seeing anything talking about battery or power source mounting. It looks to me like most of the patent is about motor layout and the breakaway motor clutch.
Can you clarify what they've got patented?
Knockoff how exactly? Because it has 2 chain pulley wheels? Because it has a lower cage that extends and takes up chain slack and is spring loaded and clutch damped? Because it makes the chain go up and down the cassette? Because it attaches to a rear derailleur hanger?
This has to be one of the weakest "It's just a cheap Chinese knockoff" accusations I have ever seen. About the only thing it shares with SRAM is it's wireless, and so when Shimano finally steps up to the plate in 2025 with their true 100% wireless rear derailleur, I guess they'll be "Cheap Japanese knockoffs"....
I'm not any kind of lawyer or patent expert but I think it's this:
"The electronic rear derailleur may further provide that the power source is removably connected to the base member and the motor is positioned at the movable member."
Found here: https://patents.google.com/patent/EP3165439A1/en
"The invention relates to a power supply for a bicycle derailleur (10, 110), comprising; a housing (2d) sized and shaped to be removably mounted to a bicycle derailleur (10, 110); a battery (2) disposed in the housing (2d); a terminal (2c) on the outside of the housing (2d) and in electrical communication with the battery (2); and a securing mechanism (1a, 39) on the bicycle derailleur (10, 110) for releasably retaining the housing (2d) thereon. The power supply is configured to be interchangeably mountable to a rear derailleur (10) and a front derailleur (110)."
LOL
It's GeX, not GX!
There are 3 battery vents, not 5!
The parts aren't cheap, they're cost optimized!
Our .us website is registered in Alaska, the C31/CN registrar nexus category is absolutely not China!
Yeah but your mechanical skills are 10x mine. You’d probably think rebuilding a rocket engine isn’t too tricky.
Given enough time I could figure out how to rebuild that post. Then I wouldn’t do it for a year and totally forget how to do it and be in the same quagmire. The OneUp is brilliant in its simplicity for us average garage mechanics.
Wheeltop EDS vs SRAM GX AXS:
Available now from your local Amazon, Ebay and AliExpress dealers! 🤣