088 – Are Electronic Mountain Bike Components Worth The Price? - Mountain Cog

Episode Transcript
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Dane (The Guru) (00:10):
I should know by now that the little red light
means that we're on the onethat says REC for recording so
what is this?
My 25th right?
Yeah, this is your 25th episode.
25th episode.

Josh (Magellan) (00:22):
I totally forgot it was your 25th episode.

I don't even know how to run the board and I
just look at the lights.
They're very Christmassy.

It's a very complicated board.
Not at all.

So I got a joke .
Go for it.
I did research.

I saw you doing your research.
I wrote it down too.

Yeah, you wrote it with pencil, like you didn't
even put it on your notes onyour phone.
Yeah, my handwriting's so bad Ican't even read my own
handwriting.

We've got to paint a picture for the
listeners here.

So we're kind of sitting in the bike shop on
two sides of your front desk.
Here Register counter.
Yeah, yeah, register counter.
And there's like a wall kind of, and Dane's got the joke hidden
on one side of the wall so Ican't see it Right?
Yeah, I got my soda covering it, so you can't like.

Yes, you've got like every angle.

Yeah, here we go, yeah he doesn't want me to
screw it up.
Go ahead.
Okay, so I wanted to do achicken joke because I don't
know, I like chicken jokes.

You know how you say chicken in Arabic?

No, Dajaj, dajaj.
Yeah, there you go.
That sounds like the sound I'dmake when I have like a hurt
muscle in my jaw.
To judge, can I tell an offcolor?

joke, I guess.
So.
Do you know how you say roostermarket in Arabic?
Oh God, sook deek, sook deek.
It's not off, that's just adifferent language.

Yeah, it is for sure.
Okay, so chicken joke what?

what kind of movies do hens like to go see?
What kind of movies do henslike to go see?
What kind of movies.

Do hens like to go see?
Yes, oh man, I don't know.
Chick flicks?
Oh my god, I told you it was agroaner.
Oh, where's your labels?
Oh, your labels are in there.

Yeah, yep there we go.
There's a laugh track for you,buddy chick flicks did I ever
tell my other chicken joke?
No, go uh, so I just cross theroad one yeah, so you've heard
that one yeah okay, and thenwhat about the?

um?
Why did the chicken fall out ofthe tree?
Because I think that's uh, myfirst episode.

I think you actually did tell both these
jokes this one.

Yeah, that's the only two that I know.

It's the only two that I've ever memorized, so
all right we'll give a freeshout out to anyone that writes
us and can tell us the two jokesthat yeah, on facebook or
instagram.
Just finish the two jokes likeyeah or just go down in this
podcast episode and there's alittle thing that says text the
mountain cog guys.
You just hit that button, texas, and we'll get the fan.

Yeah if anybody does that, I'm I'm getting them
a t-shirt, so I got.
I got a t-shirt for him.

All right, so it's Friday night.
We both got kitchen passes.

Yes, yeah, like the wives have written us off
tonight, lacey was super pissed.

She cooked a good dinner tonight and she's
like are you going to stay fordinner.
I'm like I got to go, I got tobe there early so I can pay for
your bike.

I told Carrie we were going to go to
Slaughterhouse, which is inTucson, during Halloween.
They actually have.
We have an actual abandonedSlaughterhouse.

Oh, it actually is a Slaughterhouse, it's an
actual.

Slaughterhouse that's abandoned and these guys
have kind of turned it intogirls I don't know who it is
People, People have turned itinto a Halloween walkthrough
like haunted house and they gotall kinds of stuff and I hear
it's like one of the best in thecountry, believe it or not?

We took my son to it my oldest son scanner.
He seemed to think it waspretty awesome.

Yeah, yeah, I, I hear it's really good.
So, uh, my daughter wants to goand so we were going to go
tonight, and then I realizedwe're recording, so we're going
to do it tomorrow.

It's our last night.
1.
Yeah, last night was trick ortreat.

It was trick or treat yeah, my kids would not
share candy with me.
No, that's probably not a badthing.
No, it's not, I don't need anycandy, but I like Reese's,
that's for sure.
Reese's is your thing, yeah,those and any form of Reese's,
whether it's the pieces or thecups, anything like that.
Peanut butter M&Ms, yeah, yeah,not peanut butter, I do like

(04:06):
those, yeah, but the peanut M&Msyou know, in the yellow.
And then Kit Kat, and I don'tlike Snickers, like that caramel
gets stuck in my teeth.
What the fuck are we talkingabout?
I don't know.

You started it?
Yeah, I did start it All right,so it's.
Friday night we're here in GuruBikes in Tucson, arizona, and
it's Dane's 25th episode ofbeing a host Actually, your 26th
episode, if you count the onewhere you were a guest yeah, and
we thought it would be goodjust to do a podcast with him
and I.
We got some cool things comingout with other folks soon, yep,

(04:46):
and when we were talking through, like what we should talk about
, um, you know, one of thethings that dawned on me was
that, like I don't, we've gotwhat 16 bikes in the stable, um,
and I don't have a singleelectronic component on any of
those bikes and, and almostevery single bike that I have
has an electronic componentright almost man, my downhill
bike doesn't.

That's about it .

Everything else does, so really how come your
downhill bike doesn't?

uh, just haven't put it on there.
Yeah, yeah, that's a goodquestion.
They just came out with some.
You know like lately in theworld cup they've been starting
to put uh electronics on thesuspension of downhill bikes.
Uh, you'll see some pictureswhere they're.
They look like, you know, theystuck a playstation controller
on their bike you know, and uh,so they're starting to work with
it a little bit.

(05:30):
But in the past, as far assuspension goes on downhill
bikes, it's been kind of notelectric because that's been
kind of like automatic lockouts,which downhillers don't want
their suspension locking outright and so uh, so that's just
recent in the last couple years,okay.
And then, uh, the new fox neohas been spied forever and it's
just come out and so that's acool system.

(05:52):
That's new from their fox liveand it's gravity orientated,
it's not.
It's not xc race orientated.
And then, uh, let's see whatelse in the world cup.
That's about it.
I think there's.
I haven't seen a downhillelectric group.
So, for instance, I have a SRAMdownhill XO kit which is seven
speed and it's purposely a tightcluster, um smaller, shorter

(06:15):
derailleur, so it hangs downless, and that they haven't come
out with anything that'selectric yet for that?

Did you guys get the new St Group in yet?

No, it's not out yet.
It's not out yet, no yeah socoming soon.
I just saw the new pivot, uh,the new um six bar pivot okay,
the new pivot.

Okay, I thought you were talking about pivot
bikes, but yeah no, it is apivot okay, it's a pit the new
pivot downhill bike, the phoenix.

Okay, the new phoenix is a six bar, yeah, so I
got my new phoenix, which youknow I get the hand-me-downs, so
I've got last year's phoenixand then the new one dropped
about the same day that Ifinished building mine, yeah.
So I was like kind of bummed.
But um, the new one.
I got to check it out up atpivot a couple days ago and it's
pretty amazing.
I really want to get one in theshop and see how the linkage

(07:00):
moves, because they've got a newsix bar.
So a dw links are considered afour bar, yep, and so they have
two rotating links.
They're kind of opposingrotation and, uh, similar to a
vpp but different, and similarto a maestro, but different, but
uh, the idea is that it helpsthe rear end move in kind of an
upward straight motion ratherthan an arc and um, and so the

(07:21):
new one I guess they made I mayget this wrong, but they made a
four bar downhill prototype.
They made a six bar and I thinkthey may have made an eight bar
, oh, wow, uh, downhillprototype for the pivot team to
test.
And you know, if you guysremember there, if you don't
remember, there was a veryfamous uh live broadcast with

(07:42):
Bernard Kerr.
Bernard Kerr crashing and hishead to coming off.
So and I did, I did just watchthe pink bike, pink bike video
about that and it was reallycool.
It was really inspiring.
It definitely made me want oneof those bikes.

So yeah, if you haven't seen it, pink bike put
out like a 10 to 15 minute, Ithink, kind of interview with
the design.
I think the top designer,bernard, is in it and Chris
Cocalis, you know the, the, the,the leader of of pivot, and
they're talking specificallyabout that incident.
What happened, what the.
You know why it happened, whythey do the prototyping the way
that they do it.
Um, so it's a pretty cool.

(08:16):
It's a pretty cool video thatexplains what happened and if
you're a pivot fan or if you'rea pivot hater, you should go
watch it.

Yeah Well, a pivot fan, or, if you're a pivot
hater, you should go watch itand it'll change your
perspective.
It'll definitely change yourperspective.
You go in thinking it's goingto be about this broken bike and
how could they do that?
And then you come out going Iwant that bike.
There's some good marketinggenius, there.

Yeah, it is very good.

So some people that we've met up there when we
were up there, and some coolguys, so it's really cool.

So anyways, we thought we would talk about, you
know, electronic components andum Dane has challenged me today
.
He was like nervous tochallenge me, but he challenged
me today and wanted me to defendmy arguments better.
Specifically, I think we weretalking specifically around
Shimano, uh, and so I went backand thought about that and so
like maybe we didn't go intothis in the SRAM versus Shimano
episode.
But, like you know, a couple oflike the key things that I care

(09:03):
about.
Number one is affordability.
Right, his price.
You call me a cheap ass but youare.

I mean you admit it, yeah, no, no, it's
good.
There's nothing wrong with thatCause I'm cheap too.

I work in a bike shop so I can be cheap with
the really nice stuff.
Yeah, and I can't.
Yeah, I know.

