Is the arms race over?

I hope not. Please, Lord, not _more_ dish or skinnier
chains! I'm sticking with 9 anyway.

Quoted message said:

Will Brand C and Brand S reach a state of détente and stay
with 10-speed cassettes, or will we be seeing Dura-Ace 11
and/or Record 11 in the near future?

Fearless predictions and/or insider information, please.

--
Tom Sherman – Quad City Area

Chad

chad AT alumni DOT unh DOT edu

Tom: 11 speeds is a must. Marketers note: I plan on holding out and not
buying any new grouppo now that the 10-speed stuff is stale. The rear stay
spacing on road bikes will have to increase to 135mm of course. I really
look forward to the time when the band Spinal Tap can represent S or C and
use the marketing line:

"This one goes to 11 !".

The bicycle industry on a fundamental level defines progress
and innovation as adding another cog in the cassette. This
happens every 4 years. This is part of a strategic strategy
of planned obsolescence.

"Tom Sherman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:2i4qvjFj4sfkU1@uni-
berlin.de...

Quoted message said:

Will Brand C and Brand S reach a state of détente and stay
with 10-speed cassettes, or will we be seeing Dura-Ace 11
and/or Record 11 in the near future?

Fearless predictions and/or insider information, please.

--
Tom Sherman – Quad City Area

Dave Mayer said:

The bicycle industry on a fundamental level defines
progress and innovation as adding another cog in the
cassette.

...while not increasing the size of the largest or
decreasing the size of the smallest cog. Always adding the
cog in the middle, like we could really use that...
--
Rick Onanian

Tom Sherman said:

Will Brand C and Brand S reach a state of détente and stay
with 10-speed cassettes, or will we be seeing Dura-Ace 11
and/or Record 11 in the near future?

Fearless predictions and/or insider information, please.

Fearless predictions and hallucinatory speculations:

1. Standard rear hub spacing for road bikes will become 140
mm in 2006, allowing for 11 speed cassettes. Campagnolo
will introduce this first, with Shimano following in
2008. Pro racers will quietly get 11 speed in 2005.

2. Campagnolo will introduce a magnesium cassette carrier
with titanium cogs and a carbon fiber cassette body for
Record, which will be renamed "Record-C". Hub and
cassette will weigh a combined 240 grams with the
standard 10-23 cassette. The cost of a full Record-C
gruppo will be US$ 3,250.

3. Because of chainline issues, standard chainstay length
for Record-C will be specified at 45 cm. VeloNews will
tout this as a competitive advantage because it prevents
your opponents from drafting too closely.

4. Jan Ullrich will give Campy its first Tour de France
victory in years in 2005, riding the 11 speed Record-C
gruppo, and will announce his retirement on the podium in
Paris. He will open a Tex-Mex barbecue in the Black
Forest and never ride a bike again.

"Rick Onanian" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Dave Mayer said:

The bicycle industry on a fundamental level defines
progress and

innovation

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

as adding another cog in the cassette.

...while not increasing the size of the largest or
decreasing the size of the smallest cog. Always adding the
cog in the middle, like we could really use that...

Here here! I picked up a 1988 vintage Cannondale a couple of
months back with a 6 speed SunTour cassette ... at first I
was a little disappointed that it had downtube shifters but
then I realized I wasn't shifting that often. No constant
clickaclickaclicka going down the road either. I did manage
to "upgrade" to a 7 speed NOS SunTour with the only
difference being an extra 28t cog on the low end where I can
use it, bringing the total to a whopping 14 speeds!

No wonder so many people are going with single speeds, and I
don't blame them.

C.Q.C.

tsherman<< Will Brand C and Brand S reach a state of détente
and stay with 10-speed cassettes, or will we be seeing Dura-
Ace 11 and/or Record 11 in the near future? >><BR><BR>

Who knows. I think it would be tough to get more
cogs outta a 130mm rear hub
w/o some sort of reliability issue. I think Campagnolo
is close to a MTB group, which I think is not smart.
FSA and Sram both say a road group of theirs is
imminent. Campagnolo marches on with carbon
'technology' while shimano says their aluminum forging
'technology' is superior.

