Video: Budget Drivetrains & Inverted Forks | 2023 Sea Otter Classic

 Mate I thought the same thing, I was like options are great, but $680 is bananas !

 Isn't the Box One to be compared to XTR or XX? Either way, thing gotta be way, WAY sturdier than those offerings to really be a contender.

Also, 9 gears are sweeeet.

 Be honest 680 only gets you an AXS derailleur and shifter. The cassette is anothe 180$. For box, 680$ gets you their nicest shifter and derailleur and their Gucci 1 piece cassette. The budget model was around 250 in the previous iteration. I’d imagine the new mode will be similar. The one piece cassette on the first gen was somewhere around 350g. That’s XTR /XO territory. The quality of their shifter on the previous 11 speed has kept me away though. The original single lever shifter worked great but the two lever shifter I ended up blowing up two on their first rides. I wound up just running a Shimano shifter which worked fine. I do wonder if I can get the cassette to play nice with my advent shifter/derailleur. Gx AXS on my other bike is also flawless for informing my biases.

 @gotohe11carolina:
Uhhh. No. www.bike-discount.de/de/sram-gx-eagle-axs-12-fach-upgrade-kit-10-52t-1
599 euros, shifter, cassette, derailleur, chain GX eagle axs.
www.bike-discount.de/de/sram-gx-eagle-dub-1x12-fach-gruppe-10-52 or Mechanical for 200 less and you get the crankset and chainring too.

 @gotohe11carolina: Not apples to apples but I liked the jumps on the Box3 9 speed cassette to replace the Microshift cassette that I bent on a bad shift. The shifting worked well with the Advent shifter and derailleur. I was having trouble with a standard 9 speed chain and those problems were fixed by getting a Box Prime9 chain.

It sounds like this video says a standard 9 speed chain is supposed to work on the new Box1.

Comparing the Prime9 chain to a standard 9 speed chain. It looks to me that there were flared recesses on the outer links on the Prime9.

 @ak-77: that’s a lot cheaper than US pricing. That’s below cost for shops. The AXS upgrade kit is 600 usd alone. The 1275 cassette ranges from 165-180. Chain ads another 40$. All told usd works out pretty close to 800$.
northwestbicycle.com/products/sram-gx-axs-group-kit-with-52t-gx-cassette-chain-gxaxsfullgroup?currency=USD&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIot3vtfrC_gIVJ_TjBx0BFgpnEAQYAiABEgLz9_D_BwE

 @vapidoscar: ooh good to know. I’m happy with the advent but the cassettte is a boat anchor

 @gotohe11carolina: yeah, sometimes the big online German shops sell items cheaper than what the LBS here in NL pays wholesale. The bicycle industry is weird like that.

 @ak-77: its not weird, its volume discounts

 In the UK Henry is considered a normal person...

 He reminds me of Kip, from Napoleon Dynamite

 * I give it a year from now

 I never lost my 20mm, I'll just sit back and enjoy it coming back now I guess!!

 considering 15mm forks are now being used in rampage, don't think 20mm will have the comeback that you think

 20mm axles will be back... its an inevitability IMO because we are seeing more upside-down forks, which benefit immensely from the torsional rigidity that thick axles provide. Seems a bit unnecessary on traditional forks, they're pretty rigid these days. I'd be very surprised if there was a discernable difference between a 15mm axle modern enduro fork and a 20mm axled one.

 Yes! Bring 20 mm back please!

 They’ve got to wait long enough for people to think it’s the new cool thing

 My count is 10 of you

 wince and plummet - nailed it.

 @CustardCountry: after Shimano and Fox promoting 15mm, it'll be SRAM/Rockshox this time and it'll be 19.99mm to avoid backwards compatibility.

 @Mac1987: Don't be giving them any ideas...we'll end up with 17.5! Argh!!!

 It'll come back, but it'll be 20mm x 120mm, with a slightly positive offset for the disc, you know even spoke tension and all that.....Makes it tough to re-purpose your old CK front hub

 I used to agree with you, and wanted a Bartlett style dual crown enduro fork.... but the 190mm single crown Zeb is 3/4 pound lighter than a Boxxer, and again they are being used in Rampage now...

 20mil would also really help the inverted forks

 @ryanandrewrogers: Doubt that dual crowns will be mainstream. The issues is that no pro is going to like them, because they ultimately feel different and weigh more, which means sacrificing time to adapt to them and being slower. Because mtb market pretty much runs on advertising, consumers are not going to buy them, even though the advantages of usd forks are better for the recreational rider.

Also, USD forks need more accurate machining, so seals don't pop out and leak fluid all over your rotor. Bike industry isn't exactly known for accuracy.

 @8a71b4: I'm saying 20mm axles for single crowns will be coming back because of USD forks.

I didn't really want the heat of the dual vs single crown debate but IMO it would just take a little bit of development to make a dual crown as uphill able as the modern Zeb/38. The Zeb is hardly even a half-pound lighter than the Boxxer Ultimate (meaning the Zeb is closer in weight to a Boxxer than to a Lyrik ). You're right that dual crowns won't be mainstream too soon, but I don't think it's because of the racers. I think it looks too weird and people wouldn't buy it.