And honestly, I make next to nothing.
But that's why bike guys do it,because we want nice.
That is your bonus and that'show we.
Part of your compensation is isgetting bike parts.
So true, so true.

So so affordability is a big one,
reliability is a big one,longevity, you know, along with
that, um, maintainability, uh, Ithink part of it is is a
familiar like I'm really easyfor me to do, um, and then, uh,
convenience, you know, also animportant thing to me, and so
all those reasons, uh, also, Itold you earlier that I liked I

(09:50):
fish.

I like to, you know, surf fish and I use brand
allegiance.

So I got brand allegiance.
You know they make really goodproducts.
Um, I've got, you know, shimanoreels and Shimano poles and I
like what I do with the fishingstuff and I've had just great
experience with Shimano my wholelife, um, and so that is kind
of like the basis of why I'm so,you know, loyal to that that
stuff.
Um, and I've had some problemswith SRAM, uh, when I've kind of
branched out.

(10:13):
I think it was early, you know,in all fairness, I think it was
early or like like 10, 15 yearsago.
And I think they were stilltrying to figure some things out
.
Yeah, I think they probablyhave most of that stuff worked
out.

Well, you know me, I got to be in the middle
because I, you know, I sell both, you know, and I do have like a
definite SRAM kind of dominatesmy garage quite a bit.
You know, most of my bikes are.
It doesn't mean Shimano is bad,it just means that, like we
were talking about this todayand you know, when you, when you
ride multiple about this today,and uh, you know, when you,

(10:45):
when you ride multiple bikes andyou do, um, but not everybody
does, and uh, when you ridemultiple bikes, if you have two
different groups and theshifters are different every
time you get on a different bike, you have to kind of remember,
muscle memory yeah.
And so and I was actuallycomplaining about that today
because, uh, because theelectronic systems that have
come out with these systems,they have created new shifters.

(11:08):
Yeah, so now your muscle memoryis even more screwed.

Now you've got to learn those.

And I'm like why you know they're buttons,
they're tiny.

You can make them, exactly the same.

You can make them in the exact same place,
and I don't understand why bothShimano and SRAM have decided
nope, we're just going to makesomething totally different,
brand new Screw you guys, we'refiguring it out and they're not
ergonomic.
So let me rephrase that theymay be ergonomic from a total
design perceptive.
Maybe they're looking at themgoing.
This is better, but they're notergonomic.

(11:37):
If you're switching bikes, ifyou're used to something,
they're uncomfortable.
You have to get used to them.

I actually have a theory as to why they're set
up the way they are, is it?
I think they're preparing theindustry for a time when we only
have one lever on the bike andall the buttons are on there,
and I think they're trying toget people accustomed to the way
that feels, and then,eventually, I I think you'll
control everything on the bike.

I think you're not right.

I think it's natural to think that you want
to bet, you to bet I just don'tthink there's any coordination.

I don't think SRAM and Shimano are both
calling up each other and goingokay, 10 years from now we're
going to do this.

No, but it's logical that they would both
drive to the same outcome.

So when Di2 Mountain came out and so I
worked with one of the firstgroups that did the first Di2
mountain group, yes, this wasfor Farewell Bike.

I saw you guys at Interbike that year.

And we got to design the shifters and for this
new mountain bike group that wewere building, that Shimano had
nothing to do with other thanmaking a road version.

Yes, you basically took the road version
and converted it to mountain, tomountain, to mountain, but yeah
, a different cage, differentall kinds of stuff.

Uh, jason, and there was a number of us, but
one of the things that I got towork on was the shifting system
Right and uh, originally we madebuttons that basically went on
the grip, right next to the grip, and when I went out and rode
the bike my hand couldn't reachhim and I was like this is dumb.
And so it wasn't functional, andso what I did was I went back

(13:10):
and I actually took a product atthe time I can't remember.
It was meant to move yourdropper lever to your left side.
It was a little stud that camedown your stud, yep.
It was a little stud that camedown, yeah, your stud, yep.
And it would take the dropperlevers which, at the time, would
mount on the bar and you'd haveto lift your thumb up over the

(13:31):
top of the bar and then pushdown on these dropper levers.
And it took that lever and itmounted it sideways, right where
your shifter would have beenYep, and it was becoming popular
during the one-by revolution,right, and I forgot who made
them.
But this little thing, thislittle thing that would come
down, and I made a shiftersystem that went on to that.

Sounds like a Paul thing or a wolf tooth thing
or something like that it wasbefore wolf tooth.

Okay, like this is a long time ago, it's like
before you were born.

No, I was I saw the bike and inner bike.
I was born.

I was an adult, but, um, but this, this little
thing that had like a barely ablip of life, because, uh, the
lever companies figured out realquick they can make a one by
lever and that's what we knownow is the dropper lever.
And now what's ironic is now wehave people that are putting a
um, the old levers on theirbikes when they have a lockout
for their forks on the left side.
And so it's funny how that olddropper lever has come back

(14:29):
around.
But anyway, the Di2 system thatwe built.
I moved the shifters down sothat I could reach them properly
, but I only had two buttons todeal with so I couldn't build
them like the original stuff.
And I didn't need to because wewere just showing the stuff off
.

(14:50):
But the Di2 that came out wasn'tmuch better and it still had
this weird feel lever to move mymy lever on my di2 xtr kit over
so that it was more reachableand in a better place, so that I
could remember which buttonshifted you know which way,

(15:13):
because that's important whenyou're going up a hill.
If you hit the wrong way, youknow your shifter into a harder
gear when you're climbing andthen you're stopping and walking
, so you're not at allconvincing me that I need to go
get electronic components.
So just today I was complainingabout this problem because I
feel like the the electronicsare small enough.

(15:33):
They could easily make ashifter, dummy shifter that
looks and feels as far as wherethe paddles are.

The exact same, exact same spot, so you don't
have to relearn.

You can your muscle memory to relearn.
Your muscle memory is stillthere, your muscle memory is
there.
You go from bike to bike andyou don't have to relearn which
way.
And they could make it lightand out of the way and they
didn't do that.
And I don't understand.
And both Shimano and Tram, soit's not a brand thing, I don't
know what it is.
Their constraints are, I think.
Uh, at some point they have tojust make them cost effective

(16:08):
and maybe it's a design thing.
They just don't want to tackleit.
Um, but when that di2 systemcame out, I talked to the
engineers about that and theyhad mentioned that their, their
idea was that this is new andthey want to have a new tactile
feel.
It's a different system.
Uh, it's electronic.
They want it to be a newexperience.
Feel it's a different system,it's electronic.
They want it to be a newexperience.
They don't want it to be justcomparable to the old system.

(16:31):
And that was what they had toldme and I feel like it was
mostly BS.

Well, I mean, even if that was a perspective,
I don't think that's goodrationale.
I think they should havemaintained the muscle memory.

Yeah, I think that's a marketing explanation
for something that they didn'tknow.
The reason why?

but I still don't know.

And I I you know I don't get to talk to them
, the engineers at Shimano, likewe did then, yeah, but back
then we were pretty tight withthem.
Jason had a good uh uh, a goodrelationship and we got to know
a lot more of the inner workingsof Shimano.

So okay.
So that's one reason is like,you know you got to go to a
different, you know, userinterface effectively right, and
that's something new that youhave to learn.

That's only one electronic on the bike we're
going to talk about.

We're going to talk yeah, we'll talk about all
of them, but so when I wasreading through all the things
that make me love shimano, Irealized it's all those same
variables, right, theaffordability, reliability,
maintainability, the convenience.
And now I can add you know,muscle memory and like not
having to keep in mind thatexample was a shimano product so
it's not a brand thing, butwe're not talking shimano versus

(17:31):
shram here we're talking.

We're talking, you know, electric versus
acoustic yeah, um, I, I wouldsay uh, you know, if we get on
that that little, if we touch onthat subject, your logic and
reason is pretty solid, becausewait, wait, wait, hang on, hang
on.

We need to like , can you?

keep that.
Can you record that can?
You dig it sorry um I I feellike at the lower price points
and which is where I like tolive, which is what you, you
find the biggest value in.
Yep, right, yep.
I mean I joke around thatyou're cheap, but honestly, we
know that you could buy whateveryou want.
Yes, but what you do is youappreciate the, the cost per the

(18:10):
value the cost per mile persmile.
Mile per smile, yeah.
And so I, at that price point,I feel like shimano is killing
it right now, and I would saythat at you know, like when we
sell a 12-speed system and youcan choose between a SRAM SX and
a.

Shimano Dior.
Dior is the one.

The Dior just kills it.
And even if the SX is cheaper,the Dior still is better.

It just is.

There's other things that bug me, but
truthfully that is.
That is great.

Yeah, and I don't I mean to that point.
I have XT is probably as highas I go.
I don't have XTR in anything.
Nothing Like I would never buyit.
Like the price is just, itdoesn't like the weight.
Again, I'm a heavy guy, so likeyou know, dropping a couple of
grams off my bike is I got todrop a couple of grams off my
body before I drop?

it on my bike.
We always try and visualize,have have customers visualize,
you know, uh, like if you hadthree steps, you know, and the
the step between, like, slx andxt is like two inches from that
one to the next step.
Right, it's tiny, like, it's asmall jump from that slx to xt

(19:23):
and the performance is huge.
So, money-wise, tiny stepPerformance is a big improvement
.
Xtr is because of the money.
It's definitely a better… uh,system but the step up is much
bigger you're paying.

