How long before Octalink V2 is orphaned?

On Fri, 11 May 2007 04:07:17 GMT, Ryan Cousineau <[email hidden]>
wrote:

[snip]

Quoted message said:

I posted here a little while ago about how and why I think Shimano
innovates. It ends up that a lot of their big ideas go over badly and
end up in remainder bins fast (AX pedal eyes, we hardly new ye...).

[snip]

Dear Ryan,

AX pedals were an innovation?

Pshaw!

Shimano merely copied Ramsey's $5 Swinging Pedal of 1898:

"Ramsey’s Swinging Pedal is one of the decided novelties for 1898,
designed primarily to add to the ease of controlling a bicycle through
its driving mechanism, to render it less difficult than formerly to
catch a slipped pedal, and to allow the freest ankle motion. In
action, it transmits automatically, in conformity with the arc of the
circle described by the pedals, the applied power of the rider, thus
maintaining the full leverage of the crank over an increased arc of
that circle, converting the straight push into an improved and
automatic ankle motion. It is claimed to entirely obviate the 'dead
center,' thus avoiding the hammer blow and back lash of the chain,
developing more propelling power than can be obtained by the best
ankle motion with the ordinary pedals. The pick-up of a Ramsey pedal
is instantaneous, and momentum is gained at once; the pedal is always
right side up, and consequently the toe-clip is always ready for the
foot. With so little depth of pedal beneath the foot, the rider is
enabled to sit nearer the ground without decreasing the distance
between the ground and the pedal. Manufactured by the Ramsey Swinging
Pedal Company, Philadelphia, Pa."

Price, $5.00.

See the illustration on bottom right of page 104 and read the rest of
Interbike 1898 for more exciting innovations . . .

New gears tested to run well even when smeared with sand:

"The Victor straight-line sprocket, illustrated and described in
Outing for January, has since been proven in practical service, as
well as in the laboratory, to possess a very high efficiency, the
tests at Cornell University in February showing a propelling
efficiency of 98.1 per cent. of the power applied to the pedals. The
diagram of these tests showed that the Victor gear, when smeared with
wet sand, ran practically as evenly as a perfectly clean chain of the
ordinary type. This gear is perhaps the most notable departure in the
driving mechanism of the new models, aside from the chainless
patterns."

Cork belts in tires, forerunner of Kevlar belts!

"This tire has a crescent-shaped strip of solid cork between the inner
tube and the outside tube, all of which are vulcanized together in the
process of making the tire. The vulnerable tread is narrowed by means
of the crescent-shaped strip of cork and is fortified internally by
the cork. Thus the trick is done, not theoretically, but practically
and actually. Every conceivable test of non-puncturability on the road
has been applied to 'the Corker' tire, and they have come through not
only successfully, but triumphantly."

Bailey's Won't-Slip Tire fights dreaded road suction with its tread
pattern!

"As the rubber teeth form a cushion to the tire, it passes easily over
uneven surfaces, while the method of construction gives an air space
between the road surface and the tire, destroying any possible suction
between them."

Wooden-armor tires!

"The puncture-proof quality of the Dreadnought tire, the product of
the Dreadnought Tire Co., of New York, is due to an articulated tread
band of wood lying between the inner and outer surfaces, with rubber
and fabric on either this effect be produced nor will the tire drag or
creep. The protector prevents cutting on the rim, and, while not proof
against sharp knives or other wilful injury, is proved by abundant
tests to afford a practically safe guarantee against nails, thorns,
glass, and the common objects of punctures."

Puncture-proof tire manufacturers admit a certain sluggishness!

"'Vim Cactus' is designed to be practically puncture-proof, though at
a frankly acknowledged slight loss of speed and elasticity."

Tire pumps that produce a staggering 35 psi for only 65 cents!

"The Vimair pump lists at 65 cents, and is especially designed for
the easy inflation of Vim tires. To inflate a tire to 35 pounds riding
pressure, requires a pressure on the handle of the Vimair pump of less
than 20 pounds, while the common floorpump requires several times that
pressure. At 35 pounds riding pressure the resistance to inflation is,
of course, 35 pounds to each square inch of area on the plugger, yet
this area in the Vimair pump is but 518/1000 of one square inch."

