Bike Standards—How Did We Get Here?—A Podcast
A conversation—that’s what we are aiming to create here. A conversation between riders, bike shops and the bike industry itself. There’s a hell of a lot to talk about these days… including the impact being made by the flood of bike standards that have hit the market in recent years. How does it all impact riders? How about the bike shops carrying all of those bikes and parts? And what about the people making the actual products—what’s their take on all this?
I am not a retro grouch. I’m a fan of the kind of innovation that makes bikes and products better. I am, however, concerned about what sometimes seems like an avalanche of haphazard, half-step “innovations” that have saddled bikes and components with the lifespan of a fruit fly. A few of the folks at Chris King share some of my sentiments, which is why they invited a number of companies and bike shop types to King’s factory in Portland, Oregon. The goal was to get a better grasp on the issue and to broaden the discussion.
Geoff Casey of Santa Cruz Bicycles
Daniel Limburg of Pivot Cycles
Butch Boucher of Moots Cycles
Matt Robertson of Enve Composites
Employees from Enve, Fox Racing, Moots, Pivot Cycles and Santa Cruz Bicycles answered the call; as did representatives from several Pacific Northwest shops, including Cyclepath, Fanatik Bike, Fat Tire Farm, River City Bicycles and Sellwood Cycle Repair. Where were Shimano, SRAM, Trek, Specialized, Giant….? Fair question. This was our first attempt at creating an industry dialogue and, unfortunately, many people from those (and other companies) were overseas at the time. We’ll work on broadening the attendee list (and conversation) next time around.
Dave Guettler of River City Bicycles
Luke Demoe of Fanatik Bike (left) and Barry O'Connor from Fat Tire Farm
Why does the bike industry produce so many competing standards for the same basic component?
What kind of impact does the flood of new standards have on bike shops?
Is there any chance that the major players in the bike industry will ever agree to collaborate on new standards in the future?
Those are just a few of the questions we ask and answer here.
So, sit back and give it a listen.
Finally, we'd like to give a quick shout out to Annalisa Fish (who co-hosts the "We Got to Hang Out" cycling podcast) for recording the conversation and giving us the raw materials to make this podcast.
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Standards have no effect on my current ride, that is until I need to replace my bike, which when I do will likely come with wheels that fit the frame.
The various standards would impact the aftermarket products more than the bike purchase. If you want a new set of wheels, you are now interested in the spacing standard.
I've kept every bike I've owned for at least 2-5yrs and standards or not it has been a weapon the whole time....
Bike companies are businesses. They design, manufacture, market and sell bikes. They also sponsor riders, events, competitions, video shoots etc. etc.
Despite the hippy knee jerk reaction that got your post so many +1's, most bike companies are not huge multinationals that operate on a limitless budget. Even if they were, what other multinationals do you see investing into their markets in the way that you propose?
They build the bikes, you build the stuff to ride them on.
You get to put your own personal touch on something that you and your friends built. To me that is priceless and it is the soul of MTB. Not getting big companies to invest in and build your sport for you.
Never mind though, lets harass all the bike companies to do our work for us and then after they do our hippy bidding, we can all sit round a camp fire, sing Kumbaya and wank each other off.
Enrico Iglesias -> you’re always gonna lose if you look at your bike purchase thr
“Waaaaaa! My bike/car/snowboard just lost all it’s value because I bought it new and rode it once.”
Asinine. A bike isn’t an investment. Buy and ride for 4 years then sell (or keep) and buy again.
Preach it Perp!
+100!
Anyways... I wasn't suggesting the bike companies build our trails. The industry in question paying Claudio to go around and build bike parks is an idealistic exaggeration (wouldn't it be sweet though?) I think my point is a perfectly valid one. The industry is losing market share, and coming up with nonsense changes in standards, and trying to force E-bikes down our throats isn't going to work, they should try some other ideas. It probably won't be mine and that's fine, like I said it was mostly a whimsical statement, but it certainly wouldn't be the worst thing in the world either.
@Rucker10: I hear your point, a noble one but in case of a private company, the saying of my mother applies: you can do whatever you want with your own earned money. It’s not your business what others do with theirs.
How much bigger would mtb be if there were legal trails, well built and maintained, accessible to all standards from novices to pros all over the place? Include in that family trails where I can ride along side my kid.
What if there was some heavy weight backing for us when trying to negotiate access etc?
Surely these changes would bring far more people into the sport than all the current marketing bs? And more people means more sales. Seems pretty logical to me.
And I don't think @Rucker10 was at all implying that the industry should "do our hippy bidding", but instead made a valid point that increasing awareness, riding opportunities and access would actually help build their consumer base and, in the long run, improve sales.