Peter Chisholm Vecchio's Bicicletteria 1833 Pearl St.
Boulder, CO, 80302
(303)440-3535 vecchios.comvecchios.comOpen ↗ "Ruote convenzionali
costruite eccezionalmente bene"

"Q." <LostVideos-AT-hotmail.com> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"Rick Onanian" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Dave Mayer said:

The bicycle industry on a fundamental level defines
progress and

innovation

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

as adding another cog in the cassette.

...while not increasing the size of the largest or
decreasing the size of the smallest cog. Always adding
the cog in the middle, like we could really use that...

Here here! I picked up a 1988 vintage Cannondale a couple
of months back with a 6 speed SunTour cassette ... at
first I was a little disappointed that it had downtube
shifters but then I realized I wasn't shifting that often.
No constant clickaclickaclicka going down the road either.
I did manage to "upgrade" to a 7 speed NOS SunTour with
the only difference

being

Quoted message said:

an extra 28t cog on the low end where I can use it,
bringing the total to

a

Quoted message said:

whopping 14 speeds!

No wonder so many people are going with single speeds, and
I don't blame them.

C.Q.C.

That may be true but when it comes to performance you don't
see too many single speeds in the Tour de France these days.

Gears are really all about impedence matching. Maximum power
transfer occurs when the impedence of the input and output
are matched.

Marty

Tom Sherman said:

Will Brand C and Brand S reach a state of détente and stay
with 10-speed cassettes, or will we be seeing Dura-Ace 11
and/or Record 11 in the near future?

Fearless predictions and/or insider information, please.

9 speed was vaguely useful because we could finally have 25T
big sprockets while still maintaining sensible gaps down the
block: in my early 20s people rode 7 speed and few racers
had bigger than a 21T because of the need to keep the other
ratios close. I'm sure 10 speed was for marketing purposes
and 11 speed would be really silly. But my prediction is
yes, someone will do it, but it will stop at 12 speed.

Incidentally, look how long 5 and 6 speed blocks were being
used on new quality bikes compared to their dragonfly-like 7
and 8 speed successors.
5/6 speeds were "good enough" for a very long time. Too
much money available in consumers' pockets to be spent
on toys, driving too much pointless development?

Zog The Undeniable ([email hidden]) wrote:
: Tom Sherman wrote:

: > Will Brand C and Brand S reach a state of détente and
: > stay with 10-speed cassettes, or will we be seeing Dura-
: > Ace 11 and/or Record 11 in the near future?
: >
: > Fearless predictions and/or insider information, please.
: >
: 9 speed was vaguely useful because we could finally have
: 25T big sprockets while still maintaining sensible gaps
: down the block: in my early 20s people rode 7 speed and
: few racers had bigger than a 21T because of the need to
: keep the other ratios close. I'm sure 10 speed was for
: marketing purposes and 11 speed would be really silly. But
: my prediction is yes, someone will do it, but it will stop
: at 12 speed.

Then you don't think Shimano will develop a product based on
its patent #5954604 for a 14-speed cluster?

tinyurl.com29ponOpen ↗

-Ken

: Incidentally, look how long 5 and 6 speed blocks were
: being used on new quality bikes compared to their dragonfly-
: like 7 and 8 speed successors.
: 5/6 speeds were "good enough" for a very long time. Too
: much money available in consumers' pockets to be
: spent on toys, driving too much pointless
: development?

"Tom Sherman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Will Brand C and Brand S reach a state of détente and stay
with 10-speed cassettes, or will we be seeing Dura-Ace 11
and/or Record 11 in the near future?

Fearless predictions and/or insider information, please.

--
Tom Sherman – Quad City Area

Next they'll come out with internal gearing + cogs like
Sachs had. Many years ago I saw a fellow with a IIRC 6 gear
cluster on a 3 gear internal Sachs hub coupled to a triple
front = 18x3=54 gears possible! I don't know how many were
duplicates though. Peter.

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Will Brand C and Brand S reach a state of détente and stay
with 10-speed cassettes, or will we be seeing Dura-Ace 11
and/or Record 11 in the near future? Fearless predictions
and/or insider information, please.

