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Long time lurker, first time poster here. For some background I’m an aerospace composites engineer and spent several years in Advanced Product Development with an emphasis on environmentally friendly materials. There’s so much to get into on this topic and if folks are interested I’d love to start a dedicated thread on materials and environmental impacts. The TLDR is, carbon fiber as a green product on its own is a fallacy. The raw fiber production may result in a certain level of carbon sequestering, but the process is still so energy intensive I wouldn’t call it an environmental positive. As...

This discussion started because they released a new version which is only compatible with SRAM cranks, and is sold direct… https://shop.sram.com/collections/ochain

No way we love that shit here. It's a Tech Rumours mainstay. You still get an upvote for requesting a new thread, however.

Can we get a separate thread for requesting separate threads so it doesn’t clog up this thread?

Sorry bud, but if you are getting to the point of ranting on the internet about " woefully anemic, made of cheese, lock ring" then yes you might need to evaluate your wrenching skills. lol Sorry you got your feelings hurt. Your rant comes off as just a bunch of lop-sided frustration. You list a bunch of things you hate yet have zero information on what bothers you specifically. There is no such thing as a perfect design, everything in life is about tradeoffs. Mechanical design is no different, both shimano and sram have teams of ME's sitting and arguing...

Just spent 10 minutes reading about freehub preferences… Not sure if I can explain to a regular person how much entertainment value this holds for me🍿

Calibrated Ocular Comparator is another good one. ROFL Re: People complaining about Shimano 12sp might need to put the wrench down and step away from the bike. I clean my cassette in the ultrasonic every few weeks. I have 1500miles on my current XT and that lock ring has been loosened and tightened a few 100 times, it's in just as good of shape as it was when new. 1-piece cassettes are nice, but they also are either light and expensive or cheap and stupid heavy... If you struggle to line up some rings and spacers you might not want...

Stronger brake is stronger brake regardless of who is riding it, just like lighter lever action is lighter no matter who pulls the lever. They are brakes attributes, not riders attributes.

I would hesitate to call the XD driver good, it works just fine and allowed for the 10 tooth cog but in all honesty, my experience with microspline has been far better. Feels more secure, and I like having the engagement along nearly the entire cassette rather than just at the end, and not having the cassette have to be completely one piece or riveted together is not a problem. Sram has killed it in bringing new product to market quickly, in being the one stop shop for OEM, and their marketing is definitely working, but I won't say that...

SRAM is more “innovative” by bringing new shiny things to market much faster than Shimano. But I’ve found over the years SRAM has brought some things to market a little too st at the expense of quality and warranty issues. Shimano on the other hand is slower to adapt and respond, but historically their execution is much better. Their new products typically (not always)have less issues associated with them.

I'm not going to cast too much shade on Hardtail Bro. I will, however, cast plenty on the mixed messaging and policies of WBD/UCI. Their implied goal has been to raise the professionalism and elite nature of the sport. Simultaneously, they've allowed a racer to use a hardtail to compete. This is inconsistent with the way they're supposedly pushing the sport. I also will cast a little shade on our community. We've bemoaned the loss of grassroots accessibility to the World Cups while also bashing hardtail dude, who represents just such grassroots privateerism. Dude managed to navigate the red tape...

I agree with that analysis for almost every type of component but I would have thought O-Chain would be an outlier. I can't see that many OEMs putting O-Chain on bikes other than DH bikes, primarily because it's a large cost they can cut that a non-enthusiast consumer that walks into a shop will not notice if it's a regular chainring instead, but will notice the extra couple hundred dollars in cost. DH bikes are also so much less of the overall market share, and most of them are bought by hardcore enthusiasts that are likely to customize the components...

Sure, and I don't mind that, but it's also seems like they're trying to lock people into running only Sram products through limiting compatibility. Why make the new Ochain only 3 bolt or 8 bolt compatible? Why limit your aftermarket customer base? Why give those potential sales to Rimpact? Sure, there are a lot of other companies that use srams Chainring mount, but it just seems unnecessary.

I don't like the things Sram appear to have learned from the UDH launch and adoption. Again, they're trying to be Apple, just waiting for the EU to knock them down a peg haha.

P.S. Praise the lord that new saint is still mechanical

kolb's V10 27.5 conversion dropout for XL (sorry, i had it backwards)

pit bits shots of richie's derailleur (assume saint)

I climb in my lowest gears. I thought that was the point. Math and physics and all that. 🤔

I'm not sure if this is an indication it's close to release, but Norco just posted pics of the dh bike ahead of Korea and it's got "Team DH" printed on the top tube. Would be cool (and make sense) if they went back to the Team DH name for the race bike.

i recently learned that a 2x2 lumber is not in fact 2" in size. americans are just completely crazy when it comes to sizing stuff.