And contrary to your point, a simple count of bicycle companies would imply that "most" are not huge multinationals... but when you look at the market share of the huge multinationals there are certainly a few with massive resources available that could easily afford to route more funds toward grassroots development if their owners/shareholders could look beyond the next quarter.
I love the idea of a virtual bike park... we could all build our own characters and bikes.
It just takes a little bit of ingenuity. It saved me binning a perfectly good 36h 29er wheel.
@robwhynot: That's called lobbying. I personally would not support an MTB company that I knew was guilty of lobbying.
No, what @Rucker10 was implying is that he wants the bike companies to do his work for him. Why doesn't he try to action these changes himself? Why doesn't he get a group of likeminded people together to support and lend weight to his argument?
Why doesn't he do some research, prepare a proposal to this nature and then present it to a bike company, instead of soapboxing about it in the Pinkbike comments section? Better again, why doesn't he start a bike company and try to build and sell bikes and also spend 5-10 years funnelling investment into local, national, and global cycling advocacy at the same time?
MTB is in a great place at the minute. No one is stuck for somewhere to ride their bike regardless of access issues, and we've got this far through the collaboration of they build the bikes, we build the stuff to ride them on.
Despite that, there actually are bike comanies who invest into the sport in MANY different ways. What thanks do they get? They get pissed on by losers in the pinkbike comments section. No one has even mentioned ONE of them in this discussion! Take the Hope Academy for example: hopeacademyuk.com
To all the people complaining about having to buy new standards. You don't HAVE to buy them! You can still buy a budget or second hand bike and have the time of your life on them. If you think that you have to own the latest trends/standards to have a good time on a bike, then I suggest you look at your riding instead of your ride.
If you don't want an e-bike, THEN DON'T BUY ONE! We control the market. If no one buys e-bikes, then companies won't continue to try and sell them.
What would you do if the same happened to your car? or motorcycle?
You would think that in capitalist USA people would know how an industry works.
Sure, new standards are really making bikes awesome. Stiffer forks, stiffer rear ends. It all sounds great. But alas, I'm still on my '08 Kona with old school spacing. Do you suppose every time I swing a leg over it I think to myself, "Man, I really got screwed buying this thing back in 08?" No, I think, "sweet, another ride on this machine that has proven itself over the years."
All this complaining is pointless. Did you enjoy your bike when you bought it? Can you still enjoy it even though it isn't the latest thing? If not, then I'd suggest some serious self reflection.
Outdated standards I'll take them all day long
I don´t agree that the responsibility of negociating access and building and maintaining trails should fall only on us riders. The industry clearly has funds designated to increasing sales; why not spend some of that on improving and creating new trails to attract a wider audience and therefore increase sales? Seems to me that that could be more effective than making all these micro "improvements" every year: Expand customer base instead of trying to sell more to those that are already riders.
Also the reverse is true. Imagine if a government took the decision that no bikes were allowed off road; that would mean a loss of sales for the bike industry; surely it is in the best interests of the industry that people have good places to use their product?
And Capitalism is an economic system of monetary policy, investment, property rights and freedom of choice. What you are speaking of is competition, an attribute of capitalism, but often confused to be synonymous. In competition a company that is performing their fiduciary duty to owners/investors will explore all reasonable opportunities to provide growth, profit and return on investment. You don't think if a community that had little to no trail access received funding to build a Cannondale Bike Park with a bunch of sweet trails wouldn't 1. be valuable to Cannondale's brand and 2. grow the local market (more in favour of Cannondale than competitors)...? It's sponsorship of a different ilk.
There's no right or wrong here, and I'm not arguing that bike companies should or shouldn't do this kind of stuff, just countering your singularly-focused position with a different pov (I suppose one would call it trolling, I like to try to create thoughtful dialogue)... you may be surprised how rewarding it would be to actually be able to consider multiple perspectives on an issue... it is actually a sign of the level of intellect you're trying to portray.
Most trail centres and bike parks are sponsored by... bike companies.
At the end of the day we have to look at what's realistic though. The MTB industry IS investing into its market.
I just get the impression that a lot of people have this nauseating hippy sense of entitlement, whereby they feel that the MTB industry owes them something. It doesn't!
I'm a serious advocate of traditional capitalism. It's the essence of why we're not still living in caves throwing shit at each other.
There's just too many people waiting for, or expecting others to do things for them instead of doing it themselves, or alternatively approaching those who they deem responsible for it; with strategies for executing their pipedreams.
You're a fan of constructive dialog but you're taking an incredibly hardline approach to what is obviously a fanciful idea.
I'm not sitting in front of a boardroom full of mountain bike executives. I'm throwing out a whimsical idea that would actually probably amount to something pretty rad if the world was a perfect place, but I have no allusions to the fact that it isn't.