The current generation 38mm enduro forks occupy a stupid middle ground right now, with dual-crown weight and single-crown performance. Something has to give soon, right? Either dual crowns or USD first, but I reckon both eventually because the two work best together.

 @ryanandrewrogers: There is a 300 gram difference between the Zeb and Boxxer WC according to what I've read (29er vs 29er). Is that out of date?

My armchair engineering gut-instinct does day that an inverted fork for the 150mm+ range would probably be easier to engineer as a dual crown chassis, given the torsional stiffness challenge. Really, unless you do something like the Lefty or DVO's integrated guards/bridge, the only way to get good torsional stiffness on an inverted fork is to have insane fore-aft stiffness, which prevents the two legs from flexing at different rates (the true source of torsional flex), which is easier to achieve with a DC.

 @hamncheez: The difference is 268 grams using reviewed weights between the two forks both in 29", although could be somewhat inaccurate since RS is known to really mess up when it comes to putting oil in the damn things from the factory.

My armchair engineering instincts agree with yours, which is why I think 20mm axles are a must for any kind of USD, to help keep the legs flexing at the same rate.

 @ryanandrewrogers: X-Fusion had their Revel inverted fork that ported over the same brass keys that dropper posts use. They never released the fork stateside (or in Europe) because it was clear what worked on droppers didn't work on suspension- the twisting forces would cause the brass keys to bind, creating massive stiction in corners and on more extreme torsional loads they just broke.

 @hamncheez: Yeah, do not know why X-Fusion thought that 34mm stanchions with their little keyed system would work on an all-mountain USD fork. Attempting to mitigate twisting within each individual stanchion doesn't really translate to solving rigidity across the whole fork.

I quite like what PUSH has done here with the crown providing what appears to be a lot of torsional support for the legs. But, I have to question whether one big heavy crown is any lighter than two crowns, cause it sure as hell ain't gonna be as stiff.

 @ryanandrewrogers: I think roller bearings in one leg would do the trick. Like a lefty on one side, but that begs the question why not just a lefty....

 @hamncheez: You got any proof on that, or is that just your guess? I've owned my Revel for about three years now and ridden it fairly hard, I've never had any of the issues you've just said. I don't believe you.

 @freeriderayward: Where did you get it?

 @ryanandrewrogers: The Australian dealer, diymtb had a couple of them a while back. They are rare as hens teeth!

 We're still in Abril.

 @noapathy: Wait for Mayo, the sinkhole will swallow all of sea otter and the world along with it.

 @eebz: Clambaked, all of you.

 Evil and Orange are doing a colab?

 who'd want to buy from that company... with their attitude no way.

 @HeatedRotor: that in regard to push or 5Dev?

 @stormracing: sorry, 5dev.

 @HeatedRotor: dang, I’ve had struggles with push in the past but never 5Dev! What happened?
They’ve always been bend over backwards incredible towards me

 @HeatedRotor: seen way too many snapped cranks online from them recently, and that one interaction the bike shop guy had with them is not a good look.

 @stormracing: well they've finally been called out for their less than acceptable cranks and their rude Warranty/social guy.

I had some snap on me, they said "oh mustve been a prototype set" cool, sent me anther set, they snapped when i went over a road bump on way to trail so i contacted them again, "oh, mustve been a prototype set" literally a copy and paste email - I questioned this and the guy told me to lose weight so they wouldnt keep breaking and that wasnt their problem.

now they have been abusing customers on socials and deleting comments on their posts - ie any negative ones

 @HeatedRotor: dang, I’ve been out of the loop and didn’t know all that. Been great times with mine but sorry to hear that! Hope mine hold. That always blows when it turns into that stuff
Appreciate the explanation on all that’s been going on!

 @HeatedRotor: I've been trying to find some info or images of this issue with their cranks and haven't turned up anything. Could you send me some links? Makes me kinda worry about mine but so far I've been super hard on them with no issues.

 @Takaya94: www.instagram.com/p/CrKAKzXujTp

 @wburnes: That is a terrifying clip - rider was lucky not to end up in hospital.

 @wburnes: bummer I wanted a set until I watched that video/ read these comments.

 @wburnes: damn that's shitty, I hope they world on their QC.

Though I will say from personal experience they are solid. I have mine on a chromag hardtail that's been clapped to shit so far on some jumps n drops. Don't see any signs of stress or a failure yet. I'll let you guys know if that changes but so far, I have no complaints with them.

 @HeatedRotor: I struggle with this too. While I like some of their stuff, I can't bring myself to buy it after reading the lawsuits associated with 5th axis (their workholding company)

 Unfortunately $3,000 AXS Transmission XX1 SL makes $680 now seem "budget"....

 The point is to give you a hub that will mount a 6-bolt rotor like a 6-boly hub (i.e. no lock ring), and, give you center-lock. A lot of 6-bolt holdouts are just that because they prefer bolts to lock-rings for various reasons.

It's also the only fix if you bodge up the lock-rings threads on a center-lock hubs, and give you redundancy where it was not available before.

 Fortunately the hubs have a center lock hubshell as the baseline, so no problem. What's cool for center lock users is that in the small chance you foul up your lock ring threads, these flanges will still allow you to ride where previously your hubs would have been toast. Infrequent issues, but for the few who see it is a big deal.

 Were they supposed to have released something?

 Pick a rotor mounting system and be a dick about it!