IIRC, Shimano has a patent on a 14 speed cassette that comes
part way up the spokes. So who knows.
-----------------
Alex

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

Quoted message said:

"Tom Sherman" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:2i4qvjFj4sfkU1@uni-
berlin.de...

Quoted message said:

Will Brand C and Brand S reach a state of détente and
stay with 10-speed cassettes, or will we be seeing Dura-
Ace 11 and/or Record 11 in the near future?

Fearless predictions and/or insider information, please.

Next they'll come out with internal gearing + cogs like
Sachs had. Many years ago I saw a fellow with a IIRC 6
gear cluster on a 3 gear internal Sachs hub coupled to a
triple front = 18x3=54 gears possible! I don't know how
many were duplicates though.

Update on your info:

sram.comindex.aspOpen ↗

Put on a triple chainset and you get 81 combinations. Would
be OK if a few were duplicates methinks.
--
Mark South: World Citizen, Net Denizen

Alex Rodriguez said:

In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

Will Brand C and Brand S reach a state of détente and
stay with 10-speed cassettes, or will we be seeing Dura-
Ace 11 and/or Record 11 in the near future? Fearless
predictions and/or insider information, please.

IIRC, Shimano has a patent on a 14 speed cassette that
comes part way up the spokes. So who knows.

My prediction: they bypass 11-speed and come out with a 12-
cog cassette in late '05/early '6.

Bill "Amazing Phlemskin" S.

Qui si parla Campagnolo said:

Who knows. I think it would be tough to get more cogs
outta a 130mm rear hub w/o some sort of reliability issue.
I think Campagnolo is close to a MTB group, which I think
is not smart. FSA and Sram both say a road group of theirs
is imminent.

IMO, Campy has been stupid to ignore the MTB market for so
long. Their previous offerings sucked, but the last Record
OR was actually pretty nice. They should have kept at it,
and not missed out on millions of dollars in sales. Oh well,
privately held companies are free to shoot themselves in the
foot if they want to.

Similarly, I hope SRAM and FSA do get into the road market.

Quoted message said:

Campagnolo marches on with carbon 'technology' while
shimano says their aluminum forging 'technology' is
superior.

Shimano's hollow cranks are a joke. One could argue that
Campy's carbon stuff is kind of silly too, but a Record
group *is* half a pound lighter than a DA group.

Matt O.

Tim McNamara said:

Tom Sherman said:

Will Brand C and Brand S reach a state of détente and
stay with 10-speed cassettes, or will we be seeing Dura-
Ace 11 and/or Record 11 in the near future?

Fearless predictions and/or insider information, please.

Fearless predictions and hallucinatory speculations:

1. Standard rear hub spacing for road bikes will become
140 mm in 2006, allowing for 11 speed cassettes.
Campagnolo will introduce this first, with Shimano
following in 2008. Pro racers will quietly get 11 speed
in 2005.

Curiously, what's bad about having wider hub spacing to
start off with? The only thing I can think of is
aerodynamics. If so, then presumably there will be a break-
even point where more gears don't help because of the
increased drag.

AC

anonymous coward said:

Tim McNamara said:

Tom Sherman said:

Will Brand C and Brand S reach a state of détente and
stay with 10-speed cassettes, or will we be seeing Dura-
Ace 11 and/or Record 11 in the near future?

Fearless predictions and/or insider information, please.

Fearless predictions and hallucinatory speculations:

1. Standard rear hub spacing for road bikes will become
140 mm in 2006, allowing for 11 speed cassettes.
Campagnolo will introduce this first, with Shimano
following in 2008. Pro racers will quietly get 11
speed in 2005.

Curiously, what's bad about having wider hub spacing to
start off with? The only thing I can think of is
aerodynamics. If so, then presumably there will be a break-
even point where more gears don't help because of the
increased drag.

Aerodynamics be darned, that's just not a factor. In fact,
for the vast majority of riders aerodynamics aren't much of
a factor at all- and that include many racers and racer
wannabes. A comfortable position is generally more useful
than an aero position, except for TTs and the Hour Record.

