 | Most of the people here could get jobs at Porsche or VW, but they're here because they love bikes.
Chris Hilton |
As far as history goes, SRAM's Drivetrain Development Centre in Schweinfurt has one of the deepest in our sport. While SRAM itself may have its roots in Chicago in the late 1980s, the story of their drivetrain division goes right the way back to 1895. Ernst Sachs and Karl Fichtel began producing ball bearings and bicycle hubs under the name Fichtel and Sachs in the small, Southern German town. Two years later they expanded into freewheels and by 1911 they already had around 7,000 employees. Yet as the years passed Sachs became more focused on drivetrains and chassis for automobiles and motorcycles, the bicycle division became a small concern amidst a vast company. On the other side of the Atlantic a rapidly growing SRAM realized that a century of expertise would be a huge boost to their range and come 1997 they acquired Sachs' bicycle division.
You can best understand that merger by looking at the product that emerged from it: the SRAM 9.0 SL derailleur. Before the merger SRAM were producing the 9.0 derailleur and Sachs the Plasma derailleur. On holding the products in your hands you can see the way the two designs were put together - the cable routing from the SRAM design combines with the knuckle from the Sachs offering, their engineers took the best of each design and produced a derailleur that was only truly superseded with the introduction of XX1 in 2012. Talking to Bernhard Johanni, his surprise at how it played out is evident - nearly 20 years later he still jokes that he "must have known something useful as they didn't fire me." Most of the older guys in the building have little plaques sitting somewhere in their workspace proudly announcing 15 years of service with SRAM - a sign they were with Sachs before the merger, the knowledge of more than a century of drivetrain components has stayed firmly within the company. For the newly-merged company a new building was needed and with all the heavy machinery acquired with Sachs already in Schweinfurt, it was the obvious location for the new centre. All of SRAM's drivetrain expertise was brought together under one roof in a brand new, custom-built facility.
To think of Schweinfurt in these terms misses the point though. In our sport the growth from a few guys with good ideas to a global organization is a tricky one, especially in people's minds. In a small, community-based sport the idea of a financially successful company spanning the planet is for many an intrusion into our quiet world. The tin foil hat brigade can all too readily imagine the accountants watching over everything as the daily shipment of puppies is brought in to be ground down for oil to keep the hellish machines running.
"Most of the people here could get jobs at Porsche or VW, but they're here because they love bikes." That's how drivetrain product manager, Chris Hilton describes the people he works with. You have to take a step back and look at the German economy to put that into perspective. Germany is undoubtedly the engineering powerhouse of the Western hemisphere. They were the first major nation to emerge from the 2008 financial crisis; while the US motor industry lurches from crisis to crisis VW, BMW and Mercedes are powering ahead; as Europe staggers onwards into, well whatever the Eurozone problems are leading too, Germany is more or less carrying the whole continent. In short, now is a good time to be an engineer in Germany. There is money to be made if you're willing to follow it. Yet that money never makes it as far as the bicycle industry. It never has, the reality has always been that by choosing to work on mountain bikes you are choosing to earn tens of thousands of Euros or dollars less than you would if you went into a more mainstream industry.
There is only ever one reason people choose to work in the bike industry - they love bikes. It's a well-worn adage, but it seems to be somewhat forgotten for the people behind the scenes - especially for your drivetrain, which you shouldn't even notice when it is working well. Most of the time nobody asks, "Who designed the ramps and chamfers on my cassette?" They haven't met Matthias and seen the excitement as he hand-cuts a blank cassette in his lab, meticulously sculpting the gear changes you take for granted, which all need to be precisely shaped and placed to make shifting possible at all. Or Robert, who started with Sachs more than 20 years ago, and still keeps the Sachs Quartz derailleur he designed in the late 90s by his desk. Grinning he shows you his legacy, his sole focus for all these years - the derailleur - he has literally worked on nothing but derailleurs and his joy in designing them seems undiminished by time as he shows you his latest creation, one step closer to perfection. What about the Dealer Service Centre, where a room of highly trained and tattooed guys in their early 20s blast loud metal and service up to 250 cases in a single day for customers all over Germany?