[Who can doubt a pump with such precise statistics?]

Plus other hot new tires, improved bells, better seats, superb lights,
and other innovations!

http://www.aafla.org/SportsLibrary/Outing/Volume_32/outXXXII01/outXXXII01ze.pdf

Cheers,

Carl Fogel

Ryan Cousineau said:

the BBs will be
available for some time after the last Octalink crank exits the catalog
(which has NOT happened yet).

Only octalink2's now (ie the long cast crank spline)

--
---
Marten Gerritsen

INFOapestaartjeM-GINEERINGpuntNL
www.m-gineering.nl

M-gineering said:

Qui si parla Campagnolo said:

?? Ya think somebody bought a shimano or other 130mm BCD crank for
their otherwise Campagnolo gruppo because of 135mm?? When there are a
bunch of Campag and other CRs out there in 135mm??

Quoted message said:

Doubt it myself. 135 CRs are not exactly hard to find, never have
been. If your LBS or favorite MO place doesn't have them, they are
being lazy. Same with a lot of things, like 36h rims and hubs.

nothing to do with being lazy, everything to do with not accepting
another stupid standard with no benefit to the consumer. I would happily
have substituted octalink stuff with a square taper Campy crankset but
for the oddball chainrings. Nor do I see a point in fitting 'Escape'
gruppo's when I can order the original from Shimano 😉

--
---
Marten Gerritsen

INFOapestaartjeM-GINEERINGpuntNLwww.m-gineering.nl

If you think Record or Chorus 'escape' is something unique when
compared to 2006 stuff, you need to do some research.

Quoted message said:

As explained, Octalink V1 and V2 were
a misunderstanding of the failure mode.

Rotational elastic backlash is not part of their experience so they
were unaware that goofy-footed riders would unscrew the retaining bolt
allowing the crank to shear off the end of spline still in engagement
as it backed out. Standing goofy-footed is the only time the crank
spindle transmits reverse torque, something that ekes back and forth
with each recurrence. Shimano thought the splines were too weak so
they made them deeper in V2 never understanding the V1 failure mode
that remains regardless of spline engagement depth.

Wouldn't a company as big as Shimano have beta testers, besides a few
racers? Even computer software companies, as bad as they are, have
beta testers to subject their product to the whims of the untrained.

If I were an unwilling member of Shimano's Consumer Test Team (i.e.
their customers for new gizmos), I'd expect to be paid for my
trouble. Especially if the gizmo failed.

- Frank Krygowski

Quoted message said:

AX pedals were an innovation?

Pshaw!

Shimano merely copied Ramsey's $5 Swinging Pedal of 1898...

_The Data Book_, or _100 Years of Bicycle Component and Accessory
Design_ is a great browse for anyone interested in bike design or bike
history. Tons of beautiful Daniel Rebour (sp?) pen-and-ink drawings,
plus other artwork, showing every conceivable detail of hundreds of
historic bike inventions.

Great inspiration.

- Frank Krygowski

On 10 May 2007 22:12:37 GMT, [email hidden] may have

Quoted message said:

This has nothing to do with patents or other planning. When the user
base dwindles to an acceptably low level (units shipped) they get out
of the product and hope everyone forgets how it failed.

Too true, and it demonstrates the existence of a corporate culture
that has a fairly complete lack of regard for consumer durability.
They don't consider the possibility that any substantial part of the
market has a memory, and/or that buyers might become leery of
proprietary nonstandard-interface kit *in general* as a result of
getting burned by such bell-and-whistle-ism in the past. To Shimano,
every bicycle purchaser is essentially a new, fresh face to be used
once and thrown away, not a resource to be exploited gently so that it
remains available to them when they need it again.