The issues with OLN width are mechanical. The wider the hub,
the harder it is to design the frame to clear your heels
when you pedal- hence my joke about longer chainstays. It'd
be hard to make a 140 mm hub work in a frame with a 40 cm
chainstay because the stays would be out far enough that
many if not most riders would hit them with their heels-
heck, I'm duck footed enough that I hit chainstays on bikes
with 130 mm hubs!

Another issue is chainline. Remember how with 5 speed
freewheels they told you not to use the bib/big and
little/little combinations? People still think that way with
8/9/10 speed cassettes- but I reckon that if you were to
hold to the principle then you probably shouldn't use the
big ring/biggest 3 cogs and the little ring/smallest 3 cogs.
Modern cassettes are *way* wider than old freewheels were.
The old saw was about chain and cog wear, but I think the
real issue was about drivetrain efficiency and friction losses-
the former decreasing and the latter increasing as the chain
gets bent further out of line. People routinely ride with
more lateral bend in the chain now than they did 25 years
ago, IMHO.

anonymous coward said:

Curiously, what's bad about having wider hub spacing to
start off with? The only thing I can think of is
aerodynamics. If so, then presumably there will be a break-
even point where more gears don't help because of the
increased drag.

When you increase the hub spacing, you also have to move the
cranks wider apart, which increases the so-called "Q-
Factor". I don't know terrible that is, but most people seem
to think that it's not desirable.

-as

Matt O'Toole said:

Qui si parla Campagnolo said:

Who knows. I think it would be tough to get more cogs
outta a 130mm rear hub w/o some sort of reliability
issue. I think Campagnolo is close to a MTB group, which
I think is not smart. FSA and Sram both say a road group
of theirs is imminent.

IMO, Campy has been stupid to ignore the MTB market for so
long. Their previous offerings sucked, but the last Record
OR was actually pretty nice. They should have kept at it,
and not missed out on millions of dollars in sales. Oh
well, privately held companies are free to shoot
themselves in the foot if they want to.

Or free to concentrate on what they do well and not dilute
their resources. Many companies go belly-up trying to chase
a new lucrative market

Quoted message said:

Similarly, I hope SRAM and FSA do get into the road
market.

They already are. I presume you mean "get into the road
market more."

Tim McNamara said:

anonymous coward said:

Tim McNamara said:

Tom Sherman <[email hidden]> writes:

> Will Brand C and Brand S reach a state of détente and
> stay with 10-speed cassettes, or will we be seeing Dura-
> Ace 11 and/or Record 11 in the near future?
>
> Fearless predictions and/or insider information,
> please.

Fearless predictions and hallucinatory speculations:

1. Standard rear hub spacing for road bikes will become
140 mm in 2006, allowing for 11 speed cassettes.
Campagnolo will introduce this first, with Shimano
following in 2008. Pro racers will quietly get 11
speed in 2005.

Curiously, what's bad about having wider hub spacing to
start off with? The only thing I can think of is
aerodynamics. If so, then presumably there will be a break-
even point where more gears don't help because of the
increased drag.

Aerodynamics be darned, that's just not a factor. In fact,
for the vast majority of riders aerodynamics aren't much
of a factor at all- and that include many racers and racer
wannabes. A comfortable position is generally more useful
than an aero position, except for TTs and the Hour Record.

The issues with OLN width are mechanical. The wider the
hub, the harder it is to design the frame to clear your
heels when you pedal- hence my joke about longer
chainstays. It'd be hard to make a 140 mm hub work in a
frame with a 40 cm chainstay because the stays would be
out far enough that many if not most riders would hit them
with their heels- heck, I'm duck footed enough that I hit
chainstays on bikes with 130 mm hubs!

Another issue is chainline. Remember how with 5 speed
freewheels they told you not to use the bib/big and
little/little combinations? People still think that way
with 8/9/10 speed cassettes- but I reckon that if you were
to hold to the principle then you probably shouldn't use
the big ring/biggest 3 cogs and the little ring/smallest 3
cogs. Modern cassettes are *way* wider than old freewheels
were. The old saw was about chain and cog wear, but I
think the real issue was about drivetrain efficiency and
friction losses- the former decreasing and the latter
increasing as the chain gets bent further out of line.
People routinely ride with more lateral bend in the chain
now than they did 25 years ago, IMHO.

It all becomes clear.

Thanks,

AC