There's not much evidence that the rising tide is taking everyone with it as far as consumer capitalism and how it is currently working in the bike industry - the constantly changing standards (trying to create need in the consumer rather than satisfy one) aren't developing a customer base, they look like they're driving people away and only providing significant profits for the shareholders at the top.
Ignoring the proposed specifics of trail advocacy, your associated hippies etc - he's got a point that there's a chunk of money accumulating at the top created, in part, by ever changing standards designed to bring about a premature obsolescence to continue the consumption. So a few people get a big chunk while resources are used up at a ferocious rate and say, LBS's and smaller bike companies, are massively squeezed. There's the sensation of being squeezed for every last drop as someone looking to buy a new bike - rather than companies developing customer bases - when it comes to these ever changing standards.
1. "If we are changing lowers of the fork, why not change it to 110?" Which is a clear aftermath bullcrap. Then why not go to 20x110 then?! As it should have been done when Shimano and Fox came out with this 15x100 bollocks! I know why, it doesn't take a post doc in engineering, rather a weekend course in marketing: because XC crowd which stands for vast majority of mountain bikes being sold, would be pissed off at adding 20grams! Front wheel stiffness?! Really?!
2. Rear boost was invented for plus bikes, for their chainline and wacky wide rims requiring more triangulation, not to increase rear end stiffness for 29ers, or to make shorter stays, which is bullsht. As I have been saying all along. The problem is, NOBODY whines about two rear hub standards for fat bikes, because they are a niche product, having nothing to do with normal bikes. So why was it brought upon us all? Why wasn't plus left as a niche, own genre like fatties, considering how many unknowns there were as they were creating the whole hype storm? That obviously backfired? Not to mention the fact, that many smart people on regular bikes noticed that it is better to leave the crankset as non-boost, since the chainline gets better? Not to mention that Cannondale proved that same result of the improved chainline and spoke triangulation can be achieved by offsetting the 142mm rear hub to the drive side?! Asymetric rims anybody?!
Boost is bullsht. So is Super Boost. The reason 150/157 had so much space left on the non drive side is because moving the NDS flange outwards, by keeping the DS flange in the same place, does NOTHING! It creates even more spoke tension imbalance between NDS and DS.
Ugh... I was expecting much more from this. I don't want to sound like a racist, but North Americans are way too polite. Cesar Rojo, who is a genuine authority speaks more openly with more valid arguments than most of the people in this podcast. Even Chris King himself spoke more sense in his interview with Dirt where he called out the industry on profiteering. I just don't know how can you on one side say that destandarization is a nightmare, that you are left with piles of old standards and then turn defensive to boost.
@vernonfelton, kudos to you, good questions in good tone. I like you more than Spoomer. He is way too gentle in his podcasts.
To be clearer, what I was trying to say was that the big players who are driving these endless changes seem to be a little too concerned with money going to the top than those below them - I wonder if that's why we're seeing such astronomical prices as the market flatlines.
And, Transition spoke a few years ago about the changing standards affecting them - they'd create molds etc for manufacture only for the standard to change on them. They contended that at that time it was negatively affecting their business and that they felt forced in to keeping up with the standards. Think it was on Pinkbike I saw it.
Fanciful ideas aren't worth a feck if they aren't supported by action. But it is the expectation of the purveyors of these "ideas", for others to take them seriously, when ultimately they have no intention of actually doing anything about them, and all they're doing is wasting people's time with their bloody nonsense.
You have a weak to non-existent argument, and because you haven't got anything more concrete or constructive to contribute to the discussion, you are incinuating that I am discouraging constructive criticism with my hardline attitude, when in actual fact I am the one who is suggesting actions which might take the discussion beyond Pinkbike.
Here are the facts:
1: Bike companies ARE investing into trails.
2: You are not.
You don't have to be sitting at the top of the boardroom table to influence those who actually are. If you fanciful "ideas" are good enough, and you can support and articulate them, then the people who they're aimed at would have to be retarded not to listen to them!
Now run along and get your crayons out, and start writing to all the big bad bike companies with your brilliant ideas.
I'll be expecting to hear you on the next podcast.
Mountain biking is a "fanciful idealistic half baked idea" you dickbag. It's grown ass men (and women) riding around in the woods on toys. It isn't serious business. I have no idea how you spend your time but I'm starting to suspect it involves lots of trail segments followed by ritualistic self mutilation every time you don't make a KOM.
I would argue that at least part of Pinkbike's mission statement has to be the sharing of ideas, regardless of how "fanciful." If you don't like one of them, fair enough. People like you retard development more than you help it. Tails have never been built on the shoulders of naysayers and misanthropes but rather by the dreamers and probably the hippies that you decry so vehemently.
It's the same for you with butthurt?
