mstateglfr 

They change the pull ratios so often that parts availability has always been hard? I encourage you to come out of that alternate reality and enter the real world.
- Shimano doesnt change pull ratios 'so often'. 11sp Shimano has all worked with other levels of 11sp for a decade now. A decade. The lower tiers worked together for like 35 years. A 6401 Shimano tricolor 8sp RD from 1992 will pair with a Shimano Sora 9sp 3500 shifter from 2014 and a Shimano HG50 9sp cassette from 2023. That drivetrain spans 30 years, but will still shift just fine(I have used this exact setup), yet you say Shimano parts availability has always been hard because they change the pull ratios so often? Come on now.
- As for your claim that 10sp freewheel selection is dwindling...well they are cassettes and not freewheels, so yeah I can see 10sp freewheels dwindling since they arent a thing to begin with. But that snark aside, 10sp cassettes are readily available. CRC has the following Shimano 10sp compatible cassettes in stock riht now- SunRace MS3, BrandX, SunRace CSMX0, SunRace CSRS1, Miche Primato, SunRace CSRS0, Tifosi HG. They are also sold at Jenson, REI, Performance, Amazon, Universal, BikeTiresDirect, Merlin, CompetitiveCyclist, BikeInn, and more.

sjanzeir

Every ensurer I had the displeasure of dealing with (thankfully, it was just a few cases - including a hit-and-run - with a couple of insurers, and in none of the cases was I the party at fault) would go out of their way to try and get out of paying for the damages. Here in Saudi Arabia, even if the other party has been found to have been 100 percent at fault, you - the one claiming the damages - will still have to foot part of the bill. It's the law.

So, if someone crashes into your expensive German car and it turns out that the repair bill will run into the thousands of dollars (remember $1=SAR3.75), that's still a serious chunk of cash that you're going to have to fork out for your own repairs. Often, it's just cheaper - and less aggravating and time-consuming - to just total the car and take a lump sum from the insurer.

smd4

None of this affects me in the slightest. I'm using a group nearly 30 years old and am still able to find parts for it and maintain it. That's not going to end. And I would never mix indexing parts with other groups, so no problem there.

Maybe someday, in the far distant future, it will be impossible to find replacement parts--but that's doubtful. And I won't be around to care.

skidder

Sorry if this has already been mentioned (didn't read through all the posts), but maybe the bicycle manufacturers' longer-range plans are to change everything possible to an electronic platform, then charge a monthly/quarterly/yearly 'subscription fee' to activate it and keep it activated. That's what the major car manufacturers are proposing to do with new vehicles in the near future. You want index shifting vs standard friction shifting? Built-in taillight/headlight activation? Front/rear radar activation That'll be $20/month for each, just sign up on our website at you'rescrewedbicycleco.com

roccobike

All I have to say is somewhere Suntour and Microshift are celebrating watching their replacement parts sales skyrocket.
The demand for the old stuff will be so large, someone (or maybe two or three) will scramble to fill the void. This isn't like the time Shimano dropped FFR early index shifting or when they dropped 10 speed electronic shifting. Just too many really nice bikes relying on the old stuff for this to go away quietly.

seypat

Interesting! I hadn't thought about that. Guess I should.

icemilkcoffee 

More to the point, you only have use of 7 of the 11 cogs for free. If you want to 'unlock' the other cassette cogs, you'll have to pay an upgrade fee!

sjanzeir

And You're Screwed Bicycle Co. LTD. will have really screwed you if the free cogs in your basic subscription plan are the seven highest ones!

ARider2

Why not go fully wireless? How about wireless electric brakes? Better hope the network doesn’t go down just when you need to stop!

skidder

Its all over blogs associated with car sales and the automotive world. Ford, GM & others proposed it to increase revenue without needing to sell more vehicles. Example cited is a proposal to charge for heated seats, so you guys in the upper Midwest are going to be screwed in the winter unless you pay up. Dealers are against it as they want a share of the revenue since they have to repair stuff associated with the software-controlled features. The dealers associations are also suing manufacturers in about a dozen states over it, as well as to prevent direct sales to consumers ( like Tesla does). While reading about it on the web I thought bicycle manufacturers might try it, too.

sjanzeir

That's so 2022! Why not go fully automatic? Fully automated shifting, automated balancing, and automatic braking with IR/laser detection. That way, new riders won't even have to learn how to ride a bike! All they need to do is spin the crank and off the bike goes!

Gyro

Last year I was buying a new car and got talking about the options I could get. The dealership guy told me in Europe, they were playing around with the idea of heated car seats only working if you bought a subscription monthly, yearly for them.

sjanzeir

sjanzeir

Any Democratic lawmaker worth their mettle (which probably rules out AOC ) can successfully argue that since vehicles are required by law to having a working heating system, heated seats should become mandatory and it would be illegal to charge people for their use. Of course, there would be plenty of pushback from the pro-business Republicans, probably even a filibuster, but the bill will be very popular.

PeteHski

I think you guys are getting a bit carried away if you think Shimano are likely to introduce a subscription model for drivetrain functionality.

sjanzeir

What is it that makes you think they won't?

