105 - Cables Are Back! SRAM's Mechanical Transmission: Eagle 90 & Eagle 70 (& other new stuff) - Jimmy Nordloh, SRAM Field Guide - Mountain Cog

Episode Transcript
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Josh "Magellan" Anderson (00:05):
Thank you for the homebrew, by the way
.

Dane "Suspension Guru" H (00:08):
You're welcome.
Delicious, shout out, that'stoo good.
I beat you to.
It Did not sound the same.
It doesn't sound the same.
No, mine sounds like a90-year-old doing it.

Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM) (00:19):
We used to do that on the SRAM hotline,
trying to fit it in beforesomeone picked up.
Oh really, oh that you know ifyou work with phones like
customer service.

That's got to be like that movie
Waiting.
Did you ever see that movieWaiting, where they're just
doing all the shenanigans?
I bet you anything that happensin call centers.

You just got to find a way to entertain
yourself.

Dane "Suspension Guru" Higg (00:39):
You cannot go postal, yeah like the
cubicle's got to drive youinsane.
Well, yeah, cheers guys, it'sgood to be back.

Thank, you again.

Good to be a guru Surrounded by sick bikes
.
Yeah, great humans.

Yes, yeah, I bought some of those
Vittoria liners from you man,just so you know, there's a
receipt over there too Did youbuy some more.
Yeah.

Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgi (01:01):
Oh , that Stupid light.
I can't wait to run those.
Um, yeah, we'll see.
Yeah, I mean I've tried the oldones and I was happy with them,
but the new ones incorporatekind of a bead locking profile.

Yeah.

Dane "Suspension Guru" (01:14):
Whereas the old ones were round and so
they were great if you ran flat.
But the new ones kind of have,like this bead lock that goes in
and kind of holds your bead inplace and and, and I lost a
mountain bike race because ofthat and I was really bummed
about it, are you?

sure that's the only reason you lost.
Let's be honest, okay, uh allright, that's.

That's enough about pool noodles.
Let's talk about real bikeparts.

Dane "Suspension Guru" Hi (01:38):
Sorry , sorry yeah, well, yeah, I mean
they're expensive pool noodles,jesus yeah, they are they are.
They are so, but way nicer thansome of the other ones out
there.
Some of the other ones areliterally pool noodles.

Yeah, and surgical the Vittoria one is
nicer and surgical, Like whatis it Strap?
Or tubing, tubing.
Yeah, oh my.

God .

So okay, night mcp sitting guru
bikes with return guest mr jimmynord nord low.

yep , god damn it, I got it right,
look at that nice, I don't eventry, I just call I everybody's
like hey you, hey buddy, hey guyfirst name only yeah, that's
the bike biz.
Yeah, it is retail in general,like you just I forget.

I I learn as many names as I forget every
day.

Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgin (02:20):
I can't imagine how teachers do
it, you know, but I get, I guess, aiden caden.

Oh my god, don't even get me started yeah.
But yeah, it's going to be back.
Um yeah, Jimmy Nordlow, jimSram, field guy Arizona, you
know it's interesting part.

You know so like.
One of the metrics that we payattention to really closely on
this podcast is consumption rate.
Yeah, Now we're getting intolike deep podcasts, like nerdy
stuff, but like consumptionrates, effectively like how long
do the listeners on averageactually listen to the episodes?
And part of the reason whywe're keeping this going is our
consumption rate is really high.
It's like way over the industryaverage.
Um, we're just.

Dane "Suspension Guru" Hig (02:55):
that means people actually want to
listen to people or they don'tturn us off, right.

But the episode with you was
unusually high for the life, forfor the life of me, I can't
figure out why that is.

My mother always said I had a face for
radio.
So so do we.

I got to tell you.
So I'm learning a lot from myson, my nine-year-old, and so
that means that you have goodriz and you're not Skibbity
Toilet, Skibbity Ohio orSkibbity Ohio.

Toilet.
I am from Ohio.
Are you from Ohio, blame?

it on Ohio.
Oh, sheis, blame it on Ohio.

Sheis is right, cincinnati down on the
river the old Germantown, oh man, so yeah.

So last time we talked we knew that
SRAM had some stuff coming outthat we couldn't talk about on
air.

Yep.

And some of it's come out or all of
it's come out.
All of it's come out, all ofit's things that Jimmy won't
tell me or he doesn't know, sowe'll, we'll get to that.

Well, they love to speculate.
Yeah, yeah, I mean.

I'm sure they got stuff in the
works all the time.

Yeah, I mean, that's the boilerplate
answer.
Here at SRAM we're alwaysworking on new products.

I'm sure there's always a, a a room
you can't go into.

Yeah, before we get too deep, he never
told us his joke.
Oh, we need a joke.

Tell us your joke.
We've talked way too much.
Did we miss it?
Did we not make it in?

Did you not start with?

it.
No, you didn't, I don't.
The white.

I think, you told us before we
started.

Yeah, we hadn't been recording, all right
.
Well, dad joke intro, okaylighter well, one's heavy and
one's a little lighter.

Oh jesus christ dane has a tendency
of ruining the punchline on dadjokes.

He's done it in about four or five
episodes.
That was an alley-oop.
Yeah, I, I think so.
I.

I think that was a dunker, so all
right, can we start with the,with the grubo, with the
drivetrain, because, like, uh, Ifeel a little dirty, because
it's getting me excited.
Yes, I'm sitting here wearingmy Shimano hat and your.

Flamingo shirt.

And my Darko Flamingo.
Yeah, I like that.
I just bought a bunch of theseshirts.
That's mountain bike style.

I just bought a bunch of these to
ride in.
I really feel like you need agravel bike at this point.
I have a gravel bike, Okay yeah, that shirt is a gravel shirt
if I've ever seen it.

Well, this is all you're going to see
me in all summer, buddy, becauseI bought four of them.

Okay, different prints yeah in that
time, SRAM has pioneered thegroundbreaking innovation known
as a shifter cable.
No way.

You mean they're going to attach
the shifter to the derailleur?

Via a wire With a wire.
Yeah, you know what's fasterthan wireless Wire?

I love it when you use the
buttons by the way, we don'tever use this.

I know it's the DJ Shock Jack.
I love it.
I'll use them more.
Do you have them?

labeled .
I do Okay, good.

But yeah, we brought back the cable.
It's, you know.
Ultimately we knew that evenamong enthusiast mountain bikers

(05:59):
there are people out there thatjust don't want the added
overhead of charging a battery,you know, pairing, wireless
connection, firmware updates, etcetera.
You know you just want to beable to grab your bike and ride.
So we did so.
So, yeah, we did finally bringthe you know transmission
ecosystem to the cable Ludditesof the world.

Yeah , Well, so here's the crazy
thing is, there's a fewcompanies that have taken the
cable housing ports off theirbikes yeah, so you can't even
run that system now on theirbikes and they have like two
versions, maybe two framequality versions.
Which companies are that?
So Santa Cruz is one of theones that I know of.

(06:41):
I thought there was somebodyelse.

Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM (06:42):
Specialized , did it on the.

Dane "Suspension Gu (06:44):
Stumpjumper 15.
Yeah, so on the high-end framesthere's no cable option.

