chaadster

I don’t think I agree with that, because not only would I not want a manufacturer to eschew new and better tech just for the sake of backwards compatibility, often that critical interoperability tech (i.e. communication protocol) is not in the hands of bike manufacturers, e.g. ANT or BT, and those companies may change protocols to take advantage of things like security, stability, or speed improvements. Usually ANT and BT are backwards- and/or cross-compatible, but not always with the same feature sets or full info, and usually not natively, instead requiring device profile updates. That then raises the question of whether the old part has the processing capacity to accept the new profiles; it could be memory, power management, visual display lines, processor speed, etc.

I’m old enough to remember before “over the air” updates were a thing and these kinds of things were more real and present problems than they are today, but I wouldn’t want to preclude tech innovations in the future to the point where “no reason whatsoever” makes sense.

Iride01 

I admit I'm being liberal with the use of consumable, but really its just relative to how deep ones pockets are. Some struggle to plunk down $40 for a chain much less a 400 dollar DR.

However some products do come to the end of their manufacturing life and there won't be a path to get compatible components with that manufacturer. SRAM in this case. Maybe after all the fallout over this with SRAM we'll see the same being done by Shimano. They are probably happy to get to see the hullabaloo and might get ideas to mitigate that fuss when they have to do the same.

Possibly some third party manufacturers might see a market for making certain compatible components and SRAM might license some of the tech to allow other companies to produce a product compatible with the 11 speed stuff that they are abandoning. Microshift and others already make stuff for a lower level of components that have long had no compatible made by Shimano, SRAM or Campagnolo. Whether they have to pay licensing fees for some of that tech or not, I don't know. I'd think some they probably do.

shelbyfv

Sorry, my post wasn't clear. It was sort of a follow up to my post #3 and I didn't repeat that the FD in question is Di2. It's actually 6870 and the second gen 11 speed Di2 isn't compatible. Pretty much same situation as OP is in with the SRAM. I'm with you on the mechanical. I only have a few cycling years left and I hope to be able to keep my 8000 stuff going until I'm done.

Fox Farm

Well to the OP, I feel your frustration. I have abandoned Speedplay when they stoped offering replacement cleats for their X series. Owning two bikes with X2 and four pair of road shoes, a switch to their newer Wahoo generation stuff was a very expensive option. So after 21 years of using their stuff, I am done with Speedplay. As for your issue with Sram, I would love to invite you to the Campy family! Chorus 12 speed is reasonably priced. I still run Campy 11 speed and there are plenty of parts available.

GhostRider62

IIRC, SRAM committed to 12 months of parts when they launched AXS. In practice, I think that meant they hoped and prayed dealers were carrying enough spare shifters, FD, and RD to get them there. This was more than 2 years ago and predating current supply chain issues.

I went down the same path as OP.

He has few options. First, he could purchase a used e-Tap FD off e-Bay for probably $500. Or, just be good Big Bike consumer and upgrade to AXS: buy a new chain, crankset, bottom bracket, rear derailleur, front derailleur, shifters, cassette, and new wheels with XDR body on it. I took option 2.....many, many thousands. SRAM sucks.

Bald Paul

When I was building my bike, I originally wanted to go with SRAM because it was easier to install than Di2. No wires to snake through the bars and frame, no battery in the seatpost, etc. However, there were absolutely zero groupsets available at the time, and I really wanted to finish the bike, so I went Di2.
Whew!
Imagine if SRAM made cars. "Hey, my six year old Sram-mobile just quit on me. It needs a new fuel pump to fix it." "Gee, sorry, Sram stopped making replacement parts for your car. You can upgrade to their new all-electric drivetrain, or just buy a new Sram-mobile."
I think this may come back to bite them in the saddle down the road.

Sy Reene

fool me once, shame on you..
fool me twice..?

Sy Reene

Is there some type of legal requirement? Googling seems to yield a bunch of different stories, such as THIS ONE . This story is from the UK, and I guess there could be different country-specific requirements -- yielding possibility that SRAM might be required to supply spare parts longer in some countries than others? I would think they'd at least be required to provide parts to cover the warranty period on their last sold new unit of the phased-out product.

GhostRider62

Aren't you cute. So, I am a fool. Thank you.

1. I bought spares this time. (I have two sets)

2. Shimano is unavailable

3. Shimano is not wireless

4. Due to disability, SRAM is the only one that I can shift easily.

A reasonable period of time to offer support would be 5 years, not 1 year. That is really the issue here.