Unfortunately, their substantial dominance of the marketplace has let
them get away with having such a corporate culture for far too long,
and the bicycle market is (at present) still too small at the upper
levels to bring commodity-attitude engineering imperatives to the
performance-level industry, as has taken place with personal
computers.

Fifteen years ago, nearly every "name brand" PC was made with quirky
"our stuff is intentionally nonstandard" misfeatures which were
(according to several people I knew at Compaq back then) designed to
channel the consumer into buying everything they needed, preinstalled,
from a single source at the time of major unit purchase[1]. They
didn't want to have to deal with people who would be fiddling with
their system, upgrading and improving it a bit at a time, since that
was likely to increase the cost of tech support, and they didn't want
to leave the door open to people avoiding another system purchase via
the simple expedient of upgrading the old one down the road if that
could be foreclosed by a few configuration tweaks. Unfortunately for
them, consumers quickly caught on to this, and even major
corporate-account buyers started demanding that the products *not* use
configurations and interfaces that precluded the use of
alternate-source service replacement parts. (This only applies to
desktop PCs, of course; there is essentially no such thing as a
"generic" notebook or laptop, for reasons obvious to those who design
and build them.)

If midrange bikes were suddenly being bought and ridden on a daily
basis by very large numbers of people, nonstandard and failure-prone
running gear would swiftly become anathema to the buyers as word
spread of both the failure modes and the cost and delay involved in
getting appropriate replacement parts.

Octalink wouldn't have lasted six months if one twentieth of the US
population commuted by bike; in fact, I suspect there would have been
a special investigation and recall after the failures started to
mount. But in racing, "things break" is a pseudo-truism that has
excused all manner of bad engineering over the years.

----

[1] This was not the only reason for proprietary-design misfeatures.
There was also a perception that their units *must* be made different
from the competitors in an uncopyable manner as a way to avoid being
labelled as "just another computer". Introducing factually pointless
patentable design changes became a managerially-directed primary goal
in the design process as a result. When the more generically-oriented
competitors began gaining ground on the proprietary-design adherents
due to their greater field servicability, the urge to make things
nonstandard became muted...but it never completely died out.

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

may have said:

Wouldn't a company as big as Shimano have beta testers, besides a few
racers? Even computer software companies, as bad as they are, have
beta testers to subject their product to the whims of the untrained.

Think of Shimano today as the Microsoft (ca. 1995) of cycling, and
Octalink's problems and history become easily understood.

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Typoes are not a bug, they're a feature.
Words processed in a facility that contains nuts.

Werehatrack said:

On 10 May 2007 22:12:37 GMT, [email hidden] may have

Quoted message said:

This has nothing to do with patents or other planning. When the user
base dwindles to an acceptably low level (units shipped) they get out
of the product and hope everyone forgets how it failed.

<big snips>

Quoted message said:

Too true, and it demonstrates the existence of a corporate culture
that has a fairly complete lack of regard for consumer durability.
They don't consider the possibility that any substantial part of the
market has a memory, and/or that buyers might become leery of
proprietary nonstandard-interface kit *in general* as a result of
getting burned by such bell-and-whistle-ism in the past. To Shimano,
every bicycle purchaser is essentially a new, fresh face to be used
once and thrown away, not a resource to be exploited gently so that it
remains available to them when they need it again.
If midrange bikes were suddenly being bought and ridden on a daily
basis by very large numbers of people, nonstandard and failure-prone
running gear would swiftly become anathema to the buyers as word
spread of both the failure modes and the cost and delay involved in
getting appropriate replacement parts.

Octalink wouldn't have lasted six months if one twentieth of the US
population commuted by bike; in fact, I suspect there would have been
a special investigation and recall after the failures started to
mount. But in racing, "things break" is a pseudo-truism that has
excused all manner of bad engineering over the years.

Mountain bike racing exposes bicycles to stresses never seen by the
average commuting bike. I doubt Octalink would be a problem for the
average commuter (assuming the BB was otherwise adequate design-
wise). My one Octalink BB equipped commuter is fine -- although I
broke the Ultegra crank arm. Keep in mind that square-tapered BBs were
claimed to be defective and a poor design (at least by JB), and they
are on zillions of commuter bikes.