PeteHski

Okay, explain how you think it would work between Shimano and the various bike manufacturers? Also what features would we be “unlocking” with a subscription? It sounds extremely unlikely to me and certainly not with CUES.

sjanzeir

I can't because I don't have enough information, and I can't be bothered to do the research because I have far better things to do with my time. But I wouldn't put a subscription model past any company if there is a determined enough investor with enough board room clout that demands it be so.

PeteHski

Well that’s totally convinced me now. I thought CUES was merely a logical consolidation of Shimano’s mid-tier mechanical groups, but now I’m convinced it’s a lead up to online subscription configurable electronic drivetrains. That sounds far more likely.

sjanzeir

Again, what's to stop them from introducing a subscription model across all their groupset tiers - including CUES - in the future? In fact, what's to stop them from making a CUES subscription so outrageously exorbitant that consumers (subscribers?) will feel compelled to pay $999/$1,799/$3,199 for 105/Ultegra/Dura-Ace or LX/XT/XTR (respectively) for and get more and better features for just $11.99 more/year?

Maelochs

My wife's car came with a host of handy options and functions which are going to shut down very soon because we think it is obnoxious that we were not told up front that the services would become subscription-only. It is all nav stuff and communication utility ... the brakes and steering should still work.

But .... anyone who thinks it couldn't happen is ignoring that it is happening, in cars.

Also .... Adobe, the software company, shifted to an all-subscription format ....you cannot buy their software, but only rent it. Updates are included .... but if you owned the software from before and opt not to get the software updates ... better hope they don't release an update which makes legacy versions not compatible with other programs--like, programs which transfer files from outside sources. If your camera maker wants to stay friends with Adobe, it will make its transfer programs compatible ... with the new stuff.

I own video software which tried something similar. The company decided it's latest update was so significantly improved that it constituted a new version, so people who had bought the "Lifetime License" to teh original version a few years before would be offered a half-price deal on the "new version" ( which was just a big update.) Apparently no one bit ... because a week later the company offered an apology and offered the new version free to lifetime subscribers.

They tried, though .... I guess they regretted offering a lifetime license, forgetting that they were unknown start-up back then and no one was interested unless it was a sweet deal.

Not saying any specific company will do or is considering doing this ... not mentioning Shimano or any one ... but here are a lot of people trying to figure ways to sell less for more, and the heads of corporations seem to love the idea.

I know some BF folks already think Shimano is evil for changing pull ratios ... twenty-odd years ago. Let slip the dogs of the conspiracy theory ....

sjanzeir

Albeit without servo assist, and you're no longer allowed to turn the wheel to full look (both features are available for a low, low rates of $3.99 and $0.99/mo.)

Well, they got bosses, too: Investors and shareholders, and most of them are of the "more, now" variety.

Reminds me of the great, never-ending Canon vs. Nikon debate back in the late 1990s and the advent of digital SLR photography in the early 2000s, when the only social media there were were mailing lists (mostly Yahoo!) and early versions of online forums such as this one. Canon was the evil one for having introduced a new lens mount when they debuted their first EOS auto focus camera - in 1987!) while you could almost see the halo around Nikon's logo for making their old 1950s mount work with auto focus, maintaining compatibility - albeit limited - among newer and older bodies and lenses. I've abandoned professional/enthusiast photography a long time ago, so I have no idea whether or not the debate has endured to this day, but I'm sure that there will be people who just can't let it go.

PeteHski

I drive a Tesla and it has subscription software for the premium infotainment. For a long time it was free, but someone has to pay for the cellular network access and so it was inevitable they would start to charge for it sooner or later. Tesla also have a subscription option in NA for self-driving, but here in the UK it's a one-off payment up front. To be honest I would be far more likely to buy into it on a subscription basis.

This kind of subscription model makes sense in the automotive world, where there are so many advanced options available in software, but I'm 100% certain it has no relevance to CUES. The only thing I can think of is a subscription to access logged shift data on electronic groups. At the moment I get that data for free via SRAM's AXS portal, but I can imagine them charging for it in future. Same with access to power meter software. I believe Cannondale already charge to "activate" the power meter shipped on their high-end road bikes.

PeteHski

I don't see what there is to leverage in CUES with a subscription model. There is no software, no data, no online connection. Just simple, mechanical hardware. If you want to upgrade your CUES hardware, you just buy the relevant upgrade hardware. That's the whole point of making it cross-compatible. What you are suggesting above is just fantasy.

sjanzeir

And I sure as heck hope it's just that! What I'm saying is, who's to say that they won't eventually make everything - including the next generation of CUES - Di2, because steel derailleur cables are so 1970s? No one ever thought that the bread-and-butter 105 would ever go Di2 because everyone felt it would be against its very intrinsic workhorse nature, and yet here we are! Who's to say that this iteration of CUES isn't just a stopgap for the next-generation CUES Di2? After all, it makes sense: instead of designing and manufacturing three Di2 systems for Claris/Ultus, Sora/Acera, and Tiagra/Alivio, just make one Di2 system that's simply programmable for the cassette's number of speeds! There's nothing stopping them from building in some sort of remote metrics system into it, and eventually, some walking, talking sphincter of an investor with boardroom clout will see the financial potential of a subscription model and force it down their corporate throats! Other OEMs - from SRAM to L-twoo - will inevitably follow suit, and we'll all be living in cycling's version of 1984. I sure hope I'm just fantasizing!