loimpact

So why isn't my 11 speed chain cheaper than my 10 speed? 9 speed? 8 speed???

rebel1916

So, don't buy it if it's not your bag, champ.

Andrew R Stewart 

A long time ago Shimano got a patent on a 14 cog set up. Used a single sided chain... Andy.

Shimagnolo

Check out the weird chain, and the weird upper RD pulley: Patent US5921881 - Narrow bicycle chain with inner links that receive sprocket teeth within a ... - Google Patents

dwmckee

When touring I have to sat that I like a wide selection of closely spaced gears to fing just what I need when carrying a ton of stuff and grtade change slightly.

ThermionicScott 

In retrospect, Shimano's 14-speed cluster seems more like an act of patent trolling than anything else -- they've been content to slowly dole out the additional cogs at the same pace as their competition. They've been pretty savvy about IP for a long time.

GeorgeBMac

You're sort of forced into buying it if you want top end stuff. Try buying a high quality 7,8 or 9 speed component: They have been relegated to the lower end components.

xenologer

cause you're being scammed by marketing
try this one:
a cassette consists of stamped steel cogs and plastic spacers
a freewheel consists of stamped steel cogs and plastic spacers plus a ratcheting body
yet the cassette costs over twice as much ( aftermarket replacement freewheel / cassette prices)

GravelMN

Yep, It's getting harder to find quality 9 sp all the time, 7 sp is all entry level. I grab NOS or nearly new used 7 and 9 sp higher quality components when I can but they are getting scarce. I still really like my 3x9 but my newest bike is 2x10 and I have to say, I really like it too.

My biggest concern is that finer chains, cassettes and chain rings needed for >10sp will result in more faster wear, more failures and increased cost of maintenance. It's not just about making a thinner chain, it's about the materials science of making a thinner chain strong enough to withstand real world use and cassettes and chain rings that hold up over 1,000s of miles. I really don't care how nice the shifting is on a new bike if I'm going to have to replace more expensive chains and cassettes twice as often, or start snapping chains on a regular basis.

rebel1916

It is still possible to get extremely high functioning 10 speed in 2014 models. It is not hard to find high functioning NOS 9 speed. It is gonna be a few years before the retrogrouch community is forced into 13 speed because nothing else is available. DA and Record (for that matter Ultegra and Chorus) are high zoot flagship models. It would dilute the brand to offer them in perpetuity in obsolete configurations to satisfy a very small (if passionate) niche within the niche that is cycling.

fietsbob

The engineers needed work, so they designed some more stuff .. gotta fix the Boat, that takes Money.

surreal

FIFY. They'll continue to inflate prices on the "latest" chains to whatever extent they can.

I like 7 and 8 speed stuff. I can live with the 9 and 10, as i could with 5 and 6. Haven't touched 11 yet. Yes, the baked-in planned obsolescence of the "more cogs!" race is annoying. Even more annoying is the whole dyna-sys thing, b/c they've killed cross-compatibility. Same with ESP versus direct actuation or whatever they call the new SRAM ratio. The concept is stupid as can be, especially b/c the best arguments for it are for racing, but the vast majority of cyclists don't race, in a formal sense of the term. And, the industry seems to think that either you race or you need an IGH...

What gets my goat is, if more = better, why the goofy "1 cog at a time" approach? Why not go ahead and make that 20speed cassette NOW, instead of waiting til 2026? I'm sure the dreamers will buy it up the moment it hits the market....

I will say that the 13speed being on a fatbike is telling. At some point, they'll need to widen the rear OLD in order to keep adding cogs without compromising durability and precision. That'll bother me even more, as i like old frames more than new, and I don't look forward to the threads on here about cold-setting a 130mm rear dropout to 180mm.....

cycle_maven

I cold set a 130mm OLD bike to 180mm OLD once. Not intentionally, though.

For me, the sweet spot was 8-speed until the road brifters got really hard to find. Now 9-speed seems to be the sweet spot. It will continue to be so until I can't use the "alternate cable routing" with 10-speed brifters to shift my 9-speed drivetrain.

HillRider

A Shiftmate will make the alternate cable routing unnecessary and allow you to use almost any rear derailleur and that 9/10-speed mix.

Delmarva

Makes sense to me. I do like a 13-26.

surreal

The spacing for 7 and 8 were identical, and that width seemed to strike a good balance as far as crisp shifts, long-wearing bits, and potential range or closely-spaced ratios was thoroughly decent. 8, obviously, had the potential for more range or more tightly-packed ratios, but this was achieved by the additional 4mm of real estate, rather than by making the cogs/chain skinnier. Maybe it's just due to how old I am, but i think the 7 and 8 speed stuff was the best compromise as far as practicality coupled with fun/racy stuff....