It has to be wireless.
Interesting yeah.

And so that's kind of weird, right,
you know, you'd think SRAMwould have told them.

How much did you guys pay them to do
that?
To eliminate cable holes?

Yeah right.

You know I do like it in the sense that it
makes for a clean frame and Ithink it makes it easier for
frame designers to go withoutcable holes, but you know, at
the same time, you want a bikethat can accept as many of the
options out there.
I mean me personally.
90% of my bikes are stillwireless, but in fact I did
actually go back to cables on myaluminum stump jumper.

(07:22):
That way I have a future proofEMP proof.

Cause that's something that mountain
bikers really stay up latethinking about.

Holy crap, is that going to be a new
category of apocalypse bikes?

Are we going to see apocalypse bikes
Exactly?

Exactly .
The preppers are coming in hardright now.

But yeah, I got to say I've been riding
the Eagle 90 group for about amonth now and I'm really
impressed.
I had ridden it, uh, about ayear and a half ago in just a
mule like environment, on a testbike in San Luis Obispo and was
really impressed by it then anduh, actually didn't hear a lot
about its development.
I think that we had kind ofgone back and forth about when

(08:04):
to launch it.
So I wasn't even sure that, uh,you know, beginning of this
year, that this was going to bethe year that we launched it,
but very excited that we did.
Um, yeah, it's got a reallygreat crispy shift quality.
It feels like you know the XOmechanical of old Um and yeah,
the new cable pool ratio, thenew shifter, all have a very

(08:26):
smooth feel.
It's I mean, it's the fulltransmission experience, just
minus a battery yeah, so soyou've got.

Now you've got a.
You can use a regulartransmission chain.

Uh, front chain ring yes, compatible,
compatible with all existingtransmission.

So all of that's exchanging and
you just it's really a rearderailleur and a shifter Yep, so
that's cool.
So if you've got a, I can'timagine.
But somebody may have atransmission currently wireless
and want to go to this.

If they've forgotten their battery 10
times in a row at the trailheadand they go.
I just can't do this anymorethey can keep their entire
existing drivetrain and justbolt on the derailleur and
shifter.

But I'm seeing them show up on
bikes already and I have afeeling it's price point
orientated.
Would you say that you'recovering a price point that
you'd been kind of?

Price point is definitely a focus,
because AXS obviously addsanother layer of cost,
complexity et cetera.
But I do want to say that it'snot just geared towards someone
who can't afford AXS.
It's for someone who wants thisgroup, who wants transmission
and specifically, for whateverreason, does not want access.

Which was just we see that it's a
real thing.
It's not like a crazy idea thatsomebody would be like oh, I
got all the money in the worldand I don't want batteries.

That's an actual, legit thing that's
me, yeah, for sure so it is.

It is a thing, a thing.
So okay, now, uh, again, I'mplaying devil's advocate a
little bit, not hard, but uh, sothe the big thing that you're
going to give up that.
I think that access kind of uhtouted as a big thing was that
that derailleur was kind ofshifting at the optimum time,
and probably the biggestdrawback that we ever heard

(10:04):
about access transmission wasthe speed of the shift and we
would actually show people thatit's shifting at when it's
supposed to and not whenever itfelt.

So you're gaining back the speed.

No , I don't think you are Well, at
least in the reviews that Iwatched.

You are gaining back the speed.

That's just perceived shift feel, so
that is just the impulse fromyour thumb the shift to the
derailleur.
So ultimately you're stillgetting the same shift speed
because the chain is stillwaiting to hit the shift ramps
on the cassette.
So it's more perception than itis actual shift speed.

Because you can't do five shifts at a
time.

Right, so the new mechanical shifter is
limited to two shift.

Yeah, for the acoustic.
Yes, one shift for the e-mode.

Can we call it Amish yeah?

The Amish, I don't know why.

Okay, well hang on a second.
So I'm going to call bullshit alittle bit.
Okay, because I watched aside-by-side comparison in a
video today of Axis and Eagle 90.
Yes, and this is dumpingmultiple gears to go from your
lowest gear to your highest gear.
Yeah, and it was significantlyslower on Axis.

Okay, so in that scenario of like you
described like spamming shifts,like that yes the mechanical
will move faster because it's adirect impulse from shift lever
to derailleur, so there's nohesitation in signal or the
firmware of the derailleur.
So the firmware of the AXIStransmission derailleurs is
intended to wait for thecassette to rotate around to the

(11:39):
point where the cassette shiftramps are available to the chain
.

Yeah , and it buffers yes.
The cassette shift ramps areavailable to the chain.
Yeah, and it buffers yes,because you can hit it 12 times
super quick and then just keeppedaling and it'll shift as as
you pedal.

yes, it'll keep shifting, yeah say, for
instance, you hit the shiftbutton, it will you know.
Quote unquote wait until theright time.
Yeah, based it knows what gear,what cog on the cassette it is
in, versus a mechanical whichdoesn't right and it will wait
the approximate amount of timethat it takes for the next gear
and its shift ramp to comearound full circle for the chain

(12:12):
to migrate onto.

Which has been the selling feature.
The big selling feature is thatit's it's.
You're not popping chain links,you're not popping gears,
you're not wearing your stuffout premature, you're.
You're getting a full, a full,um, you can use full power.
You know so, like a lot ofpeople are like well, when I go
down a hill and then go have togo back up and I have to go
through my gears, I can't getthrough them fast enough.
I'm like spam, that shifter,you know to however many you

(12:35):
want, and then give it fullpower and it'll just shift as
you full power up that side ofthe side of that hill yeah, so
the mechanical will still shiftunder load it will, but at a
maximum of two years at a time.
Yes, yeah and so, and so I thinkit's, I think, I think what?
What, ultimately, is the feelof you being able to shift it
faster?
Yes, is there, whether or notthe shift ramps aren't any

(12:58):
different?

but it actually.
I mean, they showed it, theyshowed side by side and they
showed them spamming amechanical and spamming the
access.
And it got all the way throughand then it was like one, two,
three and then the access gotthere.

Yeah, cleared the rest of the cassette
.
Cleared the rest of thecassette.

So in that case, like the use case
where you're descending down andyou're going to go up a hill
really quick and you're stupidand didn't have yourself set up
right for it yeah, you can.
You can get into that highergear, maybe by doing damage,
maybe popping your chain, maybewearing out your components
faster, but out for that climbyou can get there, you know, a
fraction of a second faster.

Yeah .
So, and I think a feel wise, Ithink there's a certain amount
of people that want that.
You know they do yeah.

And that was part of it too.
So, like you said, beyond justthe price point, there are the
people that just prefer thatfeel.
I would say that the cassetteramping is optimized for Axis
because, like I mentioned, itknows the difference between,
for instance, cog-7 and COG-6and the amount of shift ramps
and basically, yeah.

The right time to do it.

Yes exactly, whereas the mechanical
transmission does not, but itdoes still allow the chain to
migrate.
I am an american, god damn it.
I want control when I don'twant the robot to tell me when
to shift.

I want when I hit the button, I want
that fucker to shift let meguess you don't wear a seat belt
or use cruise control so onething to keep in mind about uh
transmission access versus themechanical what do you call it?

the 90 series.