In mountain biking we tend to prefer our engineers to be men in sheds or garages. We like them slightly socially awkward, excitable and brimming with clever ideas. Yet what is sometimes forgotten as a company expands is that it was those kind of men who started SRAM. Today those same people still run the company, and, on the evidence of the people you meet in Schweinfurt, they have filled it with people just like them.
Once the decision is made to turn an idea into a product the project is passed to the dedicated team who deal with that component. There is a team for chainrings, another for cassettes, one for rear derailleurs and so on for each sort of component they make here - people who dedicate their working lives to a single component. Development starts with what they know. In the case of their recently-launched direct mount chainrings a blank chainring was the starting point. They knew what the attachment would the crank would have to look like and that it would have a standard number of teeth on the outside, so they started prototyping from there - then the development process shaped the form for performance, strength and weight. Going through the iterations they then started looking at the extremes - the lightest design possible, the strongest, finally working towards the design with the best compromise between the two.
Once they have a design to test the idea comes down here to the prototype lab. It is on these machines that every SRAM drivetrain development since 1997 has taken shape. When we talk about putting resources at the engineers' disposal, this a big part of what that means - there is no need to improvise, almost every manufacturing process can be done here in-house, just on a far smaller scale than a production facility. Many of the guys working in this part of the building are a bit older, with decades of experience in machining to the highest standards. It's fascinating to see their approach to their machines, alongside brand, new cutting-edge CNC machines that look like something shipped straight from a design convention, you have others dating back to the 1950s and a drill all the way from 1928. In many ways it says a lot about German engineering - these machines are still going strong after the best part of a century. As well as the more recognizable machines, there are some here that are a whole lot rarer; like a wire saw that runs on 0.25mm metal wire to cut precise shapes in metal too thin to CNC (apparently it is so sharp you wouldn't even feel it as it cut your finger off) and an EDM cutter.
Some prototypes need input from the engineers before they are ready to move onto the next phase. Cassettes are a good example of this - the very act of changing a gear is part-science, part-art. To make it work you need a complex, interconnected series of ramps and chamfers. The ramps allow the chain to smoothly move up to the sprocket above, and the chamfers both catch the upwards-moving chain, and allow it drop down again. However, to make the cassette work smoothly as a whole is mind-bendingly complicated. Working on a repeating pattern, that pattern needs to repeat and line up across the different-sized sprockets so shifting feels consistent all the way across the block. Working on a hand crank, the cassette is first marked to set the basis for the pattern, then each ramp and chamfer is lovingly sculpted by hand, tested, then re-sculpted until each shift is slick and easy. How difficult this process is can be seen with the XX1 project. Their original idea was that it should feature a 9-36 tooth cassette, but testing showed that a 9 tooth sprocket was both difficult to make work in terms of shifting performance and longevity on the bike, so they backed off to a ten tooth on the small end and added the extra range at the top of the cassette. Hand-cut cassettes are then taken upstairs and modelled on a computer so they can be produced by a machine next time.
Once the prototypes are ready testing begins with the "Wire Donkey." Its name is a joke that doesn't quite translate over from German - although the name still seems fitting. The premise is simple - to test something you first need to know what you are testing for. For example, to understand the forces that go through a crank during hard acceleration they roped in one of their 4X racers and had him do hill sprints on the bike (well, a mountain bike version of this bike which wasn't in the office when we visited). Using that kind of real world data they can then design the most appropriate lab tests to simulate them and repeat them over and over again in a controlled environment.