RubeRad

I like 9 a lot, and one reason is I'm a little OCD and I enjoy the fact that there's a median gear to be in by default. However, I do find that when I shift, I always almost shift two gears over, so I guess I might as well have a 5-speed. Anybody make a 11,15, 20, 26, 34 cassette?

surreal

Make your own! A King mtb SS hub has enough room on the driver for a build-your-own 5 speed with 9speed spacing....or you could build a 9speed-spaced 5-cog block, put it on you current freehub, and use spacers to take up the rest of the room.

RubeRad

Interesting. Do they sell individual cassette cogs like they used to sell individual frewheel cogs? I'm no weight weenie, but that could save a significant amount in my back end.

Drew Eckhardt 

Proper gearing is one tooth jumps through at least the 19 cog.

The number of cogs determines the range which is possible

8 cogs: 11-18, 12-19, or 13-21
9 cogs: 11-19, 12-21, 13-23, or 14-25
10 cogs: 11-21, 12-23, or 13-25/26
11 cogs: 11-23, 12-25

which means many riders/terrain combinations call for triple cranks.

To make doubles truly viable we need background checks for high calorie food purchases or at least 14-15 cogs in back like

12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-25-28-31-34
11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-25-28-32
11-12-13-14-15-16-17-18-19-21-23-25-28-31-34

Dave Mayer

You've pretty well figured out the whole bike industry here. In order to mask the lack of real innovation, the industry is on a carefully planned strategy to add another cog every 5-8 years. This is long enough so as to not create shop and consumer backlash, but it does encourage the sales of components and more importantly new bikes. There must be a small think tank out there staffed by Ivy-League trained Economics/Marketing PhD's who design the planned obsolescence strategy that will maximize profits and sales churn.

The 'Strategy' provides a credible sales pitch for the shops that goes like this: "10-speeds???!!. That hasn't been made in like.. 5 years! You need a new bike!" By also choking off the supply of consumables such as higher quality 7/8/9-speed cassettes, rings and chains, you also help with the turnover of old bikes. I know, I know, you'll be able to source good quality new and slightly used 7-speed components on Ebay for the next 30 years. But the shops tell you to your face that: "Ordering a 7-speed cassette is impossible".

As far as pricing, gullible 'early adopters' are always willing to pay more, hence the main reason why the n+1 cog stuff is more expensive. Again, there is a carefully constructed marketing calculus between product markup and the known desire of early adopters to be the first kids on the block to show up with n+1 cogs.

With 11 speeds, the limits of how many cogs you can shove into a road bike rear end has been exceeded. The distance between the flanges in a rear hub is now only 50mm, out of a total rear-end real estate of 130mm. Drive-side spoke tension is now more than double that on the non-drive side. This all results in floppy, unstable rear wheels, and desperate tricks such as offset rear rims and triplet (2 x 1) lacing patterns.

The only feasible solution to continue on with the 40-year old n+1 cog strategy is to increase the rear stay spacing to 135mm or beyond. This will buy the industry a couple of more cogs worth of planned obsolescence.

Why not go to a 145mm or even larger rear stay spacing, as with tandems? Go there right away. And then make a 17-cog gruppo, or whatever.... Because it is not part of the 5-8 year n+1 plan.

BTW, I will never buy a road bike frame with more than 130mm stay spacing. And I jumped off of the absurd n+1 cog ride a long time ago.

velorider562

I think your looking into the future with todays glasses and I hate the argument about useless progression.

It's not useless, just small and you don't see it as progression. If you look over the complete history of bicycle drivetrains there has been massive improvements. I'm old enough to remember friction downtube shifting, 6/7 speed era. Just as indexing starting coming out. Same lame agreements then about index shifting, "What the reason for index shifting", "already easy to shift", "doesn't work well" and in early 80's all that was true. The cogs where spaced far enough a part that friction shifting was easy and it always worked. But overtime that pointless improvement lead to more gears and better, crisper shifting and STI. For me STI and all the pieces making it work so well is the pinnacle of this evolutionary process. I now shift more often with STI then before. So I'm using my gears more effectively and safer and I love it!

Are more gears good? Hell yeah! I can ride with wider range of gears if touring over flats and mountains. I can have tighter gears if I'm racing where a jump of 2 teeth would ruin my day going flat out. If you don't push the bike or yourself you can get away with fear gears and simpler drivetrain. Why own a Ferrari in Los Angeles traffic a Bently would be much better.

When will the increase in gears end, probably never. Eventually thing will progress to some conclusion of continue variable transmission (CVT). Complaining about currently technology limits, 14 or 20 cog cassettes, is pointless because we all know that probably isn't the technology of the future.

How will electronic shifting influence the drivetrain. Until now it was simply a replacement for levers. Now Shimano is working on a one shifter drivetrain. It will figure out what the front and rear derailleur should do. I want an easier gear or a harder gear: push button. Is that all that cool or important. Probably not but I can see that evolving into something every cool with each improvement. Call it a fork in the evolutionary tree.