You're paying a lot more, yes, yeah, for a
little bit, from a ratio,perspective and weight, and
you're paying for weight andthat's racer stuff so yeah, so
shram's similar um, we weretalking about this today.

I I've noticed with shimano systems versus
shram, shimano's shiftsmoothness and and quiet and
accuracy pretty much goes prettyfluid down the line all the way
to dior and 12 speed stuff.
So when you get a dior systemyou're not really clunking,
you're not getting a horribleshifting experience, you're

(20:11):
getting a pretty good one.
Yes, the cassette's muchheavier, the derailleur is much
heavier, the shifter's heavier,like there's a lot of refinement
that's not there, but it'sreally kind of weight and cost.
With SRAM.
The shift quality of SX is muchlower than NX, which is much
lower than GX, and as you go upit gets better and better and

(20:32):
better.

That's more election.
Oh, Just people just calling metrying to tell me to vote for
somebody.
That's awesome.
Everybody should get out andvote, and I really don't care
who you're voting for theelection will be over and
hopefully there's not chaos, nomatter who wins.
Hopefully there's not chaos andanarchy in the country.

I just want them to stop texting me, but
anyway.
So back to bikes.
So with the suspension or withthe Deore drivetrain, you you
get the smoothness of and it'svery close to the higher end
systems, but you just get a bigweight penalty.
But you save money with shramit's a little.
For me.
The experience has been thatthe shift quality goes down,

(21:11):
yeah, at the lower points like.

I would not consider anything below gx and
shram yeah I.

I don't mind n a as a gateway drug.
Sx.
We won't actually carry in theshop and I know SRAM will not
like that.
I say that cause they want tosell that stuff but in we've
just had enough problems with itthat we you know if we and and
SRAM will back their product up.
So it's nothing that.

SRAM's doing.
If it breaks, they'll back itup you just don't get great
results from that.

Derailleur really is the main thing.

The shifters are fine.

The dub cranks are great.
And then when it comes to thecassette, the NX cassette is the
same as SX, so it's fine.
We use that a lot, but thederailleur is probably the
biggest weak point.
Anyway, with SRAM, when you getup to like GX to XO to XX1, the
weight does not really changemuch.

(22:03):
They're very similar, but theshift quality gets so much
better.

Oh really, yeah , I didn't know that.
Yeah, and I haven't riddenthose systems, so they're like
different philosophies.

One is kind of trying to have like a shift
quality as being thereConsistent across the entire yes
exactly, whereas the other oneis definitely giving you
performance gains as you go up,okay and so so an xx1 way better
than an xxo.

Yeah, yeah, better than a gs.

It's noticeable and when you move up from uh,
you know, as you move up inshimano, you're really just
getting weight savings.
But you can buy an xoderailleur and an xx1 derailleur
and they're like 12 gramsdifference, like there's almost
no weight difference, and sowhat you do is….
It's really just theperformance.
It's performance and longevity.

And longevity.
Okay, so the more expensiveones last longer.

Yeah, they have more things in pivots and
bushings.
They'll use bearings instead ofbushings.
So as they move up up they'llget better and better the
linkage and the derailleurs havemore thought and machining and
more um process to make themsmoother over time and so one of
the reasons I think we strugglein the desert with sx is

(23:09):
there's a lot of poly in thatderailleur and I think the heat
affects it, wears it down yep,and then when you have that
thing moving, I think the pivotsare just less.
I mean, they're really moresusceptible to uh, temperature
swings.
You know, as that poly heats up, those holes get tighter and
then the derailleur doesn't wantto shift as smooth yeah, and we
get that fine dust that we getout here and that gets in there

(23:30):
and then when you get to thehigh end levels, that tolerance
is so much better and so muchmore precise that you don't have
those same issues okay, solet's, so we, we, so we, we.

We went down a rabbit hole on Shram versus
Shimano, which you and I alwaysdo.

Yeah, yeah it's just it's fun because I think
people get a lot out of that,because you know, I don't want
anyone who buys Shimano to thinkthat they're cheap.
They aren't.
They're getting really goodstuff I love.
But I don't want people tothink that they're getting SRAM,
that they're getting snowed,because it's really
performance-orientated.

So they both have their features and the goal
is to figure out what'simportant to the person.
So I gravitate to the low-endShimano stuff because it's got
good quality, good performance.

You value, value, yeah.
And then some people like I'llhave somebody who comes in and
they're looking between the topline, so like XT, XTR, and their
value is I'm going to go raceand I don't want my equipment to
be my limiter.
And so they are like you knowwhat?
I know it's a small gain, but Iwould rather my equipment not

(24:37):
be why I lost the race.

Let's be honest the day that my equipment is my
limiter, it's a long time inthe future.

it's true, but those people are out there they
are, but they're not.
Josh anderson, there's beentimes when I've tried to talk
people into less expensive and Iknow that their ride ability is
not there yeah, but they also.

You don't really need x.

Yeah, they pulled up in a in a porsche and
they're not racing cars, youknow what I mean.
They just have a.
They have an attitude that if Ijust if I can afford it, I'm
just going to get the best, andthen I don't have to worry that
I didn't get enough.

Well, you know, if I was driving Porsches, I
would maybe do the same thingRight yeah.
But we're both Toyota people.
We're both Toyota people, allright.
So sorry to my Detroit friends.
Yeah, for the record, my Tundrawas made in the United States.
Oh, so GMC may not have been.

Hey, whoever you are, hey, uh.
So I just another rabbit holereal quick, driving to pivot to
pick up pivots, and like threeor four car carriers went by
cause I'm going slow in the guruvan and getting passed by the
semis, and they were all Fords.
And guess where they were?
Coming from Mexico, yeah, oh,right on, and I forget how much

(25:44):
autos are made in Mexico.

Yeah.

American brand Ford.
I really like Ford.
Yeah, I'm going to buy aTransit.
Yeah, I think they're a greatcar company.
But it was kind of weird, alittle sobering, because you're
like American, and then you'reseeing these trucks full of cars
coming up from Mexico.

So Lacey and I are going to buy a, you know, a
sprinter type van and we've beengoing back and forth between
Mercedes and the train and thetransit for transit.
And I was over at Rincon Valleybike service today, our friend
Chris Croto he lives rightaround the corner from me, he's
a great guy, great mechanic andhe convinced me that the
transit's the way to go, yougotta.

You gotta talk to nick our riding buddy.

Yeah, I have talked to nick and he tells me
not to buy either of them yes, Iknow he wants me to buy some
1982 gmc oh, yeah or something,yeah it's probably mechanically
perfect, but not not what I'mlooking for.
So like opinions are like allright, so let me come back to
okay so I hope my whole pointwith this shimano thing was all
those things that make me loveshimano right the convenience,

(26:48):
the reliability, themaintainability, the
affordability.
All that stuff is the samereason why I haven't put any.
They're the same variables thathave that have kept me from
putting any electroniccomponents yes, on any of bikes.
So I thought maybe we could usethis as a framework and kind of
go through these points andtalk about each of the groups,
the different components, andtalk about these different

(27:08):
variables.

Yeah, so there's electronics when it
comes to bikes, you haveshifting systems, and we're not
talking about Garmin or a Wahoo.
We're not talking aboutcomputers on your bike.

Yeah, that's not what we're talking about,
although they do integrate intothose and.

I learned that on the way over.
That is true.

But we're talking about the actual, like
your, your your shifter and yourMac.

Yep.

Yeah, Are your your derailleur.

Yeah, or derailleurs.
That's now entered, thatSuspensions are things
Suspension?
Dropper posts.
Dropper posts.

And then I want to talk about whether you think
brakes will ever go electronicor not.

There is anti-lock brakes on the market
right now, so anti-lock orAnti-lock, but with no cables
Run off of a computer system andBosch does it on their commuter
level.

E-bikes, e-bikes, e-bikes, and so there's
no hydraulic system driving thebrakes there's hydraulics.

I, you know I need to deep dive because
because that's a category wedon't really do a ton of uh
commuter, other than when I goto training to be a certified
bosch mechanic.
Um, yeah, I hear about them,but I don't quite know how they
work, so okay, so since we're onthe topic, let's dive.
Let's dive into this a littlebit.
So when?
Yeah, I hear about them, but Idon't quite know how they work,
so okay.

So since we're on the topic, let's dive into
this a little bit.
So when I was talking to Crotoearlier today, as I was
researching and interviewingpeople for this episode, I asked
him if he thought that we wouldever go to brake systems that
either were not cable actuatedor hydraulic system actuated
yeah, hydraulic system actuatedand his hypothesis is that no,

(28:44):
and he had a really interestingreason why he said the liability
on a brake system failing, uh,and I, and, and and.
I think the assumption there isthat electronic system has more
failure modes than a hydraulicsystem or a cable actuated
system.
Uh is so high that the bikecompanies would never go.
They won't even invest in anelectronic.
No cables, no hydraulic system,maybe even with cables, right,

(29:05):
maybe even just electric, butthey would never go to an
electric system.
What do you think about that?

I totally agree .
I think the bike industry isconstantly trying to manage
costs versus weight.
That's a big factor.
And then safety and uh, youlook at uh systems like shimano
and shimano is super safe,orientated like yeah, their

(29:29):
brake systems often have somesort of device to keep the bolts
from backing off.
Um, so, like if you guys havehad some relatively new xt
brakes, you see littleserrations on the bolts.
Those are supposed to havethese little plastic things
stuck to them.

Yeah, the little plastic with the little.
I don't even know how toexplain it.