Once the test team know what they are looking for they head downstairs to the test lab to put the prototypes through their paces. Before testing commences in full the parts are mounted on a hand crank setup that allows them to test the basic functionality - does it all work together? Do the gears shift? Does the chain stay on? When they are sure of that it moves onto they move onto the other machines to test the parts to the their limits and beyond. They are looking to answer questions like: How long will it keep working for? How much force can we put through it in
this direction? How much stress can the chain withstand? When it fails, how does it fail? Failure is a big issue that most people don't stop to think about, because if the testing process is done well and they kit is used sensibly, the chances are they won't experience a dramatic failure. All parts have a failure point though, the design process looks to compromise strength and weight - for instance, they could make a near-indestructible chainring if you were happy pedalling around with a kilogram of metal attached to your cranks... The important thing with failure is that it happens in a controlled way. While we were in the lab they put a direct mount ring attached to XX1 cranks through a load test. The ISO standards state that a crank and ring need to be able to withstand a load of 1,500 Newtons - as a matter of policy SRAM far surpass such standards and they loaded the crankset with around three times as much weight. After the test, sure, the cranks were no longer straight and the chainring was pretty heavily deformed, but nothing broke off and the chain actually stayed on the ring. If that had happened on a ride you'd probably have had a nasty landing and you'd be walking home, but you wouldn't have an ankle full of shards of carbon and splintered chainring - a critical difference.
To fully understand what has happened in testing the parts are sent to the measurements lab. In fact, they are sent here before testing for baseline measurements too. Using microscopes, precise 3D modelling and scales so sensitive they can detect the weight of your breath on them, they can detect the precise effect of testing on the parts - for example, using powerful microscopes they can examine how the testing has affected the very make up of the material. Data from the measurements lab is sent up to the design team who compare the results with their 3D models and FEA analysis to make decisions on how the next iteration should look. The whole process to this point will then be repeated, new prototypes will be designed, produced, tested and measured until they reach a point where they feel the part satisfies the goal they set out at the beginning of the project. All of this is accompanied by real world testing too, because as good as the machines are they, the engineers know that nothing can completely substitute for having a part used out on the trail. The testing and measurement phases don't stop with the prototypes either, all the way through the life of a product it samples will come back to these labs as part of the quality control process - working to make sure that what is sold to customers meets the standards they reached in development.
When the engineers reach a point where they have a product that works in the way they want, and meets their strength and weight criteria, the final stage is that it goes to the industrial design team. As brilliant as the engineers undoubtedly are, they consider the product solely in terms of function, and as consumers, if we're paying top dollar for a part, we expect it to look good too. Maybe the best-known example of the industrial design team's work is the XX1 derailleur. On its launch SRAM were showing the media the pre-production prototypes - an angular, industrial-looking metal contraption. In terms of function it was almost identical the derailleur that you see on people's bikes today, yet if you're truthful, would you really want that hanging on the back of a bike you've invested time, love and money into? Industrial design add sex appeal to the engineering. It is their job to turn the solid block of metal into swooping angular designs and add colour to the whole affair. With the XX1 derailleur they cite the Audi R8 as one of their major influences, and as a ridiculous an idea as it may sound at first, when you look at the finished product next to the shapes and colours that influenced them, you can really see how they carried the design language from the car over into a derailleur.
Once the look is finalized, the process moves away from Schweinfurt to SRAMs facilities in Taiwan, where they begin pre-production and then production of the product. The development of a product takes time - the rear derailleur alone for XX1, which featured a complete re-design of their existing products, started in February 2011 and was released to the general public in August 2012. If you run any SRAM drivetrain component on your bike, whether it's a derailleur, shifter, cassette or chainring, these are the people who designed it, and this is how it was developed.
See additional images in the gallery.
www.sram.com
200 Comments
Ever worked in the bicycle industry?
If there are this big margins, I wonder why the big bosses are not driving the big expensive cars and live in big expensive houses and [...]
I'm sorry to dissapoint you, but the big money is made elswhere in the business world.
If there wouldn't be this passion and love for bikes, I bet most of the people who are now working in the bicylce industry would work in a better paid job.
