Re: SRAM new 'AXS' for MTB/road
Posted: 9 Feb 2019, 4:11pm
when looking at new stuff it is as well to remind yourself that in general terms about 90% of new products fail. The likes of shimano have a slightly higher hit rate than that, but even they couldn't persuade cyclists to use oval chainrings, 10mm pitch chains, and goodness knows what else.
This is despite a whole industry that is -more or less- 100% dedicated to persuading folk that this new stuff is exactly what they want. SRAM seem to want to appear to be innovators; noble ambition to improve the lot of cyclists, or cynical marketing ploy? I suspect the latter.
A lot of folk make all kinds of weird claims for certain equipment, mainly in defence of newer stuff but when you start peeling away the onion you find layers of fuzzy-headed or even specious thinking that seem to rely on such premises as 'you might get something for nothing' , that 'small gains are really significant ones' , that 'more must be better', 'its alright for folk to spend money anyhow they want' etc etc . Phrases such as 'product X has revolutionised cycling' are bandied about. Well, usually, they haven't.
There are very many basic attributes of bicycles and cycling that are routinely completely ignored. Unfortunately these attributes are not trendy and therefore lack 'sex appeal' for sales i.e. when it comes to pushing buttons in your medulla or hypothalamus they much less good than the 'more is better' , 'like the pros use' drivel.
In the current market the one thing you can be assured of is that anything shiny and new that you buy today will look like old-fashioned nonsense in a few year's time. The other thing you can be more or less assured of is that the gains on offer with the even newer kit will be so small that you might have difficulty measuring them in a laboratory and they may not even apply to you anyway. Further to that there is a real chance that these supposed advantages will have been paid for in some way that a good number of riders will find unacceptable.
There seems to be a trend towards turning bicycles into gadget laden, 'feature rich' machines with an application of a veneer of technology over parts that are still inherently compromised in some way. You would say 'papering over the cracks' if you were being unkind. If you don't know much about technology or don't understand the true nature of the beast, you might mistake this for real progress. It is in most cases no such thing; it is easy to make a more complicated system that is less durable and less reliable, and to dazzle the user with a load of "ooh it does this" type features. Well you still need to pedal it, and most of your effort is used overcoming things that remain unaddressed. If you tend to get overexcited about this sort of thing, just take a step back; you might look like Nigel Tufnel saying 'yeah but this one goes to eleven' to everyone else.
cheers
This is despite a whole industry that is -more or less- 100% dedicated to persuading folk that this new stuff is exactly what they want. SRAM seem to want to appear to be innovators; noble ambition to improve the lot of cyclists, or cynical marketing ploy? I suspect the latter.
A lot of folk make all kinds of weird claims for certain equipment, mainly in defence of newer stuff but when you start peeling away the onion you find layers of fuzzy-headed or even specious thinking that seem to rely on such premises as 'you might get something for nothing' , that 'small gains are really significant ones' , that 'more must be better', 'its alright for folk to spend money anyhow they want' etc etc . Phrases such as 'product X has revolutionised cycling' are bandied about. Well, usually, they haven't.
There are very many basic attributes of bicycles and cycling that are routinely completely ignored. Unfortunately these attributes are not trendy and therefore lack 'sex appeal' for sales i.e. when it comes to pushing buttons in your medulla or hypothalamus they much less good than the 'more is better' , 'like the pros use' drivel.
In the current market the one thing you can be assured of is that anything shiny and new that you buy today will look like old-fashioned nonsense in a few year's time. The other thing you can be more or less assured of is that the gains on offer with the even newer kit will be so small that you might have difficulty measuring them in a laboratory and they may not even apply to you anyway. Further to that there is a real chance that these supposed advantages will have been paid for in some way that a good number of riders will find unacceptable.
There seems to be a trend towards turning bicycles into gadget laden, 'feature rich' machines with an application of a veneer of technology over parts that are still inherently compromised in some way. You would say 'papering over the cracks' if you were being unkind. If you don't know much about technology or don't understand the true nature of the beast, you might mistake this for real progress. It is in most cases no such thing; it is easy to make a more complicated system that is less durable and less reliable, and to dazzle the user with a load of "ooh it does this" type features. Well you still need to pedal it, and most of your effort is used overcoming things that remain unaddressed. If you tend to get overexcited about this sort of thing, just take a step back; you might look like Nigel Tufnel saying 'yeah but this one goes to eleven' to everyone else.
cheers