Anti-rotation device and the old, the first
generation.
I take those off.
Nobody runs them, which ishilarious.
And, truthfully, as a bikemechanic somebody who's been
doing this a long time I don'tthink I've ever seen a caliper
come off on a customer's bike.
That wasn't really poorlyinstalled.

I don't think I've ever even had a loose one.
No, I mean, I grease them.
Is that your standard operatingprocedure here?

No, they're loctited.
So if you look at the Shimanoones, they're actually
pre-impregnated with a blueloctite or a white like.
But when?

I, so I'll take them out and I'll put them back
in.
Yeah, so if they've got loctite, I don't leave them alone, but
typically when I'm swappingbrakes, whatever, I'll just put
a little grease on there is thatokay, uh, it's fine, you don't
need it.

Uh, so grease is usually to keep it from
corroding, and so far it's notbeen an issue.
So, or grease grease has a lotof a lot of uh applications to
the bikes and it's not alwaysthe same.
So, for instance,anti-corrosion is one uh,
keeping things from making noise, uh, things keeping things
moving, or cool like a bearing.
Um, you'll have uh grease usedfor a lot of things, but, uh, in

(30:51):
bolts cases, grease will allowtwo things.
It'll allow you to torque itmore.
So, for instance, a torquewrench will read differently
with grease versus without, andso when you're torquing your
bolts, if you're so a goodexample is if your seat post is
slipping, yeah, and you're likebut I'm torquing it and it says
five newton meters, and I'vedone five newton meters and it

(31:11):
still turns, pull, pull the boltout and grease it, and it will
now go farther, uh, because ofthe grease to that, so that that
torque point, yeah, yeah, thatfive newton meters will now
actually be tighter than it wasbefore, and so.
So when we teach mechanics, oneof the things that is hard
because people don't think aboutis you know what?

(31:32):
What are these things?
Uh, you know how does thisstuff actually work?
Like what is it doing?
Because I've seen mechanicsjust want to put grease.
We had a mechanic once when Iwas at a shop who put friction
paste in the headset uh, in anopen ball headset because he
didn't understand what it waslike friction paste that you use
when you're connecting, like analuminum component, to a carbon

(31:53):
frame.
Well, just in general, itcreates friction like that's the
the component and it's mostcommon in the handlebars,
because early uh handlebarscarbon fiber especially usually
had a clear coat on the epoxyand when the stem would clamp on
them they wouldn't have enoughgrip, they would slide, and so
friction paste is basically afluid, uh, similar to a grease,

(32:16):
but not exactly yeah, withlittle tiny plastic balls, okay.
So that's why it feels like sand, more like a gel than it is a
fluid yes yeah, it's not agrease and what it does is those
little plastic balls create afriction point of a contact
point, gotcha, and and theycreate more pressure in that
area to hold better, and that'swhat they are.
Some bars now actually comewith a friction material like

(32:40):
painted on to the clamp area,which is the same thing.
They feel like rough, likesandpaper.

Since I'm going to school right now, I got to
go back a little bit.
You're talking about torquing,yes, and I recently saw
something that suggested thatyou should never torque from a
stopped position, so like, ifyou've got a bolt that's tight,
you should not torque it from astopped position.
So like, if you've got a boltthat's tight, you should not
torque it from that tightposition that you actually need
to loosen the bolt a little bit.
And then torque has to be whilethe bolts in movement.

(33:08):
And they showed and this is thevideo I was watching they
showed like multiple differentreadings and the torque values
were actually different.
Um, when you torque from a,from a Titan position, like how
far they rotated it versus ifyou backed it off a little bit
and then torque from a movingposition so you should always be
torquing loose bolts, not tightbolts.
Do you guys do that?

(33:29):
Nope, no uh no so I may havejust taught you something.

Well, you, you did.
But I gotta ask you, did theyshare on that how much the
difference was and how manynewton meters it made a
difference?

uh, I don't think they had the tools to
measure that, but it definitelywas maybe quarter to half a turn
difference because you couldsee the amount of turn right,
because that's the only thingthey way, they can measure it
right yeah so when they torquedit from straight, you know you
do maybe a quarter turn, andthen when they torqued it from
from a looser bolt, yeah it waslike a quarter turn farther or

(34:00):
to half a turn farther.

So that that's interesting.
So that gets a little bit tothe grease point same kind of
same same concept.
Yeah and uh.
So what we teach in mechanicsis there's two types of torquing
.
How did we get on this subject?
If I know, dude, this is whatwe do, yeah um, all right, I'll
finish this thought, becausesomebody out there's like wait,
no, don't tell, don't tell me.

You were about to say it.
Tell me, aren't you going totalk about electronic components
?
Now you're in a rabbit hole.

I'll finish this one real quick.
But what we teach the mechanicsis there's two types of
torquing, and that's importantto understand that.
There is one torque that themanufacturer puts out to keep
you from going too tight, andthen there's a torque that is to
make sure you go tight enough.
I got you and you, and, andagain.
What we try to teach themechanics is not, uh, you know

(34:45):
like you turn your wrist at thisdegree, you know to get the,
you know nothing like that.
It's really the concept of whatthat torque value is meant to
do, right, uh, for instance, um,you know, face plate, you know,
on a stem is to make sure it'sto a certain tightness that the
stem doesn't.
You know that bar doesn't slip.
Cranks is the opposite.

(35:07):
Well, I'm sorry, seat postclamp is so that you don't crush
the seat post.

Right, or crush the seat post or bind the frame
or bind the dropper post,dropper post, yeah.

And so those are two different things One is
so you don't go too tight, andone is so you go tight enough.
Cranks are you want them tightenough, you don't want them
falling off?
And so also, we're dealing withcarbon fiber and we're dealing
with aluminum, and so I see automechanics are the ones that

(35:41):
just crack me up the mostbecause they're used to breaker
bars and like impact wrenches,so they strip stuff out like
crazy.

Is Nick always stripping shit out?
Yeah Well, I don't know if heis, he's very, he's a good
mechanic?

Yeah, he is, um , but truthfully, what I what I
see is like somebody will comein and they're just just pulled
all the threads out of somethingaluminum, because they're used
to dealing with something muchbigger and they need to know
torques much more.
But then there's the guy who'sreally focused on the torque and
maybe four and a half isn'tquite five and he doesn't quite

(36:12):
understand what's really meantfor him out of that.
And so I like that info, I likethe fact that there's somebody
paying attention to that, and Ithink if you were dealing like
medical equipment or electronicsor things where those precision
really matters super precisionlike you know you're trying, or
tactical missiles?
oh yes, yes, exactly I thinkthat is like way more,

(36:36):
especially when your torquevalues get to such a degree
where those little differencescan matter okay, so come back to
the brakes.

Okay, so, like I think we're agreeing, so in
most cases think electronicbrakes are coming I don't think
so.

Yeah, I, I don't know.
We saw that guy on youtube whomade some out of rc car stuff,
and so it's doable.
It's totally doable.
The technology's there.
The problem is have you everhad a rc car that just stopped
working, wouldn't do what youwanted, and then if you're going
downhill and that happened whathappens?

Yeah, so this is part of what you just
explained.
It's part of the reason why Idon't have any electronic
components on my bike.
That's the reliability.

I know, but if you look at our lives, we have
electronics in everything we do.
Liability, so I know.
But if you look at our lives,we have electronics in
everything we do.
And uh, I, you know, there wasa point when I, you know, when I
was younger, I was like I'm notgetting electric windows
because I don't want them tobreak and I'll get the wind up
ones, you know, with the crank.
You know you can't even getthat in a car I don't think so.

Outside of the battery not being charged issue,
let's put that aside.
How often are you guys seeing,you know, failure modes,
electronic systems, shiftingdroppers, whatever?

Almost never Okay.
So like, for instance, reverbshave been out for quite a while
as a wireless system.

Yeah, that's a dropper post from SRAM.

I mean we rebuild them.
It's almost never that we havea failure.
I have more problems with thehydraulic system than I do with
the electronics on those Withthe hydraulic reverbs.
Yeah, Well even inside thehydraulic system than I do with
the electronics, with thehydraulic reverbs.
Yeah well, even even inside.

So dropper posts are a hydraulic system,
that's inside yeah, it's a valve, even if they're, even if
they're cable actuated.

Yeah, even if they're cable activated, all the
reverbs wireless don't have ahydraulic lever like the
non-wireless um.
But I see more problems withthat system failing, which blows
my mind.
You know we were talking aboutthat today how often a dropper
post fails compared to a fork,and a fork is cycling like a
thousand times when you ride.

it Is that, just based on the maturity of
the system that they have,they're not that mature as a
technology.

I think I think they're still figuring out
tolerances, like people thinkthat engineers are magical.
But they are.
They are not.
They have to figure stuff out.
They have to learn by trial anderror in most cases and they
use good judgment and goodeducation to make things last
and they know a lot about asystem to be able to develop it

(38:53):
and work on it and make a newsystem.
But when you're makingsomething totally new, you don't
have a lot of the education.

And you don't have stick time right, you don't
have, like, the product's gotto get out into the field, they
got to get used and abused, andthen they collect that
information and it comes back.

The bike industry is notorious for being
one cutting edge Like.
A lot of people don't realizethat, how cutting edge it is
because they had a bike in the70s or 80s or whatever.
They had a bike in the 70s or80s or whatever.
They had a bike when they werea kid.
They couldn't get a 80 bike atwalmart.
But they don't understand howmuch aerospace is in bikes right
, you know and how much, uh,exotic materials we have.