I think the more problematic parts are hubs and headsets, which are
usually cheap on mid-priced bikes (because more money is spent on
higher visibility parts). Those can fail even with routine commuting
if they are misadjusted or misaligned or mis-designed, which many
are. BBs can fail too, but not usually because of axle design but
rather because of cheap bearings and seals.

The bad experiment IMO is the internal headset. But for the recent
spate of headset standards, frames have actually gotten more standard
(no French/Swiss/Italian/English thread issues, standard derailleur
hangers, etc.) and easier to work on. However, there may be a point
when integrated/internal headsets are no longer supported, which will
be an issue for people who actually keep their bikes for any length of
time. -- Jay Beattie.

Jay Beattie said:

The bad experiment IMO is the internal headset. But for the recent
spate of headset standards, frames have actually gotten more standard
(no French/Swiss/Italian/English thread issues, standard derailleur
hangers, etc.) and easier to work on. However, there may be a point
when integrated/internal headsets are no longer supported, which will
be an issue for people who actually keep their bikes for any length of
time.

In that case, the remedy will come in the form of a simple sleeve
adapter-- but there is no such easy fix for Octalink when the BBs go
out of production.

Chalo

Frank Krygowski said:

Quoted message said:

As explained, Octalink V1 and V2 were a misunderstanding of the
failure mode.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Rotational elastic backlash is not part of their experience so they
were unaware that goofy-footed riders would unscrew the retaining
bolt allowing the crank to shear off the end of spline still in
engagement as it backed out. Standing goofy-footed is the only
time the crank spindle transmits reverse torque, something that
ekes back and forth with each recurrence. Shimano thought the
splines were too weak so they made them deeper in V2, never
understanding the V1 failure mode that remains regardless of spline
engagement depth.

Quoted message said:

Wouldn't a company as big as Shimano have beta testers, besides a
few racers? Even computer software companies, as bad as they are,
have beta testers to subject their product to the whims of the
untrained.

This is the bicycle industry, not Google! As you see, they did not
understand the Octalink mechanism of failure as their V2 demonstrates.

Similarly wheel building machine companies could not recognize that
they got a bad name from their loosely spoked wheels even though I
have been badgering them to make a simple modification that would
allow full tension required to keep wheels in true. After badgering
them for years on this, last year Holland Mechanics invited me to
their stand to go over the method once more.

The same goes for BB design and pedal attachment among other faux pas.

Quoted message said:

If I were an unwilling member of Shimano's Consumer Test Team (i.e.
their customers for new gizmos), I'd expect to be paid for my
trouble. Especially if the gizmo failed.

They don't have such a team, or at least not one that puts the product
to valid tests. Better yet would be to hire engineers with an
understanding of machine applications as well as experience with
failures.

Jobst Brandt

Jay Beattie said:

Mountain bike racing exposes bicycles to stresses never seen by the
average commuting bike. I doubt Octalink would be a problem for the
average commuter (assuming the BB was otherwise adequate design-
wise). My one Octalink BB equipped commuter is fine -- although I
broke the Ultegra crank arm. Keep in mind that square-tapered BB's
were claimed to be defective and a poor design (at least by JB), and
they are on zillions of commuter bikes.

I think you, like Shimano, do not understand the failure mode of
Octalink. It is not force and rough terrain, but merely standing on
the pedals in a horizontal crank position, right foot forward. Those
of us who rode cottered cranks experienced that effect long ago,
although I'm sure few people recognized the symptom.

Quoted message said:

I think the more problematic parts are hubs and headsets, which are
usually cheap on mid-priced bikes (because more money is spent on
higher visibility parts). Those can fail even with routine
commuting if they are misadjusted or misaligned or mis-designed,
which many are. BB's can fail too, but not usually because of axle
design but rather because of cheap bearings and seals.

You're drifting. What has this to do with Octalink splines stripping?