Trek developed it for their 29+ Stache to achieve ridiculously short chainstays and then rolled it out to their other bikes. If the rest of the industry resisted the change then Trek would have been on their own and it may well have died or at least lived with Plus bikes.
How ironic that Trek who were responsible for 148 were not at thsee discussions....
Unfortunately you still get uninformed ingrates getting their opinions confused with ideas. Ingrates who think that the world owes them something, and opinions which are usually at the expense of someone else.
Regarding standards. Yes some new standards are retarded, and clearly unnecessary. You don't have to buy them though. If there was only one company out there and you could only buy one standard, then yes that would be a problem, but there is so much variety that people have no excuse for not being able to buy whatever they want.
Some MTB'ers are full of themselves, some aren't. If you're full of yourself because you're good then you're fully entitled to be. If you're full of yourself but haven't got the goods, then all you are is full of shit.
I'd say that most of the bombastic nonsense in the PB comments section comes from the latter. @Rucker10 is one of them, and hasn't got a clue what he's on about. Perhaps they only live in this fantasy land in the safe space of the PB, but yes, at least on here they do appear to be full of themselves.
On the trail I find the vast majority of guys to be pleasant and good fun.
Once again though, it is the expectation of these dellusionals to be taken seriously without any research, acknowledgement of the facts, or ultimately action, which is making a mockery of those that ARE doing these things!
It's a bit a personal thing for me to be honest, as I've ran various ventures which I and my team busted our god damn asses to acheive, but innevitably we always had naysayers and detractors who hadn't a clue what they were talking about, who thought that they could do it better, even though they hadn't done prior to that point, and still haven't done since!
I have to call out this attitude where I see it.
If various parties can open a dialogue which leads to positive action, then everyone benefits.
Action speaks louder than words after all.
It may be difficult not to go on the defensive when someone is being aggressive towards you, but it should be easy to defend yourself using facts if there is any merit to your argument whatsoever.
My "agressive attitude" gets things done. If it comes off as being curt or aggressive it's because I don't waste time entertaining the fanciful ideas of idiots. Especially when these losers attempt to tout their opinions as ideas at the expense of others, without having done any research or fact checking.
You entered this conversation saying that the industry isn't responsible for trail building, then halfway through you change your opinion with no mention of that change at all. Right from the go you have been aggressive and insulting which is not the way to "get things done" or "open a dialogue". You said yourself that actions are important, but throughout this conversation your actions have not helped in any sort of constructive way at all. It would seem to me that you just want a fight and to make yourself out to be superior to everyone who has a different opinion to you. The problem is you contradict yourself, don't listen or try to understand the other and all with this f you attitude.
With regards to defending a point of view with facts; the point of view you attacked at the beginning, which was also an attack on the person not just his opinion, you then agree with halfway through but keep on attacking the person! Your attitude doesn't come off as being aggressive, it is aggressive.
@dicky1080
1: Because he doesn't know what he's talking about.
4: In my intial statement I said that bike companies do invest into the sport.
2: Bike compaies are not responsible for building trails.
3: They still do though.
4: I constructively advised to do some research on the subject, and prepare a strategy/proposal.
5: I do not want a fight, but I also do not want to see the efforts of others erroneously dismissed.
6: The point of view I challenged, initially challenged the bike industry.
7: I do not agree with his point of view.
Or just buy one of these? satechi.net/products/satechi-type-c-pass-through-usb-hub-with-usb-c-charging-port
You're welcome.
It's not like any of these guys are like the dude who acquired the patent for a drug required to keep patients alive, and jacked the price up 700%, and for the most part, no one in the bike industry is hosting Shark Tank.
We all love our bikes and for most of us a luxury that brings us joy. But the way the industry is with this stuff and trying to go proprietary is a$$nine.
All in all, I'm for improvements and advancements that make sense. I'm not a fan of proprietary stuff on bikes for the sake of it, or 'advancements' that have little to no merit, obfuscated by bs claims of XX% etc. As a mfg eng and manufacturing and engineering consulting business owner, and long time rider and former cycling business owner I can see some of these 'advancements' are clearly bullshit, for the sake of profit vs providing value to customers. Some aren't. PF bbs? BS.
Chain pitch is something that was probably settled on before I was born, likely taken from industy.
Grip inside diameter, well yes, but WTB almost went there by making you cut the ends of your bars to a specific angle to fit their grips and pedal spindle, again probably settled on before I was born.
I think chain pitch could change in the future as the drivetrain companies have a monopoly on the market anyway, why would it matter if the new SRAM groupset had a specific pitch when it has a specific chain anyway for Eagle?
Grip / Bar diameter and pedal spindle dia and pitch I cant see changing, it would be suicide for whoever attempted it.