DaveSSS 

I used nothing but Campy for 25 years and over that time I switched from 8 to 9 to 10 to 11 and 12 speed. The smartest thing I did was get rid of 8 speed, since the freehub body was not compatible with 9 speed. The changes from 9 to 10 and 11 were all spaced no more than 4 years apart IIRC. 11 speed stuck around longer than any other since Campy came out with it long before shimano followed. It stayed in play from 2009 to 2018 (IIRC). I switched to Campy 12 as soon as it hit the chorus level in 2019. I picked up two groups for $1100 each. All worked fine, but the internal cable routing on my frames was a pain, so I bought sram force axs 12 in mid 2020 when prices started to come down. The good thing was that my Campy zonda wheels were easily converted to the sram xdr freehub body, the cranks I had were chorus 48/32 that worked fine with axs 12. I could have even continued using my Campy 12 cassettes, but at the time I wanted the new AXS 10-36 cassettes. The resale value of my one year old chorus parts was quite good, so all were sold quickly.

Only a few months later I decided to switch to disc brake frames and tubeless tires, so two frames, two wheelsets and all of my new tubed tires were sold off. My force axs brake/shift levers now operate Juin-Tech GT calipers instead of rim brakes. I recently upgraded front rotors from 160mm to 180mm for even more braking power.

No complaints about sram from me.

Edit: I do have one complaint. I've never used SRAM AXS cranks due to their limited 13T difference. I've used Campy 48/32, and Shimano GRX 48/31 and 46/30. They all shift great with the AXS FD.

GhostRider62

I am sorry but I do not get you at all. Maybe it is cultural.

I can get spare Mercedes parts for cars that are decades old.

There are no standards in the bike industry, it is consumer based. SRAM will lose there for sure. Huge strategic issue on their part.

Sy Reene

Fair enough explanations. My cutesy comment was because you ended by saying expense of upgrading is thousands and that SRAM sucks. It was a bit unclear therefore why you went that route. I suppose you realize that they could do it again when the next series wireless comes out.

Cool story, but you just started with SRAM and have their current generation equipment?

chaadster

The really shocking bit in all this is that OP has had two FD failures in 4 years! I haven’t had one mechanical FD fail in 4 decades.

Was the warranty possibility mentioned at all? It’s 2 years on Red stuff…

Kapusta

When describing a derailleur, “consumable” is interchangeable with “piece of $h!t”.

GhostRider62

With a set of backups, that is highly unlikely. Further, SRAM's FD debacle and really bad strategic decisions WRT support will leave a mark. Personally, I do not expect a company to abandon me a year or two after I bought something from them. Since they made the decision to entrap consumers with highly integrated components done for marketing purposes and not technical, they should be prepared to support us fools for say 5 years by offering replacements or at least allow the use of a 12 speed FD with an 11 speed RD or vice versa. Their 12 speed shifters can work on 11 speed, they chose not to allow mixing and matching. That is why they still suck in my opinion. If Dura Ace was available, I might have switched brands but it looked like that was not happening soon and still isn't available to the consumer.

DaveSSS 

AFAIK, you can't mix and match shimano 11 and 12 either. The wiring is not the same. To use rim brakes, wired shifters are required. SRAM supports rim brakes with force axs levers. The wise move is to sell off any etap 11 speed parts and move on. That’s what I did when Campy changed from 8-9-10-11-12. Rarely were drivetrain parts compatible between old and new, except for 9-12 speed hubs. Now there's a new freehub body that handles 9 to 13 speed cassettes.

chaadster

This seems a strange perspective because, as we know, in the SRAM eTap realm, the RD is the brains of the system, and so to expect it to process in combined 11 and 12 speed, standard and Wide FD, road and XPLR, and 1x and 2x scenarios sounds to me like it very well could be much more than a marketing decision. Maybe it’s processor capacity or memory capacity at the RD… I don’t know, but do you? What is your basis for asserting it is a marketing decision?

GhostRider62

You probably should read my post more closely. I don't care to engage you to be honest.

chaadster

Oh, I read it a couple of times, and think the baseless assertions make it an unreasonable position. But, I suspect you know that and just want to be mad, which I get, too. Red costs a lot of money to my mind, which is why I ride Force; I can afford to replace it without blowing a gasket. I’d still be pissed though if I had two FDs fail in 4 years.