(39:29):
You know.
Some of the weirdest things goon when you have two materials
that just spontaneously weldthemselves together, which is
really frustrating and you hadno idea and all you did was put
them next to each other you knowand you don't realize, there's
ions moving and there's just achemical reaction going on.

So, um, let's, let's start with affordability,
what you know.
So, like the price point, likewhat would you say?
The price point is so one ofthe reasons, the difference
between the prices, like whatare they?

I want to point out one of the reasons I think
you don't have electronics onyour bikes is because the
electronics is new and sotherefore it's rolled out on the
highest end stuff.

Oh yeah, that's fair, it's price.
To me it's price.
That's part of it.
But what is the pricedifference?
Is it 2X between electronic andmechanical?
Just in general.

That's a great example, or a great man.
So I remember when Fox Livecame out.
That's an electronic systemthat is built into Fox's
top-of-the-line suspension, andit was a $2,000 upgrade After
you've bought the… yeah.
So, for instance, we wereselling pivots upgrade so after

(40:41):
you've bought, yeah, like.
So, for instance, we wereselling pivots and you could get
one without fox, live, with thefactory suspension on it, yeah,
for x price, and then for yep,and then if you wanted the live
version, it was two thousanddollar.
Upgrade, yeah, and so I meanthat kind of gives you a small
window into how much, howexpensive that system was if I
buy a sram transmission kitright now, it's like what?

$1,100, $1,200?

Yeah, I think GX is like $1,100.
$1,100.

What would the same mechanical groupset cost?
So if you got a GX mechanicalWith all the same components
that you get because you get acassette, you get.

I haven't done the math, but it's usually
around $400.

Okay, so it's more than 2X.
Yeah, yeah, so that's a hugeprice difference.

Yeah.
So let's give an example ofdroppers right A reverb is
around $400.
Right, like an acoustic, reverbAcoustic yeah, acoustic Amish
reverb is like around $400,whereas a a wireless one is
around 800.
So that's two X, that's two.

X.
But I think a reverb is a badexample though, because the
reverb itself even the acousticversion is is a hydraulic system
and they're more expensive thanother droppers.
Just by just acoustic they are.

Yeah, they're there.
I mean cause.

You can get a decent dropper for 150, 200
bucks right now.

Yep, yeah, yeah , I mean we sell the pw1, the
new one up, v2 is like 250 orsomething, I think v3 v3 is like
250 msrp.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, so um, yeah,just just those reverbs are more
expensive, yeah, anyways and souh, but to give you an idea of
two products that exist that areexactly the same except for
one's electronic.
So roughly you're paying twicethe price.
Yeah, like a man, I don't havethese numbers off the top of my
head.
But a GX derailleur, let's say,is $170.

(42:24):
$170.
Roughly.

And then I want to say an electronic gx is
going to be access, or yeah,like 400 bucks.
So so it's yeah, some, yeah,200 or 150, they're definitely
more expensive now.

Uh, I remember when xx1 came out and with shram
and I want to say it was like1500 bucks for an xx1 group and
that was super expensive, likeif you were getting a drivetrain
and that was not brakes, thatwas a crank chain, derailleur,
shifter and cassette it was like1500 bucks for that stuff and

(43:02):
now you can get an xx group islike 21, so electronic
transmission yeah and so it's.
It's kind of tough because it'slike it just depends, but yeah,
it definitely costs, so you'repaying way more.

So, like, what am I getting?
What am I like why?
Why do it?
What am I getting for thatprice?

so there's different versions of stuff, so
I'll give you an example of nota system that did well and
unfortunately, josh, it wasshimano oh, here we go well,
this isn't meant to dig onshimano this is the di2 system.
Their di2 system came out inmountain and it and they brought
it out with wires well theyalways have and, and and they

(43:42):
were dumb dumb.
Yeah, but they were before.
Yeah, I think they were beforeshram, weren't they?

no, I think shram wireless mountain bike
components came out beforeshimano Di2 Mountain.
I could be wrong about that.
We need to research that.
I did do some research and I'mpretty sure.

I heard that no I think it was before.

It was pretty close in time.

Yeah, I had Di2 XTR on one of my pivots and I
was one of the first guys, and Iactually wasn't one of the
first guys and I actually Iwasn't one of the first guys, I
was late and I actually hackedit a little bit because I was
trying to make it super light,and so I was, you were.
I found a way that you couldrun it without their little
window system and so I was ableto make it lighter and cleaner,

(44:26):
so you couldn't tell as much.
Okay, um, I just remember thatand I would have had access to
SRAM, but I don't think they hadit out.
I think SRAM was doing XX oneand they were maybe adjust on 12
speed and SRAM and Shimano wasstill on 11 with their DI two
and it worked good.
There was, there was nothingremarkable about it.

(44:47):
It was basically here'selectronic, but you know what it
was was a reflection of theroad group, and I think the
advantages that the road grouphad when it came out is it
shifted more accurately, itshifted more consistent and, uh,
especially the front derailleuron the road group worked much
better yeah, they had that, likethey had that concentric thing,

(45:10):
right or so.

So you had, you had a you.
So you had, you had a.
You know, you know you had afront derailleur and a rear
derailleur, but you only had onelever.

No, that, um, that happened much later.
Okay, the original di2 stillhad two levers.

Still had two.
This is the road.

Okay, so this is the road, because that's the
where it's came from.
And then, uh, they had greatsuccess.
The di2 road group uh didreally well and it dominated.
It blew shram away.
Um, shimano has always donefront derailleurs way better
than shram.
Uh, shram literally got rid ofthem because they couldn't do
them as well as shimano.
I'm not kidding, I don't thinkthat's the reason why, but it's

(45:45):
definitely I don't even thinkthe guys at shram would argue
with me on that, like I don'tthink.
So all right, if you, for SRAM,get a hold of us and let us
know if that's the reason why.
We would have SRAM groups on ourbikes with a Shimano
front-trailer, like I mean,that's no joke, you know.
But I think what happened withthe Di2 road group is you got
electronics that it just shiftedbetter.

(46:06):
It really did a better shiftbecause it was a more delicate
system you were.
You know, road groups it'stighter grouping of the gearing,
so when you're moving from oneto two, from your first to
second cog, it's only a matterof a few teeth difference, and
so you aren't jumping these bigjumps, and so there's a certain

(46:26):
elegance.

So today, if I'm choosing between GX and AXx
and axis, right, like theelectronic version of gx,
acoustic versus electronic, likewhat am I getting?
So for that electronic I'mtrying to build, up to that.

Okay, I'm sorry , okay.
So electronic, the, the spacerace for electronics yeah, was
started by shimano.
They're the first ones to do itand they did it really well in
the roadside.
When they came out withMountain, it didn't really do
anything for mountain bikers and, of course, shimano still had
the front derailleur and they'rereally focused on the front

(47:00):
derailleur.

Because that's the time that they were doing
the one shifter thing.

No, not yet.
Not yet okay yeah no synchroshifting, or you know yeah.

Yeah, there's a C word, there's a word.
Yeah, it doesn't matter, wedon't have sequential,
sequential shifting, we don'thave front derailleurs anymore,
so fuck it, yeah.

So Shimano hung on to that and the Di2 system
hung on to it and focused moreon a smaller gear double in the
front, and it kind of justdidn't take off and it died and
their sales reflected that.
And so when your sales reflectnot good, your company doesn't
want to keep dumping money intoit.
So they kind of abandoned it.
It's still there, it stillexists.

(47:41):
They just had a series come outwith e-bikes where it plugs
into their e-bike system, theirShimano e-bike system.

So you don't have to run separate batteries.

You don't have to run separate batteries.
You don't have to run separatebatteries and there are also
auto shifts, which is cool.
You can stop pedaling and youcan shift and the bike will turn
the front crank.

Yeah, I've seen the videos.

That's when the crank is still moving while
you're coasting right yeah andso that is a feature that people
could use and it made sense andso it's kind of revived a
little bit of DI2.
Okay, but really, when SRAMcame out with their system in
the mountain bike, what theyfocused on was they went one by,
yep, they went super wide rangeand wireless and wireless.

(48:22):
That was the biggest thing.
And all of a sudden thiswireless stuff came out.
We could put it on any bike,that was.
The other problem was DI2, youhad all this internal stuff.
You had to figure out where toput the battery.
Not every bike could take it,because if a bike had external
cabling, it was really you hadto like.
You had to like put a stickerover the di2 wires on the
outside of the frame, right liketo to stick it to the bike.

(48:44):
And so this wireless systemcame out.
So they had features right offthe bat.
That made sense and it was atthe high-end system and at the
high-end level.
It really wasn't a huge pricejump, okay, you know.
So I mean it was, but it wasn'tso bad that people were like I
can't buy it, and what they gotreally was way better shifting

(49:05):
much better shifting.
So one of the advantages to um,to electronic systems, is when
you shift, the derailleur movesat a certain speed and it can
pick up whether or not you'reshoving it into the gear before
you're pedaling, so it can backoff.
So it has little little sensors.
Yeah, I mean that are lining itup yeah, there's no curb feelers

(49:28):
on the derailleur, but themotor will detect resistance and
it can give feedback to thebrain, which can then make an
action, which is what it does.
So you have a system that's alittle bit more friendly to ham
shifting.
If a pro is like jammingthrough the gears too fast, he

(49:48):
doesn't derail as much, hedoesn't drop chains as much or
she?
Um, they don't, uh, they don'thave the same kind of mischiefs
that used to happen.

