Originally Posted by
akexpress
No offense but I like the innovation that is occurring in the bike industry and some of it trickles down to tandems. We can vote all we want to with our dollars but it probably doesn't matter because we are such a small small niche market. Carbon and magnesium tandems, belt drives, electronic shifting, disc brakes, STI shifters , 11 speed cassettes, power meters, gps bike computers, helmut communications systems, tubeless tires, PBO spokes, carbon rims tapered headsets are just a few recent innovations that i can think of. There are of course changes that are driven strictly for marketing purposes that make it difficult to integrate for tandem usage.
I like innovation and most of what you mention above as well. Big changes like carbon, magnesium vs aluminum and steel are well worth a try and actually pretty compatible. All the standard components work on Pateka and Calfee frames because they are built to acceptable standards. Belt drives work on standard spiders. All that is great and standards like 130BCD and 110 BCD allow companies to innovate with really new products like belt drives or years ago carbon forks. Mountain bikes with big wheels can take off easier because they used the standard 700C size wheels rather than slightly different rim size.
I was referring only to small changes like taking an old standard like 110BCD changing it just enough to make it incompatible. This was done by Campy years ago and now Shimano follows suit. Campy's change was so small that a little grinding on a non Campy chain ring can work around the problem. Shimano did a more through job of hurting the small companies that have to follow the market leader. Little or no innovation just change. Same with the Shimano's granny gear BCD vs the standard 74BCD. The ultimate example is when Shimano simply changes the styling or shade of there components to make the prior year's stuff seem obsolete.
The dollars buying things like granny rings (including non tandems) may not seam like much but it was enough for Shimano to change the design of their triple in an attempt to capture it.