Yes, 90 and 70.

70 and 90, is they're sharing the
same cassettes.
But that already, even ifyou're using mechanical on that
cassette, it's already an uppertier level shift profiling
cassette.
In other words, it's not superlow end, it's already shift so
good.
So when you go back tomechanical with it, it's not

(14:48):
like you're going back beyondand to a low end setup.

You're going backwards to like a super
high end.
Let's talk about this.
So you guys released twoGroupos, the Eagle 70 and the
Eagle 90.

Yeah , and.

I got some prices here.
Tell me if I'm wrong, but forthe full kit 670 for the 90 box,
everything minus the bottombracket.

Yep, everything minus the bottom
pride, it is on the shelf.
Yeah, we sold.
Shout out, guru.

Yeah and everything is cassette,
derailleur, cranks, shifter andchain yep, okay.
And then the eagle, 70, 490dollars yep, okay, and the way I
like.
If I go back to like SRAM'sprevious mechanical group sets
like the 70s, kind of like an NXlevel, and then the 90s, kind

(15:32):
of like somewhere between GX andXO, and 70 is poised as the
current.

S1000 transmission mechanical
equivalent so yeah, taking NXand GX Eagle 12-speed out of the
equation, just since they'retwo different drivetrains like

(15:58):
operating on two different kindof premises.

But now you've got a, so it's not
like 90 is a mechanical XO1, youknow, it's not that it's, it's
sitting under GX.

No, it is.
It is sitting right next to GX.

Cause it shares the chain and
cassette.

Yeah, shares the chain and the
cassette.
The only thing that's differentis the railer and shifter.
Yeah, and then same thing witheagle 70.
So s1000 is the primarily rightnow oem transmission group and
that's what utilizes the uhhyperglide compatible cassette,
um and and yeah, the drag springclutch derailleur.

(16:37):
That's the main differencebetween the two, derailleurs, is
that the the eagle 90 uses thesame v4 clutch as the GX
transmission derailleur.

Okay, and that's a bearing-based
clutch.

Is it fluid?
No, it's not a fluid damperlike the Roadworks.

So roller-bearing clutch versus
drag spring clutch?
In the 90, it's aroller-bearing clutch and in the
70, it's a drag spring clutch.

Yes, that is correct.
Geez, I'm going to have to lookat pictures for that.
But the cool thing there isbecause with transmission we
have the fully replaceableclutch and cage assemblies yes
say, if you have an eagle 70derailleur and you go, well,
this, this cage clutch assemblyjust isn't doing it for me.
You can upgrade just that cageclutch assembly oh, so you could
make your 70 uh kind of hybrid.

(17:21):
90, yes, with, with just theaddition of a cage I heard the
hot setup is to do um.

You do like a sl drivetrain uh xxsl
drivetrain with the mechanical90, but you put the sl cage on
it yeah, you save about 90 gramsthat way 90 grams, so one of
the lightest setups you can dointeresting, yeah, isn't that
crazy?

that is crazy yeah, okay, so that is the
cool I, I would say that's thething that, uh, distinguishes it
from NX of old is that you knowthe previous Eagle generation
derailleurs.

You know you're locked into your
clutch and cage et cetera, andthey're not replaceable Right In
the previous generation.

On the previous generation there were
no replaceable outer or innerlinks, parallelogram links, cage
clutch assembly, nothing yeah.

If your derailleur was damaged for
any reason, you had to get a newderailleur.
Yeah, dude, I gotta ask you areally ignorant question.

I'm learning that clutches wear out
after about a season inderailleurs, and I wouldn't say
that, okay, this is what, thisis what I've read, um, so, but
yeah, that's not my question,but maybe you can answer that
too, okay, so so I'll two-partquestion.

Sure, do they like.
How frequently do they wear out?
And then the second questionokay, is this the only one that
can actually replace the clutch?

it's the only derailleur.
No, what will hold up, do you?
You just shut your mouth whenwe're not talking about uh, so
you can replace the clutch.
Service the clutch on someshimano derailleurs.
So we have had to do thatbecause they had a series where
they rusted.
Um, you can service them andthey have an adjustable uh

(18:52):
clutch so you can um mitigatethe the deterioration of that,
because it's it's kind of like aI mean it's a clutch, it's like
metal on metal, rubbing uh likeit's.
That's how they work and sothere is going to be
deterioration over time.
I've seen it, in differentcircumstances, wear out way
faster than others.
I've noticed and remember Ihave a little ecosystem.

(19:16):
I'm not all over the world, butI've noticed some bike designs
will wear it out faster thanothers because they have more
chain.
Growth Makes sense and so thatclutch is being activated on
suspension movement.

Yeah, gotcha.
Which suspension designs do youthink are more?
Can we get that specific?
Are we getting too nerdy?
No, no, it's not too nerdy.

It's usually as if your axle path
takes you farther back andbasically your chain length
changes.
Your rear wheel, as it movesthrough its travel, is going to
get farther away, which is goingto bring the tension of that
lower chain down, and it's goingto pull the cage forward as you
go through the suspension.
It's crazy because I've noticedsomething lately and I may have

(19:57):
brought this up before OnTurner's bike, which I tuned
super soft for.
Switchblade.
I've got old XO XO on it, so 11speed.
And when I his suspension is sosoft cause he's not even 90
pounds it's so soft when I pushon the back I can feel the

(20:18):
clutch Like I feel fighting theclutch actually fights it, and
so like in this day and agewhere we're talking about
downhillers putting O chains on.

I was going to say you're going to put
an O chain on that changing allthese other things, for you
know, suspension, kickback andstuff.

I'm like the clutches are actually
probably doing more to them tothat than than anything, Cause
anytime that rear wheel movesbackwards and the chain grows
the, the derailleur cage has topull up the the, it has to
release a little bit of thechain and that activates the
clutch so so the kind of back toshram yeah, it's 90 in the 70,

(20:53):
so the derailleur itself on the90 in the 70, you know, really
like heavily serviceable fullyrebuildable
yeah, there is some difference.
Replace Replaceable ReplaceableIs that safer?
Like you can't pull the clutchapart and fix it If it goes bad,
you get a new cage with the newclutch.

On Eagle 90, you can actually replace
just the clutch assembly on thecage.
So it does require.
You've seen that T25 safetybolt head with the pin in the
middle.
So on Eagle 90 and GXtransmission and up you can get
just the V4 clutch assembly.
Sweet, use that safety tool toreplace just that to the cage On
Eagle 70 with the drag spring.

(21:31):
Drag spring is not replaceable.
If you replace that it's awhole cage.

That was my question.
Is there any other differencesin the replaceability,
repairability of the 70 versusthe 90 derailleur?

No same thing.
You can still replace inner andouter parallelogram links,
upper B-knuckle and lower cage.
That's awesome, that's the onlything you lose is that you
can't free the clutch assemblyfrom the cage on 70s.

Can you still stand on it?

Yes, you can stand on it.

We don't encourage people to do
that.
They had a heavy dude standingon it like a Josh clone standing
on it like a josh, a josh clonestanding on yeah, and so yeah I
he might be bigger than you.

Yeah, he's a unit, he's a big boy.
He's a big boy, he's corn fed.
Yeah, he's corn fed.