So:
Thank you Mr. Karl Drais for the invention of the bicycle. The greatest thing invented, ever!
Be very good at an SME and you will get paid ok to well but nothing to compete with oil and gas, medical also pays well and comes with the bonus that you are doing things that help people's lives Massively.
Im not sure about cars per say, but the fact that bikes change hands a few times doesnt help and gets marked up a little, every time along the wa. Ex: From Manufacturer -> Distributor -> Bike shop -> Customer.
If the bicycle industry was more profitable, we would no doubt be much farther ahead in technology, such as gearbox mtgs etc.
In the bike industry you can still have a hardtail frame made in Taiwan for $40.- including paint and sell it for $400.-...
Yes, it doesn't work that way for all the parts, batches are still much smaller in the bike industry compared to automotive, supply chains less sophisticated... but people really should stop going around telling everybody that there is no money to be made in the bike industry, which is simply not true.
@DARKSTAR63: The comparison to the automotive industry is (quite prominently) right in the article.
And most people in the auto industry are also there because that's where they want to be. If there wasn't money to be made there would be no such thing as a mountain bike industry. Complaining about not getting fabulously rich is an entirely different thing from complaining that there's virtually no money to be made at all. If we can agree that the first is what bothers people in the bike industry I'm with you.
However, I would also like to include something entirely positive: I really like the "Inside..." articles series, its always good to read about the companies behind the products.
In my eyes it's just a pity that there seems to be some kind of obligation to say that there's "no money to be made" in every article about the bike industry.
I work for bmw as a service technician. I can assure you the majority of the money we make is from bmw paying us to perform warranty repairs.
Generally, the markup on a new car is between 3-7%, with the majority being in the 4-5% range. The state of utah makes approximately 8% on sales tax. Yes, the state makes more money than we do when we sell a car. Key to keeping the dealership afloat is to keep the cars that we sell coming back to us for service.
The dock and destinanton fees generally pay for shipping the car to the dealership. Used car dealers that charge these are generally covering accounting costs and time/effort/money that goes into title, registration and state safety/inspection items as well as auction costs.
Revenue of Toyota: +/- 22 000 B$ (Yes 22 Trillions), Hyundai: 90 B$.
We are not dealing with the same kind of number here, I find it hard to compare those 2 industries. Cars sells by volume so they don't need high margin, bikes doesn't have the same volume of sales at all.
I'm not saying there is no money to make at all. But if you are planning to get rich, you might want to go work for another industry...
And now look at the prices the customer pays...
The execs of SRAM may drive fancy cars, but do they own fancy yatchs? And where do they get the bulk of their money? Many execs are from wealthy families that paid for fancy schools in management.
I am all for companies paying the low end better, but I am not going to throw these guys under the bus without knowing the facts.
What surprises me about SRAM, considering how they are bragging about their long history and how many of their drivetrain employees are highly qualified engineers that could work for Porsch, is that their products don't have a very high level of engineering to them. The only thing they have accomplished in their drivetrain history is making minor improvements on the index shifting system that Shimano invented about 25 years ago. They are still sticking with the archaic chain & derailleur system that is absolutely the weakest link on a mtb and the biggest cause of mechanical frustration for consumers. Especially now that tubeless tires have become so reliable. History will hopefully prove that these hideous looking humongous 42 tooth cassettes are one of the most laughable moments in mountain bike technology.
Considering that fact, I am completely not impressed with this article or their accomplishments. And I won't hold my breath for a 'Inside SRAM' segment on Avid brakes.
On the bright side, derailleurs ensure work for bike techs. Once those are gone what will techs fix? Brake bleeds and wheel truing will be all that is left and even those are less important than before as brakes get more reliable long term and rims change material.
Before long you will send off a removable gearbox for annual service along side your fork and rear shock.
When I am a teacher what am I going to do for a summer job? Sell tacos and beer at the trail head?
What about turtles?