Quoted message said:

The bad experiment IMO is the internal headset. But for the recent
spate of headset standards, frames have actually gotten more
standard (no French/Swiss/Italian/English thread issues, standard
derailleur hangers, etc.) and easier to work on. However, there may
be a point when integrated/internal headsets are no longer
supported, which will be an issue for people who actually keep their
bikes for any length of time.

The drift is increasing!

Jobst Brandt

Quoted message said:

Jay Beattie said:

Mountain bike racing exposes bicycles to stresses never seen by the
average commuting bike. I doubt Octalink would be a problem for the
average commuter (assuming the BB was otherwise adequate design-
wise). My one Octalink BB equipped commuter is fine -- although I
broke the Ultegra crank arm. Keep in mind that square-tapered BB's
were claimed to be defective and a poor design (at least by JB), and
they are on zillions of commuter bikes.

I think you, like Shimano, do not understand the failure mode of
Octalink. It is not force and rough terrain, but merely standing on
the pedals in a horizontal crank position, right foot forward. Those
of us who rode cottered cranks experienced that effect long ago,
although I'm sure few people recognized the symptom.

IMO, the fact that Octalink had a failure mode has little to do with
the Shimano decision to 'move on' to another design.

Simply put, Octalink suffered from no longer being !!!NEW!!!. Shimano
wanted to introduce a new proprietary design and would have done so
even if Octalink was as reliable as the sunrise.

Chalo said:

In that case, the remedy will come in the form of a simple sleeve
adapter-- but there is no such easy fix for Octalink when the BBs go
out of production.

Why not, you could machine an adapter to convert octalink to square taper 😉
--
---
Marten Gerritsen

INFOapestaartjeM-GINEERINGpuntNL
www.m-gineering.nl

Dans le message de news:[email hidden],
[email hidden] <[email hidden]> a
réfléchi, et puis a déclaré :

Quoted message said:

Jay Beattie said:

Mountain bike racing exposes bicycles to stresses never seen by the
average commuting bike. I doubt Octalink would be a problem for the
average commuter (assuming the BB was otherwise adequate design-
wise). My one Octalink BB equipped commuter is fine -- although I
broke the Ultegra crank arm. Keep in mind that square-tapered BB's
were claimed to be defective and a poor design (at least by JB), and
they are on zillions of commuter bikes.

I think you, like Shimano, do not understand the failure mode of
Octalink. It is not force and rough terrain, but merely standing on
the pedals in a horizontal crank position, right foot forward. Those
of us who rode cottered cranks experienced that effect long ago,
although I'm sure few people recognized the symptom.

Quoted message said:

I think the more problematic parts are hubs and headsets, which are
usually cheap on mid-priced bikes (because more money is spent on
higher visibility parts). Those can fail even with routine
commuting if they are misadjusted or misaligned or mis-designed,
which many are. BB's can fail too, but not usually because of axle
design but rather because of cheap bearings and seals.

You're drifting. What has this to do with Octalink splines stripping?

Quoted message said:

The bad experiment IMO is the internal headset. But for the recent
spate of headset standards, frames have actually gotten more
standard (no French/Swiss/Italian/English thread issues, standard
derailleur hangers, etc.) and easier to work on. However, there may
be a point when integrated/internal headsets are no longer
supported, which will be an issue for people who actually keep their
bikes for any length of time.

The drift is increasing!

Jobst Brandt

You can't possibly be like this - or am I wrong ? The thread seems to be
one parallel to another about Shimano and the abandonment of small parts
support over the years (or not, depending on your viewpoint).

So, this "drift" is the natural extension of a conversation. Or did you
think it being May, it's time for final exams ? Loosen up. You have
nothing new to say, anyway.

"Ozark Bicycle" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Jay Beattie said:

Mountain bike racing exposes bicycles to stresses never seen by the
average commuting bike. I doubt Octalink would be a problem for the
average commuter (assuming the BB was otherwise adequate design-
wise). My one Octalink BB equipped commuter is fine -- although I
broke the Ultegra crank arm. Keep in mind that square-tapered BB's
were claimed to be defective and a poor design (at least by JB), and
they are on zillions of commuter bikes.