But canadian, oh nice.
And then, uh, we talked aboutsingle upshift, two downshift,
except for on the e-bike group.
Oh yes, it's limited to one.
Now they said you can run it.
You can run the two on youre-bike, but it voids the
warranty yes, uh-huh, yeah, sowhy is?
That is that because thee-bikes put so much power into
it yeah, uh-huh, the, the pedalassist is just so much power.

Yeah, single click only.
And that's for axis andmechanical transmission groups.
Um, I would say so, mechanicalversus axis.
It's also worth noting that youdo lose the override clutch.

So my my access transmission on my
e-bike I, I guess it's.
I didn't notice anythingdifferent.

Like is it different in a multi-shift.

I don't straight to jail.
Yeah, I know your warranty hasnow been.
I know that I'm going to pullup this episode when you go to
warrant they're going to be likeNope, I did not know that there
is a different shifter for youraccess.

Well, so no for access.
You just limit it from the app.

Oh , okay.
Well, yeah, I never opened thatapp.
Don't tell me that.
I'm sorry, man Dude I, you know.

But the thing is, we also make it
totally usable and operablewithout using the app.
But the thing is, we also makeit totally usable and operable
without using the app.

Yes , exactly, and I actually use my
app with the flight attendantsuspension Right.
You need that to actually viewthose settings.

But yes, for e-bike and access shifting,
yes, you do need to enablesingle click or disable multi
shift from the app.

Okay , so it's the same shifter, but
for mechanical.

it is a specific standalone single-click
shifter.
Okay, Interesting.

Yeah , so now the big question.

What's your e-bike.
So that was on my SL at first.

Depends on the day, but now it's on my
AM, so I had a lightweight right.

Pivot shuttle AM, I would say on an SL
bike it's probably in that bitof the gray area, because you're
only getting the what 60 newtonmeter assist.
I know how to shift.

Dane "Suspension Guru (24:08):
Seriously , Actually, that's a problem
when we're working on bikes inthe shop.
Somebody will come in and belike there's something wrong
with my shifting and I'll takeit for a test ride.
Yeah, it's you.

No joke, you are the problem in
this system.

It feels fine.
I don't know what's wrong withyou.

And then I have to go watch them do it and
they're shifting and I have topurposely try and time my legs
to not be at the shift to shiftwrong.

Yeah , this is mostly happening with
front front derailleurs back onroad bikes, you know, uh, where
they're just kind of knockingthe chain around and getting it
to come off the cranks you don'thave to do that with the SRAM
90 Eagle 70 Eagle Access.

You can shift anytime you want.

No , but as a….

Right, am I making your case Kind of,
kind of For the single click.

What do you mean?
Kind of, there is still….
Okay, so this is… I'm puttingon my mechanic hat.
Okay, so there's still shiftramps, there's still optimum
places for them to be lifted sothat they don't damage or hurt
anything or wear sooner.
And so if you just ham shiftand you don't shift when those
are appropriate, you're going toput more wear and possibly hurt

(25:13):
the system.

All right, well, so so help me with
this Cause.
This was one of my questionsand, again, I watched probably
14 videos today on this yeah.
What I would like prettyconsistently through all, and
these are these are not SRAMguys, these are independent.
Independent, you know.
Whatever influencers out therereviewing the products mindless
shifting under load, you don'thave to let off during shift.

(25:33):
This is, this is eagle 90 yes,is that not the case?

it's transmission is.
That's their, I know, but I'mgoing to tell you the.
I gotta tell you the bike shopanswer, because jimmy won't be
at the bike shop all the time,and so what the bike shop's
going to tell you is you've beentrained, uh, we've been trained
to always light up, lighten upon our shift, uh, pedal stroke
okay, so that the chain has achance to get that, to lift the

(25:57):
chain up to the next cog or down, and so that's something that's
ingrained to us.
Transmission, transmissionaccess, when it came out, said
you don't have to do thatanymore, you can just hit the
button and you can do it at anypoint, at any load, and you're
fine.

And the penalty we talked about a
little bit earlier.
You're going to have to wait asplit second for it to catch up
and shift for you.

But when you take the electronics
out of it you're getting shadeda little bit more towards the
old way.
Is that fair?

I would say.
I would say that is fair in thesense that, like, access does
wait for you because it is notphysically moving the derailleur
until it knows that the, theshift lane for the next cog is
coming up soon.
Yeah, so there there is apossibility.
Yeah, like shifting, it's more,it's less so about shifting at
the wrong point mechanically forthe drive train and more about

(26:48):
shifting at the wrong point Likephysically for the, you know,
for the rider perch, as thatthing moves up and under load.

The difference is you can be
pushing that derailleur over andshoving the chain against the
cog that it's going to climb upwhen there's not a shift ramp.

Josh "Magellan" Anderso (27:10):
Whereas with access thousand percent
understand everything you'resaying All right.
All right.
Every fucking video I watchedtoday said the opposite of that
Every video you probably watchand I haven't watched them.

Probably had them doing it at a fast
speed and not as slow speed.

All right.
So to our listeners, okay, goget a Eagle 90 and try to shift
it under load and please comeback and tell me who is going to
shift Great.

So that's.
The other thing is the level ofdifference is very small.

So, like Jimmy's giving me like
really dirty looks right now.
I don't know.
I don't know if we're like in abad never coming back to this
podcast no, no, because whatyou're saying is like what the?

the ?
The shift quality in thetransmission chain and cassette
is so good that even if you wereto degrade the access a little
bit with a cable, it's stillgoing to be better than most of
the stuff out there yeah, dean'sgot a really good point with
that, with the fact that youknow most of this shift under
load capacity is engineered intothe chain and cassette.

The derailleur is just the messenger
, and whether that's deliveredby electronic signal or cable is
beside the point.
The shift under load capabilityis delivered by the engineered
cassette and chain.

Yeah , and the little bit that the XS
has over, that is just itsability to time it A little bit
of fine tune, yeah.

Yeah, Okay so.
So let's talk about cranks fora second.
Were there new cranks that cameout, or did those come out
before?
Because my understanding is youguys have the the 90 cranks all
the way down to one 50.

Yes.

EMTB.

And I just put those on my bike 155 for
acoustic.
It's really short Really.

Yeah, dude, and the 70 goes all the
way down to 165, 160 for EMTBs.

So the crank difference is there.
The Eagle 90 crank is verysimilar to the GX crank, just
with a steel chainring.
The silver chainring looks good.
Don't both groupos have a steel?

chain ring.
Uh, the silver chain ring don'tthey all have?
Don't both grupos have a steelchain ring?

on the 90 and the 70 yeah on the
90 and the 70 yes uh, but gx,between between gx and eagle 90,
um.

So the eagle 90 mechanical crank is a
little bit heavier than its gxcounterpart, um, but it's still
eight.
Bolt direct mount, chain ring,um.
And then, yes, with a cranklength options down to one 50.
Uh, yeah, I mean we're trendingtowards shorter and everything,
so I put one 55 on my e-bikeand I love not having to worry

(29:35):
about pedal strikes at all, butI do find myself, I'm like, I
feel like I'm spinning.