Aside from that, tell me of almost a single part that has remained constant over the years, there are literally none. Bar diameter, Stem size, steerer tube, brake mounts, hub width, headsets etc etc and on into the future I am sure.
Change = $$$$$
Agree change = $$$$ whether they want to admit it or not.
Got a nice set of 135 wheels? Try and find a frame to fit nowdays, ask me how I know. Its depressing to have to essentially throw nice kit away when you were perfectly happy with its performance.
Whats very funny is that one minute everybody wants a super stiff wheel etc, a month later carbon / stiff wheels are 'too stiff' and help cause fatigue, one minute everyone wants the 'benefit' of 35mm bars until they make your hands hurt etc...
I'm still on 31.8mm aluminium Renthals. They're stiff enough for me at 95kg.
This is one reason I am glad I don't have the cash to buy a new bike (or frame). It is nice sitting back and watching it all unfold without being overly affected by it.
You say about feeling the benefits of boost but I wonder what they really are in the real world? I probably couldn't tell.
So you think that the company is should stop producing new bikes because old bikes should last a lifetime? Then what? Loads and loads of small bike brands will bite the dust and you'll be left woth a few brands that can control the market and price. And lack of choice.
Bike companies are companies like any other industry in the world, of course they want to make money. But they are passionate people who stay in an industry renowned for poor pay and poor profit because they live for it. Small brands are passionate and do want the best for the consumer. But of course they need to make money or what is the point? They should do it for free?
Just out of interest what do you do for a living? And unless you say volunteer and a homeless shelter your f*cked cause it just makes you a whining hypocrit.
You know what? In practice it's no big deal.
Not attacking you, in the last 2 years I've been getting back into mountain bikes after a hiatus, and this idea of everything must be standard is so strange to me. It really does seem isolated to the bicycling industry.
And incidentally, I have a Honda Civic and a Honda CR-V. There are a surprising number of parts that I can change between them.
To your point of the honda parts being interchangeable, yes inside a brand there is some interchangeability between certain model years. In bikes this happens as well, certain brands keep some elements the same, while others change. If nothing changed on bikes, and everything was interchangeable, when would progress happen? If you have a hub spacing and stick with it for 10 years, you stagnate what could otherwise be open design space.
One of the bikes I mention in my post is the first MTB I bought in 1991 (1990 model Raleigh Technium), and my newest is just pre-boost. I've had no problem replacing worn out parts with new ones. I upgraded the whole drivetrain two years ago, and some of the original parts I took off (the ones that weren't worn out) have gone on to someone doing up a vintage build. I live in a town of about 200k people, and there are at least 3 bike co-ops that will gladly use any parts in working order. They build up bikes from donated and junkyard bikes, and pass them on to people in need - among all the dross there's a couple of late 1980s Reynolds 531 road bikes being resurrected right now that I wouldn't mind riding myself. Or it's easier than ever to sell parts for small coin on eBay or facebook buy/sell/swap groups.
Like I said in my post above, in theory it sounds like a ball-ache, but in my lived experience it just hasn't been a problem. You wanna hear something crazy? As of today (when my 4YO stepped got his first pedal bike for his birthday), EVERY SINGLE BIKE in my shed can fit on the Elite Direto power trainer my wife is getting for Christmas using only the parts included in the box.
Get back to me when you can work out your own argument, because right now you're both bitching that things aren't compatible, and saying you wouldn't ride old tech because it's old. And you don't like that the old stuff is now 'landfill'.
Gotta ask, wtf are you doing with two Reigns anyway, why not swap one of them out for something a little different? [not hating on the Reign by the way, I used to own one and it changed my thinking about what was rideable at the time - I just don't see the point in having two]
Does it practically put me in a bind? Probably not very much - but in fact I was planning to swap the stems, but I can't due to the handlebar diameter difference. The 35mm handlebar, in particular, seems pointless. The industry guys can say that they want to make a better bike, but at some point, give us a break. I'm sure that the 35mm bar makes a small difference if you're riding two identical bikes back to back on the same trail - but I don't think a standard customer such as myself will possible pick up on it since I'm NOT able to ride two otherwise identical bikes back to back to evaluate it. I just want to ride. And it's a hassle that to me to need to shop for and match 132 different parameters just to change my frickin' stem.
A 11 speed 50t cassette using 80s or 90s bike tech would have been very heavy, and 80s or 90s shifters and derailleurs would not have been able to maintain good shifting with a cassette spaced that closely. Even older 8spd systems couldn't hold adjustment as well as many modern 10 or 11 speed systems
Wider hubs weren't needed when frame strength and stiffness, rim width and stiffness, tire size, fork travel, etc were all lower than modern standards. No one piece of puzzle stood out as hugely behind the game. Just like tapered steerers weren't needed when forks were so flexible that the headtube didn't matter in comparison
It fees like most of the big progressions have come within the last 10 years, but none of those progressions make as much sense on their own as they do together
Many things come in the game as "it can be made at 12-14kg". Bigger than 26" in the 90's? Would have been too heavy, etc.
