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What's so impressive about Burgtec? They're nothing but a name. Quality is average at best.
I <3 Bamba
A boy can have more than one grip design he likes.
Burgtec could spin it like "when the old man was fast he used these."
I have no idea how this will all shake out and I have no knowledge of this situation at all. I have a little knowledge of how these things sometimes work out in the music/musician/musical gear world and I can imagine the endorsement/sponsorship contract stuff is similar.
I'm sure the intellectual property of the design lay with Burgtec and they (Burgtec and Minnaar) had some sort of licensing/use of his name and likeness/endorsement deal. That deal probably has a stipulation around timeframe and/or if sponsorship changes. If I were a betting man, I'd bet Burgtec will rename the grips and keep 'em in the line OR keep the name the same and stop referring to them as "Bartender Pro Greg Minnaar Signature Grip." In fact, they already have a Bartender grip (at a 30mm diameter compared to the Bartender Pro GM Signature 31.5mm diameter). I'd bet we'll see something like a "Fat Bartender Grip" with 31.5mm diameter...or maybe their deal allows for the product to exist in perpetuity no matter Greg's future sponsorship status.
If Burgtec wanted to be sorta snarky about it, they'd release identical grips called "GOAT Grips" or something like that. I'd buy 'em just because that's petty as hell and I have their stem on one of my bikes.
They make bars in the sweep and rise that I like, but more importantly, they make a Greg Minaar signature grip.
They seem to have a proto CAST DH tyre made by Pirelli as well.
failing to adress an international audience doesn't look like they are oriented for success
That's a French podcast profile, not the company profile.
Ah, yes, I’ve been concerned there aren’t enough choices in the stem category.
Something seems very fishy around Cast. I can't tell you what yet, but I would bet money on it.
I'm expecting a bunch of half baked ideas and quarter baked forced marketing (Mous case anyone?) before they drop off the map while Tarek laughs all the way to the bank.
can’t spot any shifter cable. Could this finally be wireless shimano out in the wild?
I've heard April would be a good time to expect some new Shimano stuff
April Showers bring DI2 flowers
Its an ebike, looks like XT linkglide to me, black cassette and all
Shimano di2 12 speed has been available for ep801 bikes for about a year now. Tho there is a non e bike di2 drivetrain coming down the pipeline soon, allegedly.
April of which year? 2025, 2026, ?
I heard June 24
Looks like I'm late to the party since I've been on vacation. Brakes are definitely not easy. Between custom seals, custom tools, and some necessary knowledge that isn't widespread, good brakes take a lot. I would say they are either third or fourth most difficult thing on a bike behind the frame itself, the fork/shock, and, depending on specific design, the dropper. Some droppers are pretty simple, though. Frames are only on that list because doing a full blown production run requires tons of testing and the tooling is more complex. Brakes definitely are not something that anyone with a mill could up and make and have work well... or even work.
Stems are like T shirts. Sometimes people really want T shirts and I can't make T shirts. At that point, it might as well be an amusing T shirt. They either do what they are supposed to do or they don't and they are either light or heavy. Not much to else going on. There are plenty of other bike parts like that such as seat post clamps, cranks, and bottom brackets (unless your name is Hambini) that fall into the T shirt category.
I appreciate that insight 😁
I was chasing a creak on my bike for ages, finally took a real good look at the stem, and the wear pattern on the h-bar clamp. Im a big Transition bike fan, but that stem that came on my Spire....Hot Garbage. Left a weird wear pattern on the h-bar as well, so both have been binned in favour of something else.
So brakes, rims, your cable ends, as far as complexity I wanted to bring some perspective. I’m an engineer and have worked in consumer goods manufacturing my whole adult life; “Simple” stuff you use every day at home. Most anything is easy to design in the grand scheme of things.
Manufacturing anything on the other hand is hard. Everything you use everyday, I guarantee you is 100x more difficult and complex to produce then you can imagine. Some of these simple assemblies we ride probably meant a team of people worked months and beat their head on a wall to figure out how to get them made in bulk.
This is very much my lesson of this month.
I'm trying to fashion up a minor tweak on a bike, and it turns out solving the problem including prototypes and all is just fun tinkering, but then you think about scaling it up and not costing an arm and a leg, or even without considering cost just adding too much complexity. It's an interesting constraint to work with!
Anyone who follows Ministry bikes on insta will testify to the tribulations in trying to bring an idea to market as a small operation.
Live that guy. He has very few problems with designing a prototype and testing it. His main holdup is the added complexity of getting a sellable batch made. It's why he's stuck with small CNC machining.
Also saw his Psalm 150 on display at the EXT tent at sea otter. It's a little bit of aluminum art.
Wheelbased w/ some AXS dropper patent stuff; tl;dr new dropper(s) likely in April. Guessing we see it at Sea Otter: https://wheelbased.com/2024/12/31/fcc-dropper-and-new-battery-location-…
Was just about to post this...
Did I miss this here?
https://www.bicycleretailer.com/new-products/2024/10/24/enduro-introduc…
$49 bearings will save us
$49 is seems like a bit much, especially considering only a 2 year warranty period. Don't know about most people but my standard bearings last me 2 seasons with 1-2 regreases and they cost about a quarter of those. Maybe for $30 they'd make sense for people in certain climates but I can't see them selling too many of these. To be fair, I'm not against more options and this is a solid product for a niche of the industry.
Didn’t cane creek try out the skf version of these and drop them after a heap of issues 4 or 5 years ago? I might be wrong though