Yeah, what's the?
What's the e-bike that you?

ride.
I have a Cannondale Motera.
Okay, a Bosch.

You have it mullet.
Yeah, that's why you're hittingcranks.

Well, yeah , that's why I swapped the 155.

Yeah.

And then the big distinguishing
difference between Eagle 90 andEagle 70 cranks is that Eagle 70
actually is still thethree-bolt direct mount, so it
is not power meter compatible.

Okay .

And they power meter compatible?
Okay, and they're all dub?
Yes, and are they're backwardscompatible?
Yeah, you can use anytransmission crank with any of
these eagle 90, 70 groups,that's one thing that I love
like that interchangeability, soyou can run x, x, sls.

Yeah , you could run on a mechanical
system, and so you can cherrypick what you want all these
parts are interchangeable.

You can build your own group, yeah and I
think one nuance.

The lowest that your like complete
group goes is 165, otherwise youhave to buy the cranks
separately separately okay andthe and the eagle 90 crank is
like 155 bucks, so it's not no,it's not crazy.

Yeah , it's not.
What's the weight on the eagle90 versus the gx?
I don't know I mean, is it myhead?

but 20 grams, I would say probably
within that realm betweenbetween comparable crank arm
lengths and chain ring sizes.

Yeah , it's probably there, okay, so
not a big amount you can.
Now did you say eagle um gxcomes with a steel chain ring uh
, eagle 90 no gx.

Gx is alloy chain ring yes, gx
transmission yes, okay, that'swhat I thought so okay so yeah,
so don't don't be afraid of thesteel.

It's not that much heavier and it'll
last a lot longer.

And they still have the new profile
.

And it's silver.

So on your tooth profile, this is
something we see in the shop allthe time.
As that tooth wears, it'swearing to not stretch the chain
.
Is that correct?
Like, Like, you have a certaintooth profile that you guys are
really proud of.
Yes, yeah that hooks therollers, yeah, so chain yeah,
Chain stretch is more.

So about actually wearing down the
rollers?
You're not actually increasingthe length of each chain link.
You're just you're reducing theoverall diameter of the rollers
, yeah, or the the pin play.
So that is that is something Iwant to hammer home here real
quick, go for it.

The first wear item on a one by
sram drivetrain, especially our12 speed, is the chain ring yeah
the chain ring will be thefirst thing to wear out okay,
that's interesting becausethat's like the last thing that
on other well yeah like back inthe day um, we used to tell
people like on your doublesfront chain rings there was two,
two drive trains to every setof cranks.

(32:08):
But now you've got all of thatwork being done by one, so it's
twice as much work Fortransmission.

The cassette and chain are very much
intended to wear together tomesh together in a sense.
Like you know, throwing a newchain on you know, a ridden
transmission cassette probablywon't have the best results
compared to just replacing thefront chain ring.

Okay , that's good for us to know.
The other thing that we'reseeing in the shop is we're not
seeing a lot of chain perceivedstretch, you know.
But one thing that we do seeand Abby has a new tool is
deflection.

Yes, yeah, actually, that's a really good
point.
I was just having thisconversation with a lot of shops
recently.
A lot of the chain checkers onthe market don't register any
kind of perceivable, or at leastjust like actionable, wear
measurement on flat top chains.
So the best way to measure that, like you mentioned is the
Abbey deflection tool is justhow much the chain is able to
like flop over to the side, likethe flex in those flat top

(33:06):
links.

So is that registering?

No, I got it.
Maybe we should explain it alittle bit more for the
listeners.

So what we're seeing, so what we
noticed was, as Eagle Drivedrains were wearing out,
especially flat tops, so we wereseeing on the roads first is
shift quality was dropping, butthen our old chain checkers
would get checked and the chainwouldn't seem like it's too long
.
And so then we're okay.
Well, we've got to straightenthe hanger, we've got to do all
these things.
What kind of lube are we using?

(33:33):
We're trying to figure out whythe shift quality is dropping
off.
What we realize is that thelink plates are getting play
side to side, and so when thederailleur pulley is activated
and pushing the chain over,there's so much side to side
play that the chain doesn'tactually flex over to hit the
next shift ramp and lift up.

(33:54):
And so if you replace just thechain, which we were doing, um,
you were finding that thatstiffer chain would now be
hitting the shift ramps andgetting lifted up to the next
cog, and so the shift qualitywent way up you guys buy the
abitool uh yeah, oh yeah, it'ssitting right.
Uh well, the guys, we only haveone and the guys keep coveting
it well, there it is yeah, it's,it's the green one behind the

(34:17):
uh screwdrivers over there it is.
So yeah, it's cool, it's a greattool yeah, it checks length and
it, but the it's one of theonly ones I think that does
deflection.
Yeah, I actually.
So I'm just going to give you,I'm going to pat myself on the
back Before that existed.
When we found this out, whichwas like three or four years ago
, it was quite a while.
I don't remember when that cameout, we actually had our

(34:38):
workbenches.
I had drawn a picture of a….

You made your own custom.
Yeah, I had a picture of ayou've made.
You made your own.

I had yeah, I had a picture of a
shram.
We took a flat top, we stuck iton the bench and we traced it
out, and then we basically tookthe one that we realized was
having a problem and put it downand traced it out, and so we
had a visual representation ofhow much different they were so
you actually stretched it.

we, we say well, how much lateral
movement did it have?
Yeah, we deflected it,deflected, deflected it.
Thank you.

So the deflection, by the way,
that's a term that I used to usein golf and we had a deflection
board and you would put a golfclub on this board and you'd put
weight on the golf club andthat weight would deflect or
bend the shaft and then thenumber would tell you how stiff
that was.
Yeah right, that's because Isaid shaft.

(35:27):
Yeah, is it.
Are you gonna do that when Isay shaft, so shaft.
Oh, you missed who's the catyeah shaft, oh my god okay but
anyway uh that's.

That's a really good point, that's the
deflection, uh a lot of peopleare like, for the record, people
, a chain doesn't stretch.
You cannot metallurgicallystretch a chain.

Yeah , yeah, yeah, yeah, it's what
they call it, but it does getlonger and that's the crazy part
.
So when you measure a chain pinto pin over 126 lengths, it can
be a an inch longer.
Uh, it, because each roller andpin has deteriorated and that
tolerance can stack, so you canhave a one millimeter difference
on one.

(36:10):
But when you do it over 126,you can have 126 millimeter
difference.
It's not that much, but you getthe point, you know, I think
people perceive it as likeyou're like you're the metal,
like you're not pulling themetal.
You're wearing down the actualdistance between rollers, yeah,
and the and the actual um theroller, but also the inside, not
just the outside.

So yeah, no, that's a really good point.
Let's see that tool on yourguys's bench yeah, it's a.

It's a good tool.
It helps us figure this stuffout because the the the wear
profile so far on the eaglestuff is pretty long lasting.
I mean, shram gives some crazynumbers about how long.

I've seen people get 10000 miles out of a
flat top chain.

We don't say that because somebody
is going to come in with 9,000.

This is someone who said 10,000 is
someone who is keeping upmeticulously on their on their
maintenance, but it is muchlonger than it's possible yeah.