Now we can squeeze more in that "reasonable weight", so we have trail bikes with fox 36, DH tires and so on.
Stop thinking you are fully aware of anything and you'll go much further in your profession.
Nice try though.
you go man!
forums.mtbr.com/santa-cruz/hightower-novatec-hubs-defective-warning-1064376.html
forums.mtbr.com/santa-cruz/novatec-hubs-specced-sc-bikes-1059901.html
Of course we saw the opposite growth cycle with 650b bikes, which were driven from the industry side before demand was there. This seems to be what has happened with many of the trending mountain bike genre's these days, which of course greatly influences standards.
On one hand we have companies willing to innovate and take chances with trends in the industry like fat bikes, plus bikes, suspension travel for larger tires/wheels, etc. On the other hand this has resulted in more proprietary parts and standards. I applaud the willingness of companies to make these gambles, but with no unity among the large bike and components manufactures, of course consumers will be forced to some degree to drink the Koolaide. This type of meeting seems like a big step in the right direction. Just get the big bike manufactures to show up and participate and we could all benefit.
Take for instance the 148 mm standard. Why this standard when there is already the 150 mm rear hub spacing? 1 mm diference on each side!!! I mean, you could use your existing 10 year old 150mm rear hub from hope or chris king, which last forever, and keep it rolling instead of purchase new hub. This is what I call waist of resources. The same for 20 mm on forks. We now all have 15 mm, but if we had 15 mm before they would have switch it to 20 mm with all those benefits. Mountain biking needs to be more eco friendly and wallet friendly. There is no point in spending all those resources on great parts and parts that last forever if in the next year they come out with new stuff to make the previous ones obsolete.
This isn't about companies greed, but in the design process certain elements need to change otherwise you see no progress. Maybe a couple mm on the hubs don't matter much, but in some cases if a company wants to try and come up with something different they have to change dimensions. You could argue well it isn't needed, but that's what engineers do as a job, try to make better designs. Telling companies to just put out the same thing so that it is cheaper or easier for the consumer completely ignores the purpose of why engineers are even employed. I'm an aerospace engineer, I work in aircraft, and there is almost nothing that stays exactly the same from aircraft model to aircraft model.
Like the old 135x12 standard, the 150mm standard was a bit of a pain to use because of the loack of those notches in the dropouts to locate the hub in the right position to insert the axle; you had to hold the wheel and frame in just the right spot to get the axle in. Hence the 157mm standard that added 3.5mm to each end cap to slot into new notches in the dropouts in the exact same way that 142mm was created by adding 3.5mm to each end cap on a 135mm hub.
I would have preferred that they just stuck with 142 and 157 as the two standards
So many of these "standards" really are unnecessary and complicate the situation for everyone downstream of the big bike company designer. Can it really be considered a "standard" if it's constantly in flux and changed to a new (read: not backwards compatible) version every year? Sure bikes are getting better every year, but I don't attribute a whole lot of that to each of these standards - mostly to geometry, materials, and better functioning, more reliable subsystems (suspension, brakes, drivetrain, etc).
Not to mention, it's not exactly straight forward trying to find all the right tech info and drawings to see what is/isn't compatible with each product. Talk about a nightmare for consumers, smaller manufacturers, and shops alike.
Kudos to Pinkbike for trying to get the conversation started.
135 QR and 135x12 TA could share the same basic rear triangle design, minus the dropouts, and made it possible to have convertible hubs. But 135x12 was a pain to use because there was no notches in the dropouts to locate the hub in the right position to insert the axle, so you had to hold the hub and frame in just the right spot to get the axle in.
142x12 TA solved this neatly by just adding 3.5mm to both end caps and putting a 3.5mm notch in each dropout. The change was purposefully not about making anything wider (as the inside face of the dropouts was still supposed to be about 135mm wide) but about making an easy to use TA standard. Many hubs could be converted over with new end caps, and many frames with replaceable dropouts could be upgraded too. This relatively painless change in standards allowed the bike industry to finally make rear thru axles a common thing!
I rely on purchasing new bikes with the cash of selling off my previously used bikes. If those bikes are obsolete and worthless in a year or two then I'm going to keep my bikes a lot longer, e.g., not spend money in the bike industry, until the "standards" settle down.
