roil profile

Thanks for the link to the previous article!

To say that I’m exited for your experimentation with smaller chainrings is an understatement. Have you considered running an AXS derailleur to measure time in gear on your local trails? Would help you really optimize your cassette + chainring setup for the use case. 

Privateer makes great bikes that fit the criteria of your 5k list. I have the 161 and love it.

So excited for you to try running smaller chainrings and cassettes with a HP+I setup! How small of a chainring do you dare go?

Saturday night live had one of their better skits in recent memory last week regarding metric vs imperial.

https://youtu.be/JYqfVE-fykk?si=6kLCOpOnUADnOlLP

Great article. I want to like this bike but I can't get into brands that aren't sizing chainstays and stack proportionately, especially at this price point. It just feels lazy on the brand's part, and I mean real proportional chainstays, not Yeti's moving it 2mm per size and calling it a day.

I was asking @Kenny

I know you're all about low rolling resistance. I ordered my Specialized Laughter tire over the weekend!

"I say this also as a continuation of the discussion about the cassette with a 39t "granny gear", but the other thing is, you can't just keep shrinking the chain ring indefinitely."

Chainring size doesn't matter if you're on a high pivot idler bike. 

I've got 152 cranks with a 30 chainring on a 29er for long climbs in Socal. No issues.

"SRAM seem to have an odd business strategy. Make really good high end product but shitty low end. It would seem to me that there is a much larger market for less costly stuff. Shimano seems to own that end of the market. I’ve always thought that a manufacturer of components made their bread and butter from OEM. "

The sh*tty low end sets the price floor so they can justify the high prices on top end products. They are the biggest OEM supplier and they use these artificial tiers to charge more for decent kit. Bike brands play along because it allows them to use the same strategy for selling multiple tiers of their complete bikes.

how aggressive of a tire are you running in the rear?

A proper NX/SX drivetrain will never happen. It creates an artificial price floor and allows Sram to justify higher prices for decent product.

Andrew, my comments are more directed at Sram than you. I respect you tremendously and don't want you to feel attacked by my comments.

"I think, going back to my first piece on T-Type, that Transmission makes all the sense to riders on full-power eMTBs, especially less experienced riders, and that’s why compared to AXS or cable - just looking at SRAM vs. SRAM - it seems like mainly marketing to me-bike riders who’ve learned good shifting habits."

At what point are riders responsible for learning how to use the bike? Should we expect training wheels on these ebikes as well? 

"Economy of scale and product line turnover matters too, but yeah, weight savings and added features are the ways to generate more margin dollars as folks justify upgrades from the base product with most spending decisions__."

Economies of scale: It costs a lot of money for Sram to design, test, manufacture, and support 6 different transmission/derailleurs. Bike brands are complicit in this racket because they get to upcharge you for "better specs" builds.

Sram and Shimano are the only brands with more than 2 tiers of product. This also allows other brands to offer their products at higher prices (brake and suspension brands).