And if you get, if you spend the
money, because until now you'vehad to get access or you've had
to get electronic, which pushesthe price point up.
Until now it's been a bigexpense and you can say, hey,
this stuff lasts longer.

Is there a lube that you would
recommend for a flat top?
Is there one that you guys?

prefer over others.
Do you have to lube the shaft?

I would say lube is still firmly in a
personal preference andenvironment dictated.
Okay, so there's not one Wait,wait, wait, wait that answer you
need to.

Yeah , that fully deserves a button.

What am I?
No, no, no.
The other button.

Oh that one, yeah, that fully deserves a
button.

What am I?
No, no, no, the other button.
Oh, that one, yeah, because hewas like it.

Your lube of choice is dictated by your
environment.

Yeah, there you go.
He said lube choice and dick inthe same sentence.
Oh my God.

Jesus, all right, all right.

To get us down the drivetrain rabbit
hole.

Let's move on to the next hot topic, which
is brakes.

Is it true?
You guys have gone away fromDOT completely.

Well, we won't be developing any new DOT
brakes.

But you don't sell any right now.

Any legacy product that's out there
.

Forget the legacy products, just the
three that I can see on yourwebsite.

The new product does not have DOT.

Okay, and all four piston.

Yes, that is correct.

That was kind of crazy, right, so
that's got to change.
I'll put money down right now.

Hold on, I have money.
I did not expect you to go tobat for two piston brakes.

I'm telling you right now that
there's somebody.
He's got two piston on everybike I'm putting money down One
dollar.
One stinking dollar Money downthat somebody at SRAM is working
on a two piston lightweightMoney down.
That somebody at SRAM isworking on a two-piston
lightweight cross-country WorldCup rig.

Well, what else can I say, besides Nino's
already winning on the Modafour-piston?

Yeah , but that's Okay.

If you're winning, why would?

you need, first of all If it ain't
broke, don't fix it, dane, why?

would you want less power?
First of all, if you're beingpaid by a sponsor to do
something, you do it.
I'm telling you right now.

He does it for the love in his heart.

I'm telling you the Piccolos, the
trick stuff.
Piccolos don't sell out for areason they sell out because
they're stupid light.
Somebody at SRAM is developingthis.
I have money on it right here.

That's a fat wad of cash.
That's fat.
Josh can attest.

It's $1.

Do you want my spiel on mineral oil?
Yes, go for it yes, we do,absolutely.
Yeah, I'm taking my one dollarback yeah, so sram did tout the
benefits of dot for a long timeand you know, there there are a
few and that's, you know, ahigher boiling point.
Uh, it's water soluble, it's uhinterchangeability regulation
right, you can get it anywhere.
You can get it in an auto parts,auto parts store,

(39:49):
internationally, etc.
I think the big thing that wewould fall back on is, you know,
the dot does have a higherlatent boiling point, but that
is only in a moisture controlledenvironment.
So the second that your DOT,which is hydrophilic, it absorbs
moisture versus mineral oil,which is hydrophobic, which

(40:11):
resists moisture.

We're teaching the audience now, I
know.

There's a lot of concepts to this.
I'm definitely phobic.
But DOT does absorb moistureout of the air, so it sucks
moisture into its fluid.
I was waiting for that.
It sucks it.
There we go.
So once DOT fluid reaches acertain moisture point, it has a
lower, a diminished, boilingpoint compared to mineral oil.

(40:37):
So over time your mineral oildoes ingest that water from the
air.

Your DOT does ingest.
You said mineral oil, oh sorry.

Yeah, your DOT ingests it, whereas your
mineral oil separates it.

And then that as it ingests, it
changes the chemical composition, the boiling point changes.

Yes, exactly so, the mineral oil.
And specifically, you know, onething that's worth mentioning
is that our mineral oil isn'tjust off the shelf Shimano
mineral oil, which hasn'tchanged in 20 years since the
original shimano hydraulic brakefluids came out.
It was developed in partnershipwith maxima, who does all of our
suspension fluids.
Yeah, so it's also.

(41:12):
It's also a brake lubricant,which is worth noting too.
It's like it is a full systemfluid that is intended to, like
you know, enhance the fullperformance of the brake.
So, mineral oil.
While on paper it has thatlower boiling point, it has a
boiling point that is higherthan anything anybody's actually

(41:33):
going to conceivably reach on abike, yeah, and and that dot
higher boiling point, like Isaid, is only in the vacuum of
no moisture.
So once moisture is in thatequation, they're pretty much
similar there.
Okay, Um, but yeah, the mainthing with SRAM mineral oil is
that it is a break.
It is a brake fluid designedfor the brake rather than a

(41:57):
brake designed around theexisting fluid.
So, it lubricates, it cleansand it operates as a brake fluid
all in one.

Okay .

So so four piston only in the new one.
So so, as I understand it, youhave three brakes that are out
right now.
The DB line motive and Maven,yeah, and DB's got versions Yep
the two, four and six or four,six and eight.

DB for DB six and DB eight, and
that's the lever designdifference.
Are all the calipers the same?

to my knowledge yes, so the the main
difference there is the yeah isthe lever whether it's
matchmaker compatible matchmaker.

And then there's also uh, bearing
or non-bearing.

Yes, db8's got bearing yes, db8's the
nice one yes, so the high endone db8 is available aftermarket
.

Db4 and db6 are going to be oe, yeah,
okay, all right.
And then obviously maven, topdog, the ultimate gravity
performance break.
And then motive is you know,it's little cousin slated for
anything where maven is overkillthis is what I'm talking about.

So the db series is not going to
be for the cross-country peopleand the maven is clearly for the
trail crowd and then and lightenduro.

But the motive is is clearly for the
motive motive yes yes, there isa space for cross-country
lightweight.

I'm telling you, I'm putting one
dollar, it's coming out somotive is rich after this motive
is code power level weight.

So it does have the same power as dot
code stealth I gotta ask youguys do you guys get like
talking points here?

because it's like every tram guy says,
oh yeah yeah, well, it's one ofyour mark like, marketing is
like yeah, it's one tram is agreat one of us here at globo
gym we're better than you.

It's fun when you go to a tram thing.

It's .
It's super fun, like, for onething, we went to the one, uh
for the eagle uh fortransmission for transmission
and it was here in tucson anddude.
It was food and partying.
It was awesome.

It was one of the best parties I've been
to yeah, we like to have areally dialed approach and, like
you know, obviously this ismarketing speak too, but, like
we, we do try and get all on thesame page, like where we
fundamentally understand, likethe things that we're trying to
implement with the products andlike speak to them.
So like, yes, there's thecorporate speak aspect to it but
, like you know, it is alsotalking to the actual function

(44:12):
of of each product so so, um thething to clarify, and I just
want to do this, bike shop guyum on these, on these new um
mineral systems.

We want to use just shram yes,
maxima sram.
So it's, maxima sram brakefluid, okay, and if I were to
put shimano in it will the worldend I mean it won't corrode
your seals like previous crossdot mineral contamination will
yeah but you'll be leaving a lotof performance okay, all right.

(44:44):
So if a mechanic were to make amistake or somebody at home
were to make a mistake, you atleast won't destroy your seals.