So stop complaining about micro advancements and that it's marketing. We did not just evolve from 5spd to 11spd because marketing said so. Each cog addition required technology to work well. Each step progressing us further down the road. Marketing only made it possible to spend money designing each improvement.

Future..... CVT drivetrain with automatic adjustment based on speed/cadence/brainwaves/etc


Not Future..... 20 cog cassetes

Progress, you really do love it even if you think you don't. It's the way nature works. We can stand and speak because each small evolutionary change got us one small useless step closer.

surreal

I respectfully disagree with almost everything you wrote, but I'm glad we're having a discussion about it. A few thoughts occur:
-Yes, bike technology has come a long way. Early indexed systems were pretty awful (Positron!), and current stuff is pretty good. The criticism against indexed shifting back in the 80s is, imo, still valid today. We don't need indexed shifting. I shift plenty on friction bikes, too. And, in the end, they're using the indexing as one way to lock-in planned obsolescence. (Flipside: shadetree bike nerds are fighting back, figuring out ways to make dyna-sys RDs shift perfectly with 8- and 9-speed ESP shifters and 8- or 9-speed cassettes....)
-Are more gears good? You say yes. I say that, for the vast majority of riders under most circumstances, even if more gears could arguably be better, they certainly aren't needed. I can commute to work quickly on a 5 speed system. Put a ten speed set-up on the same bike, and my commute time won't increase significantly. But, the initial cost and--more crucially-- the upkeep costs will increase significantly. More gears might be more betterer if they would focus as much on longevity as they did on the illusion of high-performance.
-The CVT is already here, been here for awhile. NuVinci is on, i believe, the third incarnation of their CVT hub. I want one b/c i think it's fascinating, but in reality it's heavy and inefficient and, while the range is impressive, it's about the same as the typical road double. IT cannot compete with triple ring set-ups, as far as range goes. Yes, they'll improve it; the n360 is a huge improvement already over the previous versions, but it's still a long way off from being ready for the "big time."
-Simple addition--counting, really-- is not a mind-blowing technological advancement. When they made the jump from 7 to 8 speed, they could have easily went right to 11speed. They already knew they were going to. In fact, that was the era in which they came up with the working prototype 14speed. What add'l technology is involved in "each cog addition"? To be sure, there was some development involved; they had to do some wicked-hard stuff, like measure things and design things that would work within those tolerances....but if they'd gone from 7 to 11, they wouldn't have to do anymore r&d than they did going 7 to 8.
-The Shimano shifter that electronically controls both derailers and picks for you? I'll never buy it. I can't wait to hear how terribly the first few generations of that work. Makes me glad I no longer work in a bike shop. Hypothetical discussion: Customer "This electronic brain shifter is really stupid! Can you fix it?"
LBS employee "Sorry; ya can't fix stupid."
-If the future is "CVT drivetrain with automatic adjustment based on speed/cadence/brainwaves/etc", then I'm gonna buy a pair of rollerskates soon, and kiss cycling goodbye.
-In about 25 years, look for me on the continuously variable bikeforums.net of the future, and use your cadence and brainwaves to tell me whether or not I was right about 20 cog cassettes. They're coming...
-I love progress, but I'd prefer that it was genuine. There's no reason to dole it out, one tiny step at a time, other than to maximize profit. Also, just b/c something gets progressively more expensve and complicated over time, that doesn't mean it's making any progress. Sometimes, it's just a sales pitch posing as progress.

Dave Mayer

I am always frustrated by these debates, as folks always blur arguments of progress with the number of cogs in current drivetrains. So let's be clear and separate the two:

Real progress:

• Brifters/integrated brake shift levers - allows you to shift from the hoods instead of hunting around in friction or from downtube shifters - this is all good.
• Hyperglide-like cog profiles and modern chains - much crisper shifting - excellent too
• Electronic shifting - crisper, especially in the front.

False progress:

• Adding another rear cog every 7 years as a strategy of planned obsolescence. Especially if this involves cluttering up cassettes with useless 11 and 12 tooth cogs.

You shouldn't be forced to change out your drivetrain every few years to realize the benefits of the first list.

I agree we are close to the end of this absurd n+1 cog arms race. Between the diminishing returns of one more cog, the extra expense and installation risks of ultra-narrow chains, and the negative compromises that the engineers have had to make in order to shove all of those superfluous cogs into 130mm rear stays, 11 speeds may be the end of the line. Until some dumbass marketer decides that we need to go to 12! Not even Spinal Tap needed to go there.

In the 1930's, internally-geared hubs seemed like the ultimate solution. But the industry steered towards the external derailleur-based system. They were lighter and cheaper? But now we're left with all of those delicate gears and shifters exposed to the elements and the risks of external damage. Hopefully, the industry will move towards CVT and internal hubs.
That has to be the future.

RubeRad

Just googled nuvinci n360, watched some vids, that is so cool! I want one too!