So better shifting.
One of the things I've I I readabout or heard about people
complaining and I'm and I don'tknow if the new systems, this,
this, uh, this, this articlethat I read was a couple years
old, but they were.
You know, on an acoustic shift,if you're, if you're coming
down a hill, like into a wash orinto a gully right, and then
you're immediately going to beclimbing, you're dumping gears

(50:19):
really quickly.
If you didn't prepare, and onan acoustic bike with acoustic
components, you can dump a wholebunch of gears at one time and
what it sounded like on theelectric, you have to, like, hit
the button a bunch of times andit doesn't shift as fast as the
acoustic system if you'rejumping wide ranges.
Is that still the case?

Kind of.
In fact, transmission is thenewest tram system.
When it came out there was alot of people complaining
because they were saying it wasslower.
And I do a little demo in theshop with people and I'll put
the system in the stand.
I'll put a bike in the standwith the system on it and I will
be pedaling steadily with myhand and then I will hit that
shifter as fast as I can 12times and you will watch the and

(51:05):
then I'll take my hand off andwhile my hands off, the
derailleur is still moving upthe cog and shifting on its own
time.
Right, so it's buffering theshift.
It knows that it made it, butit's not going to do it until
it's ready.
And there's a really uh, reallyimportant reason for that.
The early um access systems hada certain speed to them and in

(51:28):
fact the di2s had the sameissues and they would do
firmware updates to where youcould kind of adjust the speed,
uh, and change things.
But one of the advantages isalso that disadvantage, which is
the system is going to shiftwhen it makes the most sense,
when it's when it's for itmechanically.

Mechanically, that might not be the right
thing for you on the trail atthat moment, if you're in an
extreme scenario.

It's tough, but yes, so could you get away with
jamming through the gears toget up a hill and hearing that
crunching noise?
Absolutely.
Can you pop a link open andbreak a chain?
Absolutely, which one happensmore than others?
That's a good point.
Others, I think it's a goodpoint.

(52:13):
I think what happens is, youknow, we can kind of push our
systems to the limit and you,you, you can learn how fast you
can shift stuff and you getcomfortable with that.
And so if you get on a newsystem that doesn't let you do
that, it can either be a good ora bad thing.
If you're breaking chains allthe time, it's great.
If you're racing, you may seeit as a bad thing.

So this is one of the benefits of that new
Shimano system.
You talked about that.
When you're coasting down ahill and you're not pedaling,
because you can prepare for thatuphill that you know is coming
and your bike will actuallyshift and be ready for that.

Yeah, and I've been.
In that case where I'm goingdown a section of trail, I know
there's going to be an uphill,but I don't really.
Maybe it's a technical descentand I don't have time to move my
cranks.
Yeah, because e-bikes have aclutch in the crank, they can
advance the chain without movingmy crank, and so they can be
shifting at whatever speed theyfeel like to get in the gear I

(53:01):
want, which is cool.
So it is a cool system.
I like that idea because itdoes help with that.

So for 2X.
I'm getting better.
Shifting For 2X does help withthat, so I'm for for 2x.

I'm getting better shifting for 2x 2x the
price, like yeah, get back tothe gx versus you know act gxx,
gx acoustic versus gx axis oneof the reasons I think they
don't put there's cost right.
the these, these derailleurs,the batteries, the motors, uh,
they're very expensive toproduce and as much as these
companies try to keep the pricedown, the cost of that

(53:33):
derailleur just is up there.
They're using really advancedstuff in there.
And then the programming, allof the software updates, all of
the firmware, all of the backback room you know the back um,
back of the house stuff thatthey have to do to make that
system work has a certain cost,and so I don't think they ever
dip the price down, because it'sreally hard to get that cost
down.

(53:53):
But what they do is they focuson the systems that tend to be
more competitive.
So when you're tooling aroundthe loop in Tucson and you're
just casually, you know, ridingyour bike with your family,
you're less likely to beconcerned about you know
shifting under load Perfectsurface.

Yep, exactly Perfect surface.

Yep, exactly Perfect shift.

So you can shift under load with an
electric system.

So that's the evolution.
So far that's been happening.
So again, if we talk Shimanosystem, they kind of stalled out
at a certain performance andeven SRAM basically had their
system, their, their chain andtheir cassette and their cranks
were all non-electric systemsthat had an electric derailleur

(54:42):
and so you had the convenienceof, you know, a derailleur
that's going to help you shiftmore accurately.
Yeah, um it.
So one thing that we skippedover, that we didn't talk about,
is one of the reasons thebiggest benefit to electronic
shifting is the number onedetriment to mechanical shifting
, besides you just hurting it.

Yeah.

Is cable degradation and so on a
mechanical system.
You have a cable that's runningin a sheathing they call
housing, yep, and in thathousing is usually they call
housing yep, and in that housingis usually they're built up of
multiple layers.
The inner layer that the cablemoves in is a poly tube and that
breaks down over time.
Yeah, so it literally like willget debris in there and a grain

(55:23):
of sand takes up enough spaceto cause friction and so,
especially here in the desertwith our, our dust is so it can
fill those up.
We used to pull, we would bedoing neutral support at the
24-hour events.
We would pull the rear cablehousing off of the derailleur
area just right at thederailleur, and it would just
dump out dirt.

(55:43):
And for race bikes we wouldpull that one piece off, put on
a new piece and the bike wouldshift so much better because
that's at the back of the bikegetting the most dust oh, okay,
the one, the one part of a cablethat comes out of the frame
that connects to the derailleurthere yeah that that was taking
in a bunch of dust yep, anothertrick is at one point and it's
still this way their um, shimanoand shram don't have the same

(56:05):
size diameter cable.
A lot of people don't know that,so so there are different sizes
.
They both fit within each other.

I was going to say I've used the same I've used
like the Jaguar.

So for the most part, they all will roughly fit
together, but their SRAMs are atiny bit smaller, and so we
would take SRAMs, uh cables, andrun them into shimano systems
and they would shift betterbecause there's more of that gap
and less friction.
Interesting, and so there's allthese little tricks that we did

(56:35):
in race scenarios, becausewe're trying to make this bike
work so all the bullshit thatcomes with cables?

yes, you're not .
That's a benefit, right?
You're not getting so from areliability?
That's the biggest thing.

So you have cable stretch.
So when we sell a new bike thecables settle, the ferrules sit
down onto the housing and thehousing can actually shrink back
and expose wires.

Yeah, which I've seen in almost every bike.
I've had that stuff can rust.

It can hold dirt.
It can hold water.
If you're in the PacificNorthwest, you're not worried as
much about the dust as you arethe rust.
Yeah, worried as much about thedust as you are the rust, yeah,
and so the shops there willgrease the cables and get the
grease in there, or they'llmaybe run a gore-tech system to
try and seal it up or somethinglike that.
Interesting, yeah, so the thecable has been a a bane, and so

(57:20):
yeah, or if you crash like likelacy crashed at the enduro.
She got a kink in the and we hadto replace that cable yeah,
yeah, because if it's in thehouse any of that shit.

So, from a reliability perspective, you're
removing failure points from theacoustic system with the
electric, but then you youintroduce new failure modes
where you have batteries thatcan die and then a loss of
signal yeah, yeah you say thatdoesn't have, I mean the battery
.
I think that's on the user.
So I'm not like yeah, chargeyour fucking batteries, fucking
batteries.
Yeah, like, come on.

Well, like, let's say that so that we just
have finished the Arizona trailrace, which is a race that's 750
miles.
I know I got that wrong, butyou finished it.

No God, no, Maybe, we maybe in an airplane.

But no, I mean we as a state.
We just had this race wherepeople race from Mexico up to
Northern Arizona on the ArizonaTrail.
They're out there for many,many, many days.

Is it like two weeks or something?

You know I should know this stuff, but I
don't pay attention to racingenough to understand how long
that takes them.

But it's a long time.

More than a 24-hour race, more than any
other race that's out there.
It's really an event whereyou're on your bike and you're
riding and you're required oryou're relying on your equipment
for way longer than anything.

It's like a normal runner.

Yeah, exactly.
And so these are the peoplethat you know they're going to
shy away from a battery thatneeds to be charged Right In
that case.
They really don't want that.
They want something reliablethat goes you know, and so
that's a case where a batterymay fail, you know, and may
cause you to have an issue, andso that's a legitimate, you know

(58:58):
worry in a 24 hour you're allthe modern batteries that I know
of would easily last that long,yeah, and you probably got
extras, and in a 24 hour you'regoing in a circle, so you're
coming back by the tent.

You know, every in a while and you can swap it
out if you need to.

You've got to worry more about your light
battery than you do yourderailleur.
Yeah for sure.
So the accuracy on theelectronic systems is better.
Even on the Shimano systemsit's better.
You don't have any of the cabledegradation.
The shifting accuracy, shiftingaccuracy, yep, yep, accuracy,
shifting accuracy.
So, um, so, over the lifespanof the bike, you're not bringing

(59:32):
it into the bike shop.
This was actually an issue thatshimano would come to us and
say hey, we're now realizingthat people are not going to
bring their bikes to you as muchand so we're going to hurt you
as dealers.
Honestly, they, uh they, theywere like, hey, but we have all
these firmware updates and youneed this special computer
program to do that.