It's not going to destroy you, it's not
like the classic, like whensomeone bled a dot break with
mineral and then all of a sudden, you just have chunks of O-ring
floating in your syringe.

We used to pull the top cap off
and it just sludged.
No, we pulled the top cap offand the bladder.
Oh, it would be so swollen itwould be so big you couldn't put
it back in.
Like it was crazy, it was theweirdest thing.
It was like the opposite of ashrink gun on your brakes.
But yeah, okay.
So I just want to clear that upbecause that caught us.
We actually had another shopcall us and say, hey, do you

(45:20):
have this?
And we're like, oh know, theMaxima brake fluid.
Yeah, this is a new fluid weneed, because we hadn't had any
e-bikes come in and we reallyhadn't tackled that yet.
Oh, for DB8, yeah, and thiswasn't for DB8.
So we've had DB8s for a while,and so is DB8 Maxima only, and
if so, does it say it on thelever?
Are consumers going?

to know this.
All the SRAM mineral brakeshave printed on the bleed screw
SRAM mineral only.
Okay.

All right, good, all right.
So loving the ambidextrousbrake levers?
Yes, but that changes Sidespecific.
That changes.

DB4 and DB6 are not ambidextrous because
they are mated to a closedclamp.
Gotcha Yep, okay, but DB8.
Motive and Maven, yes, allambidextrous.

Yep.
One question motive and maven,yes, all ambidextrous.
One question you can't fit ashimano shifter if you're using
any of these brakes.

I don't know how ice bag works, so we do
this stuff so I think theeasiest answer is just going to
be to mate a clamp next to your,your sram brake lever clamp
yeah, there I.

I want to say, some people make some
adapters, yeah, so there'sactually not enough room because
the way that with the stealthrouting, the way the levers come
in towards the bar, there's notenough clearance.
It's by like two or threemillimeters to fit the shimano
clamp so my question was wasthat intentional?
No, no we don't, we don't, wedon't try to, but you haven't

(46:49):
run into that yet.

We have not run into that.
The big thing is we'll have ani-spec lever, so somebody will
come in and get a new set ofbrakes and you're trying to put
a shimano shifter or or theopposite they are getting rid of
their.
I think the opposite happensmore often.
They're getting rid of whateverdrivetrain was on the bike, but
they've got shimano brakes andthey're putting on like a

(47:12):
transmission or something yeah,no, it's the opposite.
It's mating.
Mating the shimano or a levershifter to the shram brakes.
I'm pretty sure we've done that.

So I think there's adapters for that.
There's a way to it.

We don't try to preclude any yeah
cross matching so yeah, it'sthere's there's companies out
there that their whole missionin life is to try and make that
stuff happen.
I have to research it.
But your interesting note aboutare the new um kind of close
profile levers not allowing forclamps.
So you're saying it won't allowfor a Shimano clamp or will the

(47:48):
SRAM cause the SRAM clamps?
Uh, for the new access has gotthat really round low profile.

Oh, the infinity, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so what?
What does the clamps look likeon the um the nineties and the
seventies?

So 90 is matchmaker.

Okay .

So it just connects to any matchmaker In
70, I don't know that's a goodquestion.
I actually haven't seen the 70.

Do they come with?
The SRAM clamp the 90 does thediscrete clamp which is like,
yeah, yeah, that's the oldschool.

So 90 does , but it's also matchmaker
compatible.

Okay , and so does that 90 clamp work
with the new Mavens and the newum motives.

Yes, okay, that does.

So there's, a clamp room.

We just don't know if Shimano
clamps work.

Yeah, Is that, is that what we saw?
Was it the?
You could not make any of thesenew SRAM brakes with the
stealth routing with too closeto the lever body.
Too close, yeah yeah, theactual lever body is too close
to the bar to fit a Shimanoshifter.

That's interesting.
We have not run into that yet.
That doesn't mean that we won't.
It's just, these systems justcame out, so we've had the new
levels, you know, because I havethose on my bike.
So we've had level.
I don't know if they're newer.
Do they have a bigger reservoirnow?

No, it stayed the same.
Really, stay the same, huh.
So so, uh, let's see, what elsedo I have here?
You guys so shifting gears abit.
You guys released what I think,or what I considered, anyways,
to be kind of like a, like astealth product that you re, you
don't even see on the websiteanywhere.
I like to kind of search.
Shimano's website or SRAM'swebsite, forever to try to find
it.
It's not there, but it's but.
But I saw videos talking aboutit and I saw it on some retail

(49:34):
sites.
Okay, do you know what it is?
No, what they released.

Oh, what is it?
He knows Mechanical dropperlever.

Oh , yeah, yeah.

And that's meant to match the stealth
routing of our brakes and of theEagle 90 shifter Gotcha.
So it is compatible with most14-millimeter pull mechanical
cable droppers.

Nice, which is pretty much every major
one that's out.
Yeah, and so does thisforeshadow a mechanical dropper
coming out from SRAM soon.

Not as I know it.

Did we already talk about that?
No, we haven't gotten there yet.

That's next oh okay, I was segwaying
us into.

That was a good segway, I was
segwaying us into.
I tripped right over thatsegway, so we.

We are still firmly in the wireless
dropper category.
So, yes, we did introducecable-operated transmission, but
reverb access is still ourbread and butter.

I'm going to get another dollar out
, dude.

I do.

I bet you anything there's going
to be.

that's in the works, and yet I still might
challenge you on that, because,man, it is so nice to not have
to run a dropper cable, I mean.
So you mentioned, right yeah.

Josh, you said you're— I'm a shuttle
SL.

Yeah, sharing between two different
size people every time thesaddle comes up, pain in the ass
.

The cable gets yeah, it's on a pedal
assist bike, so it's gettingstuck in the, and that's
something I hear from so manydemo and rental shops like we.

We loan out these bikes and they go oh
no, I'm fine, I just gottaadjust the saddle height, and
they pull up on it and they jamthe the dropper cable and then
we got a trick.

You know their trick, right?
It doesn't work on this, right?
You don't need it our trick isyou hold the lever in while
you're moving it.

Yeah, and that that works pretty good
but I'll tell you what I got.

Another thing that we sell a lot of
reverb uh access droppers to isum racers uh, they want to keep
their bikes as light as possible.
Not every course really needs adropper and a wireless dropper
allows them to quickly removethe dropper, and for a course
that doesn't for a course thatdoesn't suit it.
In fact, if they're traveling,they can go pre-ride the course,

(51:36):
determine it and do it rightthere.
There's no cables to be routedor anything, and vice versa.
If they don't have it on thebike, it's super easy to just
slap on the bike and it's.
It's not not slap on the bikeand it's it's not.
Not a crazy expense to do that.

The advantage is huge and I said it
on my last appearance on thepodcast.
You asked me what my favoriteunbiased Ram product is.

And.

I said unabashedly, as expensive as it
is, it's the river Baxus and itis still the river Baxus, and
it's even more so today.

Yeah, riverbaxis, and it's even more
so today.
Yeah, and it's way lessexpensive yeah, it is.

It is dropped in price by about 150
bucks and and I'm not worriedabout the price.