This article shows SRAM have been working on derailleurs for 20 years and have not come up with a better way to allow riders to change gears.
That old derailleur looks very similar to todays derailleurs. This shows how little progression we have seen in the last 20 years. Innovative, I think not.
I rode SRAM 11 speed for the first time this weekend on my new bike and was amazed at how similar it felt to my 1x10 setup on shimano. It's hardly groundbreaking and I wouldn't pay fot £££ for one extra cog on my cassette.
SRAM and VW. Makes sense to me... both of their product's perform well, but they require a ton of maintenance. Haha.
Now that I know Sram is German, I will probably pronounce it with a German Porn accent from now on
yeah, found their rear derailleur to have terrible durability (in the mounting bolt that attaches derailleur to frame's derailleur hanger) on anything below X-0 level.
Its shocking when you try to PDI a brand new bike out of the box and the SRAM X-5,X-7,X-9 rear derailleur has so much 'slop' in that bolt that the gear indexing is unreliable, and I am claiming warranty from SRAM on a brand new, unused rear derailleur
In contrast, even Shimano's low end derailleurs are bomber solid, and give good durability.
SRAM is a great innovator, but the end result of their off-shore manufacturing facilities's QC does not, perhaps, meet the standards of their prototype equipment built domestically in Germany.
vecnum.com/produkte/moveloc/features
@WAKIdesigns No. But it would be nice if people would at least understand confirmation bias, instead of holding their own experience sacrosanct, while ignoring all evidence to the contrary. I honestly had, & have no desire to sit here & champion one product over another to the degree that I have here, but I'm easily baited when people tell others to buy something because "mine was fine, everyone else who broke theirs must have been using it wrong."
Heck, I'll rip on the FOX post right now: their remote is garbage if you don't have room to mount it underneath the bars, & is both ugly, and prone to collecting mud underneath the bars. Furthermore, the fact that it's been on the market for 2 years, & they haven't designed a new one, or at least some i-spec & matchmaker compatible brackets, is pitiful.
"Hello my children: I ride a Single speed fat bike without a dropper... on water... dig that suckers!!!" (and Bee Jees Stayin alive tune comes along - God joins Jesus on a Fixie which is even more impressive considering minimized aqua planning - he hands a joint to Jesus and flies away - meanwhile on the beach, devil looks at them and tosses his carbon nomad into the water with anger, smoking a Galouisse and saying "merde!")
And to continue the German theme, engineerd etc. in Germany and reputed to be of very high quality. It's mechanical and with a cable operated remote, but just in case there is an overide switch on the post itself so you can continue to operate it. Only drawbacks I can see are the price and availability, they're sold out in an instant, high demand, low production. It's not infinitely adjustable, something like 4 positions, but that's no drawback to me. Fixed cable is nice too. And service just takes 2 or 3 tools and a bit of grease. The saddle clamp looks very sturdy too, see that as a big plus aswell.
Almost forgot, this is a good option too: yepcomponents.com/EN/index.aspx
Er, I guess I can already throw it in the trash but my weak body needs the range! Oh well, maybe next decade. For now I've gone to a wide range 1x10 with the help of OneUp.
Anyway, adding another f*cking cog is not (that) innovative. "Hey, here's an awesome idea....... how about..... wait for it..... wait for it........ we ADD ANOTHER COG TO THE REAR CASSETTE!!!!!!" (um, props for nw rings tho, can't believe we weren't all using those a decade ago)
Well, maybe a little disrespect to SRAM. Your low/mid range brakes are seriously half-assed when pitted against Shimano's similar offerings. Fix your sh*t. Love the Pike tho.
It's ironic that you have such adoration for precision & process, and have composed such a lovely & informative article, only to underkutt it with all sorts miss pellings an and granmatical errors.
Seriously though, respect your own hard work and SPELL CHECK FOR GOD'S SAKE!!! It takes 5 minutes! Please don't contribute to the further retardation of your audience. They're knuckle-draggy enough as it is sometimes. (Yes, knuckle-draggy is a made up word, but I'm not claiming to be a bike journo, so I can do it all I want!).