(59:53):
And so you need to let peopleknow that they still need to
come in for those, which I'm nota big fan of, you know, I'm not
like your Tesla to just hook upto your Wi-Fi and yeah, and now
you can get your own app onyour phone and does it for you
so you don't have to come to thebike show.
I don't think that's.
I thought that was kind of lamethat they did that, but I think
they they were just trying tothrow us a bone, you know.
Um, but it's true, you knowthese electronic systems aren't

(01:00:15):
coming in for the derailleuradjustments, for the tune-ups,
so, all of a sudden, are adifferent thing, and so what we
did, instead of calling peopleand saying, hey, come in and get
your firmware, we just wouldsell them a tune-up and they
would get the firmware with thetune-up, right, and that was
included.
So we just took the time thatwe would to adjust the
derailleurs and we now justfirmware, updated their stuff

(01:00:36):
and made sure it was current,and so they still had a reason
to come in.
So they still need their wheelstrued, they still need their
bearings greased, they stillneed the adjustments, you know,
and make sure their nuts andbolts are tight and everything.

Josh (Magellan) (01:00:47):
So you pay a lot more, you get better
shifting, much better shifting.
You get, but you eat lessservice, less service.
You reduce a couple of thefailure modes associated with
the cables, but you alsointroduce a couple of potential
failure modes with batteryfailure and connection failure.

Dane (The Guru) (01:01:01):
But you're saying the connection failure.
You don't say that, but that wedon't see it at all.

I've done a bunch of research and it does
happen.
It's not a lot, but it doeshappen.

Yeah, so in, I will tell you Di2, it's usually
a crushed wire that we see anissue with so a lot of times
when it's transported.
So, for instance, when the SRAMsystems came out for
triathletes and they werewireless, it was a godsend,
because the wireless systemsweren't, these people were
taking their bikes across youknow long distance and then

(01:01:34):
reassembling them and crushingwires and then they couldn't
race, and so that was a bigproblem, that was a legitimate,
big failure point.
And so, um, we, we saw thatdrop dramatically when they went
wireless, cause you don't havethat problem anymore, yeah and
so, uh, so that was oneadvantage.
That uh also was a disadvantage, right, right.
So, um, and then when you doother failure points that I've

(01:01:57):
seen, um, you're still going tosmack the derailleur no matter
what.
Yeah, if you, I mean yeah and sothose things level out right,
but you now have a two times tothree times expensive derailleur
, yep.
So that is an issue.
And so the um.
Again, shimano hasn't broughtnow.
Now we haven't talked aboutthis, but I'll tell you that the

(01:02:20):
new wireless Shimano is comingand they are very tight lipped.
Are you allowed to say that,yeah, because I'm not really
citing anything.
I don't have any pictures, Ijust know it's coming.
I don't know.
I think we're going to betalking about it in probably sea
otter.

Springtime.

Yeah, if I see it, Because the new Saint system
and I'm pretty sure the new XTRis coming.
So all those people that arelooking at XTR bikes, you should
still buy them because they'reawesome and they're a great deal
right now.
But uh, the new stuff is comingand I hate to say that Shimano
Chris is going to be mad becausethere's going to be some bike
shop.
That's like damn it, dane toldthem.

(01:03:02):
I I'm just predicting thefuture, people.

I don't have any pictures.
We just heard this on pink bike, yeah, yeah, well, yeah, I mean
, there's spy photos and stuffyou can you can get that, but I
I know the industry and I knowit's time.

It's just when it's coming.
Is it going to be this spring,or is it going to be fall?
I'm not sure.
26 sometime sometime in 25,it's coming soon.
So and that, and soon toshimano could be 10 years.
So because they take forever.

Here we go.
This, this guy, it's true Dude,I got to tell you.
Man working with the Japanese,it's all great products, but it
takes fucking forever.

It does, it does.
And, like I was talking abouttheir safety systems, they're
very meticulous and veryaccurate.
One of the reasons they're lowend stuff does so well is
because I feel like it wouldshame their families if it
didn't.
Oh dude.

I got, I got to go down a quick rabbit hole.
So so we're in this, in thismeeting with Mitsubishi heavy
industries, right, uh, defensecontractor, right, I mean it's
the same company as Mitsubishithe car company, but they just
different divisions.
To make big, things make bigthings yeah and uh, and so we're
meeting with them and they, youknow, they got their CEO and
and, uh, you know a whole bunchof people from the company and

(01:04:08):
my boss is there and I wasyounger in my career and before
that meeting I didn't reallyknow much about the Japanese
culture.
And so there's this book calledKiss, Bow and Shake Hands,
which is a really great book ifyou want to learn about
different cultures and kind oftranslate between what's okay
here in America.
You don't show the bottom ofyour foot to someone in the
Middle East.
I don't know if you kiss or not,but one thing I learned was

(01:04:29):
that when they say okay, itdoesn't actually mean okay.
It means that they heard you.
No, it means no, oh, really,yes, no way.
So we get to this meeting andmy boss is talking to him and
they're like okay, okay, okay.
And we get to the end of themeeting and he you know we were
doing like the debrief when theyleft and he's like what do you?
think.
I think it's great, I thinkthey're all good.
They said okay to everything.

(01:04:49):
I'm like.
Okay means no and he's likeshit it's true, so different
okay.
So I think we've we'veexhausted the uh so shifting
stuff.

The last part of the failure part is uh, we
have seen a couple corrosionissues with some of the pins for
the batteries oh, interesting,like actually on the connection
point, like the electricconnection yeah, and they're
spring loaded, yeah.
And is that water getting inthere?
You think we don't know,because it's the desert.
So you know, remember, we'reseeing stuff in a desert

(01:05:22):
environment.
We don't have a lot of water.
You don't see the water verymuch.
Um, they are sealed, so ifthey're in the rain there's no
water that's supposed to get in.
There's O-rings there's alittle clasp.
There's supposed to be a watersystem.
There's a certain rating, but Idon't remember what it is, but
I think it's just the contactpoint's wearing.

Okay.

So maybe it's a continually….
Yeah, friction, I'm not reallysure, and it's been to a point
where SR um tram did not have aanswer for it because that is
embedded so deep into thederailleur that it's not
something that's serviceable andthat has been an issue.
And tram has been wonderful andamazing about taking care of

(01:06:00):
people just replacing thecomponent.
Yeah, it's discounted price yeah, it depends on the length,
because there is a warrantyperiod and you know they also
can't control corrosion ifsomebody's abusing it.
They're not really sure and andfrom what I know of companies
not just fram but most companiesthe first few things that
happen they have a veryskeptical uh view on it.

They might be mistreated?

yeah it's.
They don't know once they seeit can't be our product.
Yeah, it's gotta be the user.
Yeah, as soon as they see a uh,a consistency, they start to
get super generous and happy totake care of you.
You know, because they knowthere's it's not the user, you
know, but the just riding along.
Uh happens where somebodypresents something and says I

(01:06:43):
don't know, I didn't do anything, and you know, the frame's
broken too and it's got likerocks embedded in it and they're
like like I was just ridingalong.

You were just riding along, yeah, so there's a
certain level.

And there is times when they do just break.
So that is the only thing thatI've really seen, other than
people smashing stuff.

Yeah, which can happen on acoustic bikes as
well.

I don't even see a de-pairing happen.
I don't even see a de-pairinghappen Every once in a while.
We won't get a like.
If you replace a battery orsomething, you may have to
repair your system, but ingeneral we don't even see that
they need to be repaired veryoften.

How expensive are the batteries?
What's a replacement batterycost Around $40.
That's for SRAM.

Now, if you get into Shimanoano, because
they're much bigger, it's about100 bucks.
Okay, now there are shimano di2systems, you could probably go
for a few months easily of heavyuse before you have to charge
it.
Yeah, so they last longer.
Shram systems you're talkingfour or five rides of heavy
riding, uh, depending, like adropper post and they charge up
in what?
An hour, two hours?

(01:07:47):
yeah, super quick yeah and umyeah, and one of the things that
we're starting to see.
So I just saw Fox's Neo stuffand they have their own battery
system.
I kind of wish there would be auniversal.
However, there are fakebatteries, not fake Knockoffs.
Knockoffs on like Amazon forSRAM?

Yeah, for sure.

And SRAM is worried about some of those
actually Because they put outdifferent voltages and can defry
their stuff.
Not only that, but they mayactually have different
materials on the contact points.
They may actually cause some ofthe corrosion.

Oh interesting.

So there is something that you need to know
as a buyer of this merchandiseif you decide to get something
off Amazon because people justfeel like the OE stuff is just
too expensive and they have tobuy something off amazon, you're
putting yourself at risk.
You do have to worry.
Uh, and and there's.
You know a logic person wouldbe like it's the same thing.
You know it comes out of thesame factory, it's all out of

(01:08:42):
the same stuff.
You know they're just gougingus or whatever.
But be careful, because if it'snot and I have dealt with
Amazon a lot, where they makesomething that is supposed to be
the same and it's not I gotduring COVID.
We ran out of hydraulic linesand I bought some off Amazon
because we couldn't get them andwe needed to fix people's bikes

(01:09:02):
and those hydraulic lines werejust garbage.

I mean Amazon is just a marketplace, right?
So you have no idea?
Yeah, there's just garbage.
I mean Amazon is just amarketplace, right?
So you have no idea.

Yeah, there's a legitimacy when you go onto
Amazon you feel as thoughthere's not.

Just so you know there's not.

I understand that.
So when you come into a shopyou do have a certain level of
protection where that shop hastheir reputation.
Yeah, they're not going to tryand rip you off.

Yeah, and I'm looking around.
I don't see any knockoffproducts.

Everything you have here is OEM and if I have a
knockoff it's a really good one.
But on Amazon you get thatsense because you've kind of
been conditioned that online isthe same as in-store, and I I'll
give you an example.
I need lithium ion batteriesfor my little floodlights that

(01:09:55):
are solar powered.
Yeah, and I was just freakingout because I go on Amazon and
there's a million brands I'venever heard of.
I don't want to get a lithiumion charging battery which can
have a critical failure and putit into my house, you know, and
so it's.
It's a little like worrisome togo buy something like that.
I'd say don't buy knockoffbatteries.