I think you, like Shimano, do not understand the failure mode of
Octalink. It is not force and rough terrain, but merely standing on
the pedals in a horizontal crank position, right foot forward. Those
of us who rode cottered cranks experienced that effect long ago,
although I'm sure few people recognized the symptom.

IMO, the fact that Octalink had a failure mode has little to do with
the Shimano decision to 'move on' to another design.

Simply put, Octalink suffered from no longer being !!!NEW!!!. Shimano
wanted to introduce a new proprietary design and would have done so
even if Octalink was as reliable as the sunrise.

They would have eventually moved on but I don't think it would have been as
quick without the poor reliability.

Greg
--
Ticketbastard tax tracker:
http://ticketmastersucks.org/tracker.html

Dethink to survive - Mclusky

Qui si parla Campagnolo said:

If you think Record or Chorus 'escape' is something unique when
compared to 2006 stuff, you need to do some research.

probably, as my literature limits Escape to xenon, mirage, veloce & centaur

--
---
Marten Gerritsen

INFOapestaartjeM-GINEERINGpuntNL
www.m-gineering.nl

Quoted message said:

Jay Beattie said:

Mountain bike racing exposes bicycles to stresses never seen by the
average commuting bike. I doubt Octalink would be a problem for the
average commuter (assuming the BB was otherwise adequate design-
wise). My one Octalink BB equipped commuter is fine -- although I
broke the Ultegra crank arm. Keep in mind that square-tapered BB's
were claimed to be defective and a poor design (at least by JB), and
they are on zillions of commuter bikes.

I think you, like Shimano, do not understand the failure mode of
Octalink. It is not force and rough terrain, but merely standing on
the pedals in a horizontal crank position, right foot forward. Those
of us who rode cottered cranks experienced that effect long ago,
although I'm sure few people recognized the symptom.

Standing on the pedals flying down hill is very much a mountain bike
thing. I am no physicist, but I would imagine that the Octalink BB
axles on mountain bikes were seeing much higher loads from riders
posting down rocky trails that from commuters riding to work while
firmly planted on their plush saddles. The number of commuters I see
trackstanding (besides myself -- and regarless of footedness) is very,
very small. So, as I said, I doubt that Octalink was a problem for
the average commuter -- except as Chalo notes, there may be no
replacements in a few years.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I think the more problematic parts are hubs and headsets, which are
usually cheap on mid-priced bikes (because more money is spent on
higher visibility parts). Those can fail even with routine
commuting if they are misadjusted or misaligned or mis-designed,
which many are. BB's can fail too, but not usually because of axle
design but rather because of cheap bearings and seals.

You're drifting. What has this to do with Octalink splines stripping?

Nothing, but then again the original thread was not about Octalink
splines stripping but was about the limited availability of Octalink
and, in general, Shimano's failure to support its groups. And since
when has absolute fidelity to the topic been a requirement for
responding to a post on this NG? Like never? -- Jay Beattie.

G.T. said:

"Ozark Bicycle" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Jay Beattie writes:
> Mountain bike racing exposes bicycles to stresses never seen by the
> average commuting bike. I doubt Octalink would be a problem for the
> average commuter (assuming the BB was otherwise adequate design-
> wise). My one Octalink BB equipped commuter is fine -- although I
> broke the Ultegra crank arm. Keep in mind that square-tapered BB's
> were claimed to be defective and a poor design (at least by JB), and
> they are on zillions of commuter bikes.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I think you, like Shimano, do not understand the failure mode of
Octalink. It is not force and rough terrain, but merely standing on
the pedals in a horizontal crank position, right foot forward. Those
of us who rode cottered cranks experienced that effect long ago,
although I'm sure few people recognized the symptom.

Quoted message said:

IMO, the fact that Octalink had a failure mode has little to do with
the Shimano decision to 'move on' to another design.