Really the industry isn't pushing us anywhere as hard as people seem to think. You can still get 135x10 qr rear hubs, Stans Flow rims in 26" (with 26" tubes, Schraeder valves and Schwalbe tires with Addix compound etc.). Everything is still there to keep your 15 year old bike going. I'm having a new 26" frame built and I'm not even half worried I won't be able to find components. Some things have unified, so things have diversified. Back in the days you had IS front, IS rear, PM and Boxxer mount disc brake mounts. Yes some forks and frames have 180mm or 203mm disc brake mounts but this also went with IS back in the day. There were multiple (poor fitting) chain guide mounts until Weagle got together with a couple of manufacturers and defined ISCG05. Same with Cane Creek, standardized the headset sizing. Multiple standards yes, but for good reason and fairly comprehensive. And now with dropper seatposts the number of seat post diameters has dropped tremendously as well. There is good reason to mess with several established standards (chain link length, pedal thread diameter, handlebar diameter where the grip goes...) that would mean the end of the friendly and understanding PB comment section as we know it. But the industry hasn't, yet.
As long as brands keep trying new stuff, we'll be seeing variation. And if you find yourself on the bleeding edge of it, you risk investing in a dead end (first generation Saint hubs, rapid rise...). If you don't want that, make sure you're behind the times at least five years or so and you'll be good.
Yeah. 142 was legit. I'm still running a few sets of ancient King rear 135 hubs that I upgraded to 142 with a simple axel swap.
148... I tell you that is what pushed people over the edge. Virtually no difference can be felt on the trail but it rendered many frames and hubs incompatible.
150/157... That should have been the next step up from 142. If I'm going to change out expensive hubs I better be able to feel it on the trail.
Why this specific issue , 148, was not in the audio clip makes no sense to me. It was the single most inflammatory change the bike industry did.
Big props to King and Felton for launching such a noble forum. Keep up the good work.
Me, I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I'm riding my 142 spaced Knolly on ancient King hubs. I plan to make my next trail bike with a 157 rear hub. Completely ignoring 148. If the 157 trail bike does not work out, I'll use that hub on my DH bike. Imagine that, a hub that can be used on both your trail bike and your DH bike - now that would be real innovation, or maybe just plain common sense.
Road spacing is only got to 130mm in the 1990s, and this is still standard on most non-disc bikes. MTB spacing only went to 135 in the 1990s as well, for instance Shimano XT M732 was available in 130mm OLD until 1994 at least.
As for the 150 not adjusting the hub flanges, I'm sure some hub manufacturers did but it actually makes a lot of sense not to move the disc side flange because it allows for even spoke tension (because the rim has moved in relation to both flanges). Is even tension more important that a better bracing angle on that one side? I don't know but I've certainly read plenty of people argue that it is.
Pinkbike staff: Can we sticky this comment by @vinay to the top of each and every article about any new 'standards' news. It'd save everyone so much time.
Absolutely vinay; nail on the head. With you on that one.
Because USA cycling industry is run by people with business degrees that have nothing to do with sport, let alone cycling?
ABC of business school: Make more products = sell more products.
Make old (12 months) products obsolete and force people to update.
Charlie Cunningham (the single, most influential person in mtb development imho) had 118 front and 140-141 (?) rear hubs in the 80's. For a reason.
If you never heard of him, you should really look him up.
30 Years afterwards the industry
The manufacturers are performance driven; the best bike will of course, be the bike they want to make, and no-one is trying to drive consumer sales for the sake of it. If you make the best bike, people will buy it. Most of us get that.
That works at the macro, industry level and no-one can justifiably get angry about that; it is the way industry works.
Thing is, all consumers are essentially operating at the ultimate micro level. The individual.
That is why many consumers have that "sour" feeling as mentioned in the podcast.
For my part, I have given up. It is too expensive and changes too quickly right now. Enjoy the future everyone; I'm just riding my old bikes and don't have to worry about it any more. Have a good upcoming weekend everyone, whatever you ride.
On one side, I can't skip on all the BS this industry try to spoon feed the consumer, all the false claims, inflated prices, etc
But on the other side I see the mad evolution the bikes have had in this 30 years, and in last 10 too. As soon as new stuff came out people called BS on it. Myself, "why the hell would I need 3x8?? 3x7 is perfectly fine". And it was fine at the time, but over the years we landed to my beloved 1x, and all started adding 1 cog at the time.
So my point is, bikes are a million times better than they were in the 90s, all by adding or removing some milimiters here and there once in a while, that can seem a gimmick individually, but all together make a difference.
And said so, please, stop the crazy shit going on with the hubs, we arrived here, is all good, just keep it like this for a few years ;
I proceed now to listen to the podcast.
It appears we are victims of the infamous "Hunt's Tomato Sauce Study" done at Cornell in the 80's. Baffle the consumer with choices so they are never satisfied with what they actually have and always think the grass is greener on the other side.
Should bikes actually increase in value if the frame is tried and true and held the same year after year? Mtn Biking has become too disposable.