I feel the articles here are just as interesting as in any print bike magazine. But what those magazines have that PB doesn't is attention to detail. Yes, they have budgets, but surely you've got a friend you could run your work by before posting? C'mon Matt! I BELeEV in u!.,
That shot of the XX1 rear mech combined with knife and R8 sketches is pretty hot.
The super reasonable PB engineers and PB Masters of Science and Technology, those making only sensible decisions (like buying a right priced 6" bike with PIKE) must have hard time accepting that SRAM didn't stay with the prototype look... bloody designers ruin everything!
Just a thought. I'm sure as hell not going to do it. (but I would consult you on this project at the very reasonable rate of $80/hr).
Take one part, any part. It's ready for sale. Finished.
Price is from total cost to get to the finished stage divided by estimated items sold (anything under sold you loose money) add a few % for profit.
If the product is a hit it makes money to pay for the 10 other items that are a flop.
Depending on what kind of Porsche you might be shopping for, you might be dismayed to find that the supply chain ranges from Slovakia, to Leipzig, to Uusikaupunki (Finland).
Reminds me of a conversation overheard at the local big box electronics store. Old coot asking the sales girl "if any of these TV's are made in the USA? I want an American-built TV, not a Korean or Japanese TV!" Must have woken up from a thirty-year nap.
Shimano Zee Derailleur
Shimano Xt 1X10 cassette
KMC X10sl Ti Chain
Oneup Components Radr Cage
Oneup Components 40/42t Chainring
Race Face Narrow Wide Chain Ring
I have one question though, what is the purpose of a direct mount chainring . . . to make a lighter and stiffer crank, probably?
The sceptic in me however says to make it harder for the smaller manufactures to make cheaper third party chain rings to fit SRAMs Cranks? Maybe ive been listening to too many Tinfoil wearing commenters . . . maybe not.
Otherwise, the fact that each company makes its own direct mount standards, is a little frustrating....
When drivetrains started to go 1x then the need for crank bolts for doubles and triples just became superfluous, thus the direct mount. And yes, there's specific splines that match up to individual companies' cranks.
If you look at the ring sizes on RF website, it does not list a 28t.
For the past year I've tricked myself into thinking it was a 28t, which when combined with the largest 36t in the rear cassette still meant I was going to struggle on the steeps. My ego just got a small boost.
Thanks for keeping me honest.
If you are content with your lowest gear, you could go up in chainring size with your cassette add on and than have a higher top gear!
Wickwerks and likely others, have released a decent price after market chain ring set. I immediately ordered a mtb triple set in anticipation of my ordered Moto Fly ti 29er.
I was curious about the supposed improved shifting because the front can be slow. Well, I am sold on their design which includes 11 shuft gates on my big ring(44T) vs 2 or 3 with the major players. Wick also use machined aluminum ramps directly from the ring body which aids in shifting and reduces effort while spreading the load on the chain over several links rather than shifting on a tiny pin catching a single chain link.
Perhaps I am wrong but why not increase the shift gates on the cassette also?
Yeah jobs as janitors.
VW is about the shittiest car company out there next to GM & Chrysler. They make cars that phone dealerships to say the lights were left on when anyone with a fvcking clue & a concern would just put a timer in the car that shuts the lights off. :s
Few cars are uglier than Porsche.
Such an old company, like $hitmano, yet just like $hitmano, still insisting on such a crude way to drive a bike. :/
Both companies offer budget offerings, and both companies offer high end offerings, its not really that complicated..
And you know what shifts faster than rapid-fire? Gripshift
lets keep this going :
x01dh cassette 340 is it? xt turned into 7 spd -80-90
shifters are matched id say...
chain -70 bucks from sram , 35 for xt from shimano "i run kmc tho"
Sorry but im sticking with SHIMANO!