Quoted message said:

Simply put, Octalink suffered from no longer being !!!NEW!!!. Shimano
wanted to introduce a new proprietary design and would have done so
even if Octalink was as reliable as the sunrise.

They would have eventually moved on but I don't think it would have been as
quick without the poor reliability.

Why not? What would they have to lose, other than the cost of tooling,
by introducing a new proprietary design? The upside is a new design to
wax elequent about, new buzz on the sales floor, a certain number of
sales that wouldn't otherwise occur from the 'gotta-be-on-the-cutting-
edge' set and the perception that Shimano is, once again, the design
and performance leader. Seems like a win-win situation to me.

The reality is that Octalink was sent to the dustbin for the same
reason Campy abandoned square taper BBs: sales and marketing.

Ozark Bicycle said:

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

Mountain bike racing exposes bicycles to stresses never seen by the
average commuting bike. I doubt Octalink would be a problem for the
average commuter (assuming the BB was otherwise adequate design-
wise). My one Octalink BB equipped commuter is fine -- although I
broke the Ultegra crank arm. Keep in mind that square-tapered BB's
were claimed to be defective and a poor design (at least by JB), and
they are on zillions of commuter bikes.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I think you, like Shimano, do not understand the failure mode of
Octalink. It is not force and rough terrain, but merely standing on
the pedals in a horizontal crank position, right foot forward. Those
of us who rode cottered cranks experienced that effect long ago,
although I'm sure few people recognized the symptom.

Quoted message said:

IMO, the fact that Octalink had a failure mode has little to do with
the Shimano decision to 'move on' to another design.

Quoted message said:

Simply put, Octalink suffered from no longer being !!!NEW!!!. Shimano
wanted to introduce a new proprietary design and would have done so
even if Octalink was as reliable as the sunrise.

If I understand correctly, you are in the bicycle business and see
customer failures, some of which are sent to the distributor for
replacement. When this number gets uncomfortably high and the word
gets around that these things fail, something gets done about it. V2
was the first step and dropping the concept was the second.

Your comment attempts to demonize Shimano, while instead, I am sure
the are not conniving enough to work that way. This is a competitive
business mainly between Shimano and Campagnolo and it isn't trivial.

Jobst Brandt

Quoted message said:

Ozark Bicycle said:

Quoted message said:

> Mountain bike racing exposes bicycles to stresses never seen by the
> average commuting bike. I doubt Octalink would be a problem for the
> average commuter (assuming the BB was otherwise adequate design-
> wise). My one Octalink BB equipped commuter is fine -- although I
> broke the Ultegra crank arm. Keep in mind that square-tapered BB's
> were claimed to be defective and a poor design (at least by JB), and
> they are on zillions of commuter bikes.
I think you, like Shimano, do not understand the failure mode of
Octalink. It is not force and rough terrain, but merely standing on
the pedals in a horizontal crank position, right foot forward. Those
of us who rode cottered cranks experienced that effect long ago,
although I'm sure few people recognized the symptom.

IMO, the fact that Octalink had a failure mode has little to do with
the Shimano decision to 'move on' to another design.
Simply put, Octalink suffered from no longer being !!!NEW!!!. Shimano
wanted to introduce a new proprietary design and would have done so
even if Octalink was as reliable as the sunrise.

If I understand correctly, you are in the bicycle business and see
customer failures, some of which are sent to the distributor for
replacement. When this number gets uncomfortably high and the word
gets around that these things fail, something gets done about it. V2
was the first step and dropping the concept was the second.

Your comment attempts to demonize Shimano

"(My) attempts to demonize Shimano"?? Geez, Jobst, you're the one
saying they produced a failure prone design and didn't have the
engineering competence to either recognize the cause of the failures
or solve the problem.

I'm saying the sales department said it was time for something new to
sell.

I'll leave it to others to decide who is doing the demonizing.

Quoted message said:

, while instead, I am sure
the are not conniving enough to work that way. This is a competitive
business mainly between Shimano and Campagnolo and it isn't trivial.

And that's why they need something new to sell.