(01:10:15):
The problem is, you know, whenyou go to Amazon you don't know
what the knockoff is.
I got that floodlight system.
It's got some generic batteryin it, you know, and so you know
.
Now, in my remote control cars,you know, I have Traxxas.
Yeah, and I did go to Amazonand I get the knockoff batteries
because they are quite a bitcheaper.
I have a Traxxas charger, yep,but when I charge them they're

(01:10:37):
in a fireproof box.

You get another Traxxas charger in my truck oh,
that's awesome and some Traxxasbatteries and a Traxxas truck.

But I have a fireproof container because if
that knockoff battery is faultyand catches on fire, I don't
want my house catching on fireyeah, and so so that's something
to think about.
With the lithium ions, so as wetalk about electronics, that's
actually a thing.
So when we ship these productsback and forth, like when we get
them, they have special labels.
So when I get you that littlespare battery for 40 bucks

(01:11:07):
that's tiny and fits in yourpocket, yeah, um, it comes in a
box.
If it's in the same box as thelube and you know, a chain and
maybe a tire, that from ourdistributors, that box needs a
special sticker, has a specialdesignation so that, so that the
shipper knows there's a lithiumion in there.
So that is something that Idon't think you were bringing up

(01:11:28):
, that we should talk about youknow is knockoff stuff no, no,
uh, lithium ion.
Oh, just in general, yeah, Imean, have you, have you heard?

I mean, like I don't know anyone, we talk about
pedal assist bikes, which, bythe way, we're going to talk
about this.
This is my new, my new term for.
I'm not going to use the terme-bike anymore, just pedal
assist.
But you talk about pedal assistbikes.
I've heard all the stories,seen all the news reports.
It seems like it's always somecheap knockoff brand.
Yeah, I have not heard of any.
I guess I heard of a tesla, butI've not heard of any like

(01:11:59):
major bike companies.

There's a picture of a specialized.
Oh, here we go.
No, I'm not digging on them,but they're.
It's.
It's famous because it's aspecialized and it's the.
The picture takes the the viewof the specialized from the
bottom.
I see it recirculated, it's anolder picture and you can
actually see the cells.
It's all burnt up, the bikeskind of melted a little bit and

(01:12:21):
and there was an issue, um, andso it's not impossible for
lithium ions to fail, and whenthey do, they go through a
chemical reaction.
They it's cascading, which meansthat it gets bigger and bigger
yeah, and it has to burn itselfout and not much will put them
out.
Usually you cover them and tryand smother them, so like a lot

(01:12:42):
of shops will have a bucket ofsand to put stuff into or
they'll have some sort of system, but fire extinguishers don't
really work on them.
The biggest thing is to get itout of a enclosed area because
the fumes are fairly toxic.
It's not like a mustard gas, butit's nasty you know and uh, so
you want to get them out intothe open, let them off gas and
hopefully they're not offgassing on anything.

(01:13:04):
So, like we have a policy inthe shop, we don't ever charge
our our pedal assist bikes whenthe shop's closed.
We don't leave them onovernight so that we know what's
going on.
We have concrete floors.
We charge them in the middle ofthe floor, not against the
walls things like that.

Yeah, things like that, okay.

So there's actually a lot of criteria for
e-bikes Sorry, pedal assistbikes, but when we're talking
about electronics on the bike,you have that Now.
You have that in your watch, inyour Apple watch in my phone in
your phone in your cigarette orwhatever.

I don't smoke cigarettes, but yeah the systems
are pretty solid.

It's usually damage, or you're right.
In New York right now, there'san issue with uh, cheap e-bikes
that people are purchasing tocommute Uh, most of them I don't
want to say it's just commuters.
What it is is mostly deliverydrivers are using the e-bikes to
get around and do theirdeliveries and they're getting

(01:14:03):
the cheapest form oftransportation so that they can
make a living, so that they canmake a living.
And then they live in anapartment complex.
The bikes are drug around theup and down the stairs and all
over.
Nicked up and banged up yeah,and if that battery system
doesn't have what they call abattery management system?

BMS.

BMS.
Bms, that battery managementsystem, will maintain and
monitor the battery while it'sbeing charged and while it's not
to look for temperature, and soon the charger side, it will
take the charge off if it sees ahot cell or one cell is getting

(01:14:43):
overheated over the others.
There's a lot of technology inthat, and so when you go looking
for e-bikes and you want aninexpensive one, one of the
first places that they skimp onis that system, and then they
just put a regular transformerin to charge it, and they don't
have that kind of technology inthe bike, and that's.

(01:15:04):
Most of the buyers are that,and so there's legislation going
forward.
We'll probably see requirementsfor importers.

For BMSs.

Yeah Well, not only BMSs, but a UL rating.
There's a couple differentratings that they need to have
that they're pushing forward.
That basically will requiree-bike manufacturers to meet the
standard.

Have a certain quality management.

Yeah, and then I think they're working on
trying to do some sort ofbuyback program where if you
have one, that's not that waythat they'll give you a credit.
I know that that's a bigconcern because they're already
out there yeah uh.

So how do you get them?

off the street.
You got to stop them and thenand then, uh, that's a big
concern with these commutingbikes.
So in our shop we only carry umname brand.
Well, one, their name brand.
But two, they're almost all ulrated.
They're very high end theirname brand, they're you're not
really at the same risk level.
But man, the amount of peoplethat come in like, yeah, I

(01:16:02):
looked at the e-bike here and itwas, you know, 2500 bucks and I
can't afford that.
I got one from Costco for $500.
That happens all day long.
Costco is selling them, amazonis selling them.
Last year at Christmas Kohl'swas selling e-bikes, best Buy
had e-bikes and those littleboards, the little two-wheel
things.

(01:16:23):
They're out there and peopleare consuming them like crazy
because they're cheap.
Be careful.

You're taking on risk if you buy that cheap
product.
Get a quality product.

So electronics on the system that's probably
the biggest drawback is dealingwith the batteries.

Right on, so let's do this.
Man.
We've been talking for about anhour and 15 already.
Holy crap, it always happens,right.

We didn't even get to the topic.

Yeah, so let's well, we did.
We talked a lot about it, butlet's, let's save the suspension
, because I think it would becool to deep dive, because I
know it's.

It's bringing a lot of new tech and I know
you're a suspension expert.
When I'm on a system I'mtesting yeah, you're testing
them, so let's save that.

We'll just do a system.
We'll just do one podcastepisode on specifically like the
like, elect suspensionelectronics.

That are coming out, yeah, and we can, we can
deep dive on that.

Um any final thoughts, man?

Uh, you know, I I wouldn't be afraid of
electronics.
Uh, I think they're amazing.
I think pretty soon that'sgoing to be the only thing you
get on a quality bike.
Um, I think Walmart's alwaysgoing to have cable activated.

So I'm eventually going to have to go
to electronics.

We'll see, because as soon as the new
Shimano systems come out, youknow I'm going to want one.
Well, not only that, butthey're very good at consistency
, safety they're very good, sothey may not be as cutting edge
and as right you know out asfast as possible.
But when they do make a product, it's quality, and so if their
system comes out and it blowseverybody away, that may be

(01:17:49):
something that Could change thewhole thing.
Well because that will driveSRAM to make more.
And then they'll make more, andso that competition is what
really drives it Will drive it.
If it's like the first Di2Mountain Groups where nobody
bought it, it will just die onthe vine.
But the fact is people lovethis stuff.
It's pretty amazing.
Our number one road group arewireless SRAM systems and SRAM

(01:18:12):
was awful in the road market forcable Before this Before this
and the wireless has taken themand just vaulted them amazingly
ahead.

That's like the Rival system or whatever SRAM.

Rival, Rival Force, Red, all of them.
They're gravel groups.
Sram is just really committedto, to electronic systems.
They've seen the advantages andthey've got the time and
engineering down to wherethey're trickling it down to
some really good price points.

Uh final thing, and then we'll.
We'll end uh, I saw that somepictures of a mechanical, yes,
so that's to your point.

Uh, that's coming.
And again, the guys at SRAM maybe mad at me, but uh, I didn't
sign any NDAs so they can't sayanything.
So I haven't seen anythingofficial.

But yeah, I just saw it on pick bike.

There is a transmission uh G I don't know
if it's GX, I don't know whatthey're going to call it but
it's basically a mechanicaltransmission system which uses
all of the most of theadvantages.
The biggest one that you loseis that super reliable under
load, because again, you canshift faster than the chain is

(01:19:23):
ready to move, and so that isone of the reasons the
transmission systems do so wellis that they know where the
chain is.

They know where the cassette is.

They have set electronic sensors that are
doing all that stuff.
Well, not only that, but theyhave mapped out the shift ramps
and so the derailleur is movingat the speed it is so that it
picks up the shift ramps andunder load you don't pop a chain
open or break a chain or bend atooth or anything.
The mechanical system will losethat, but you'll still get

(01:19:53):
amazing shifting and you'll geta much better price point.
That's awesome, well, daneepisode 25.

High five.

High five.
That's awesome.
All right, it's been greatThanks man, hope you guys
enjoyed this.

Have a great day.
Okay, bye.

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088 – Are Electronic Mountain Bike Components Worth The Price?

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}088 – Are Electronic Mountain Bike Components Worth The Price?