The next logical step is to just lease your bike, why own it? The prices are up there with good used cars now, so why not? I would rather lease a good bike for the season and just renew the next year.
The new standards have much less to do with the Hub than it does with the Chain line, Tire Clearance, Q-Factor, and Frame Stiffness. The hub is a poor byproduct of frame engineers. They didn't start with the hub. They didn't even really design any wheels when they were doing it. The rear wheel just becomes marketing garbage.
Because the biggest companies in the industries make the standard everyone else must follow. The people above can have opinions but ultimately if they want to be in the industry they have to follow what the others do. If i9 didn't make boost they wouldn't sell much - whether they like boost or not.
These new standards are not really an improvement at all on the rear hub. Front hub however is great!
At least keep an option for every bike part to be able to be purchased on custom order, I mean to produce that one rotor that you liked or that one frame or I don't know.
But don't force me to buy a 27.5 wheel if I like my 26" wheels.I just went through a lot to find some Mavic EX 721 Disc rims 26"... why did it had to be that hard?
Currently searching for a Shimano Saint Oversized Centerlock 160mm and I can't find one anywhere
I was also really surprised by how neutral everyone was about the direct-to-consumer issue (in that particular segment, which is on the Chris King site), but I think the bike industry is largely resigned to the idea that direct-to-consumer (or "omni channel sales" or whatever we want to call it) is here and ultimately inevitable. Now it's just a question of figuring out how bike shops will survive the shift in how bike companies sell their bikes. In a sense, it's already happened with components and consumers are already in the habit of buying everything else (other than, perhaps, cars) online, so digging in their heels and praying that consumers won't do the same with bikes is a bit like tilting at windmills.
For bike shops to survive the shift, however, they are really going to have to shift the way they do business. Can't be easy for them.
Thanks for listening.
you know whats a sham, specific bike wash, or any specific soap for that matter. If its safe for my balls its gotta be safe for my bike. How about bike/hike/run specific socks?
The industry continues to move forward whether you as a consumer are on board or not. Humans love innovation, but hate paying for it. Unfortunately, there are certain restrictions that force us to buy into whatever new idea comes along.
I buy bike things or get "worried" about standards because I'm an addict and have more time behind the screen than on my actual bikes (+4 MTBs and 2 Roadbikes)
With time passing by (like standards), I concluded thst it matters more the ride/trail/friends than all this mambojambo!
Just Ride You're bike!
www.pinkbike.com/news/12x142-explained.html
Fact is this: Had the industry listened to Cunningham of WTB & Bradbury over at Manitou back in the 80’s we’d at one standard by 1992.
But we didn’t because the peanut gallery chimed in.
Brandbury did 110/145. Cunnigham I believe did 118/140 or 145. But no, everyone thought we should stick to existing standards vs make a better product.
One of the worst things we can do is listen to the forum junkies & armchair engineers. Pity guys like Cunningham & Bradbury are out of the biz.
Ironically, my handlebar is compatible with EVERY brand of grips except for WBT's new padlock grip. However, after riding enough Pivots with this new grip, I am sold on the advantages of it. In fact, I voluntarily paid to have my bars cut to accept these new grips. Now, I realize these grips and bar shape will most likely NEVER become the standard, but I just made my bike less backwards-compatible. Now I'm forced to buy WTB or Pivot grips from now on; but I'm OK with that because I love the performance upgrade; i can feel it, and it makes a large difference to me. It was worth the performance advantage.
Thankfully, if I ever wanted to go back, I can buy a new bar for $100-180 and go back. And this was a total voluntary choice for me, making my bike less compatible with other products. So... I guess I play both sides of the fence.
I will say... long gone are the days of just buying a frame and swapping my old parts on; because of all these hub standards. My $1600 non-boost wheels are now worth $400 and they won't transfer to my new frame. Used bikes are less usable and compatible now. It's definitely a double-edged sword.
Thank goodness we're "settled" on tapered head tubes and 15mm front axles.
But to do it, it will take me a very long time and when I do have the cash, I have to factor more than just my taste into the equation.
The concept of Voting with your wallet is great on paper but in reality I don't believe it really happens. The vast majority buy something because the marketing got them; from bikes to cell phones to cosmetics, whatever it is, there are rarely any real options.
The whole 26" vs 27.5 thing is a great example: at the time they said vote with your wallet, but who would pay thousands to buy a bike that has old standards, isn't fashionable and won't have a good resale value? The marketing won.
Malcom was right...
One question I would ask, when will someone realise we ask for a bigger axle on the front of the bike than the rear?
www.facebook.com/Mpora/videos/1663381850443101
Larger wheels need a wider hub. Don't tell me you think a 29er 150mm travel bike rear wheel should be on a 135mm rear hub spacing.
video with reasons: www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I mean seriously...