I'm worried about what's inside the
insides, because jimmy took oneapart for me and we got to play
with the insides I thought youguys were making out, yeah, no,
we were just fondling.
Well, I mean, that came first,but okay, that's how quick, you
can disassemble this you guysmade up, yeah, made out,
disassembled, reassembled inthat 15 minutes while I was
setting up the gear, but theinsides are so simple and I, I
even, I think, I simple in agood way a simple, simple in a

(52:33):
great way, and I I was tellinghim that we were having a
discussion in the shop, that thename should have changed, like
it's not the same post but Iwill say that the reverb name is
iconic.

It was one of the first mass-produced
available droppers.
That's true.

That's very true.
It's been out since 2010.

God, man, that's a long time, 15 years.

Jesus 15 years.
That's kind of scary that we'veonly had droppers around 15
years, I know.

So what's?
Cool about the new one.

So I've got one in my hand right now.
The Rever, the new one, so I'vegot one in my hand right now.
Uh, the reverb axis b1 it is.
It's a c change from theprevious reverbs.
It is a whole new system.
Obviously, the biggest visualdifference is that the battery
moves from the saddle clamp tothe collar and that improves
overall tire clearance,especially on long travel and

(53:24):
small frames.
I I mean for you guysspecifically pivot.
I think like the Firebird wasnotorious for that, Like a small
Firebird with a reverb axisinserted.

all the way Rubbing tires.

At max travel, you could suck the
battery out, oh wow.
The battery could contact thetire and be damaged.

I just happened to have a Firebird
right next to me With a reverbon it, with the old reverb on it
, but it's a medium.

Yeah, for larger frames, and if you were
running the post even justslightly out of the seat tube
you would probably be fine, butfor those people that were
running it full insertion itcould end up running into the
tire.
So you get about sevenmillimeters more overall drop
availability from the new designbecause you don't have that

(54:10):
tall clamp area, exactly, okay,so we've reduced that stack
height from the top of the posttravel to the saddle rails by
seven millimeters, so you knowwhat everybody's talking about.

The biggest thing that people are
talking about I'm not a big fanof it, but it's what everybody's
talking about is the new length.
You've got a 260?
250.

250.
Longest dropper on the market250 millimeter long.
Jesus.

That's just this piece.

I got you.

Yeah , I'm just saying Some guys need
help with measurements.

Yeah, I'm just saying I'm not one of
those guys.

You know there are tall $260,000.

Holy crap, $250,000.
$250,000, sorry yeah, $240,000was the longest one.
I'm just going to will them tosee $260,000.

But yeah, I mean just trying to increase
the options for everyone.
So it's available in $100,000to $250,000.

Okay , and then the $250,000 is only
a $34,900.

No, you can get 250 in all diameters.

Really , yeah, I didn't know that, yes,
okay, that's crazy, yeah, but.

I will say the biggest change is the fact
that we have gone away from thehydraulically actuated post,
well, the hydraulic internals towhat's called an air over air
system.
Yes so the reverb is nowessentially an electronically
actuated air spring.
Yes, like I was explaining toDane, as we had the whole thing
torn apart, it's a solo airspring.

(55:28):
Yep, that's it.
Yeah, and you just swap betweenpositive and negative air
chambers.

Yeah , it's really simple, which is
great, great from aserviceability maintainability.
Yes, yeah, and there are veryfew ceiling services, very few
components very few things to gowrong overall and cost-wise.
So the customer on average wecharge around 150 bucks to
service a reverb and the cost onthis for the first, probably
two years is going to be like 50bucks, you know so, just

(55:55):
because it's so much easier somuch easier and there's so
little to go wrong.
The old ones had a reallycomplicated, uh, refined way of
working, but they've justsimplified it like crazy.
The other thing is the okay,now, what do you call it?
Ride, active, ride, active ride.
Okay, that's the other thing.
So this is a point of joking.

(56:15):
I'm just going to throw it outthere because everybody's joking
around.
Yeah, tell us, because the oldreverbs, it's a feature, not a
bug.
So when the old reverbs, whenthey had a problem, usually the
first signal they were having aproblem was they would get what
we called suspensioning, whichis the post would start to
develop, play and act like asuspension rather than a post,

(56:37):
and so that usually meant thatthere was air mixing in the oil
or the IFP was having issues, ormaybe even leaking and um, and
so that was a signal to servicethem.
Now this one actuallyincorporates that as a feature,
not a bug.

So it's an on purpose.

Can you guys explain what?

you're talking about to our listeners?

Yes, I can elaborate so at full extension.
You are sitting on an airspring at very high pressure,
which I explained today, and isjust like a high-pressure solo
air fork.
It's very hard to compress andso it will hold your body weight
.
As soon as you open the valve,you are basically introducing a
negative chamber, and a negativechamber obviously allows for a

(57:15):
little bit of suspension travel.

Yeah .

So once you've actuated the poppet and
you've dropped it from its fulltravel, even by two to three
millimeters, and have opened upthe negative chamber of the post
, you will have that little bitof squish, because air is
compressible, oil is not.

And you have air on both sides of
the piston.

Yes, so so to you know, forget what's
going on in the dropper fromthe rider's perspective.
When it's fully down,completely hard stiff.

When it's fully up, completely hard stiff
when it's in the middle of thetravel, of its travel, it's
going to bounce a bit.
You will bounce on it aboutfive millimeters.
Yeah, it's got a littlesuspensioning, which I have
found I actually really like.
Yeah, like for technical, forseated, seated, technical
climbing.
It gives you something to likekind of sit into without getting
bucked off the bike.

Let me, let me explain this in josh
terms it's buttercups for yourbutt.
It's buttercups for your butt,dude.
We need shirts.

I'm so glad you said that, because that
is exactly the line I've beentouting around to people it's
buttercups for your butt.

It's buttercups for your butt, yeah.

So we've incorporated a buttercup
feature into this post.

Yeah , but it's not when you're doing
those hard climbs, when you'rejust riding a fire road climb
you still have a fully rigidseating position because, as as
a shop that does a lot offitting, we're concerned about
that saddle height and yourknees and stuff, yeah.
So when you're racing crosscountry, when you're doing
something at full extension,you're still got a proper fit.
If you're going to be on a longextended, like gravel type ride

(58:43):
where you're not really hittinghard and you're not using your
dropper, it's still going to bea proper post and it's not going
to mess with it.
But as soon as you drop it alittle bit for either like
control and cornering ordescending or what have you,
you've got a little cushion andso, uh, which can be nice, and
that's your ride style I'venever actually seen you drop
your post completely no I, I ama knee surfer yeah, so like I

(59:05):
gotta keep it old school.

Yeah, I grip.

I grip my saddle with my knees.
Yeah, it's true, um and so, uh,so.
So this is why I always get sotripped out by 250 millimeter
drops, because I never can dropmine that far.
My knees can't hang on to it.
And then I have to stabilizethe bike with my knees, and
since they're you don't have 250millimeters.

No, that's true too.
I have a short legs, so yeah soyeah yeah I've never dropped
mine.

People will come in and they'll want
to take away, they'll want tobuy a new post because they have
an inch of seat post showing umbetween their collar and their
frame and they're like I needmore drop.
And I'm like, really, you got170 and you need to go 200 so
you can get rid of that littlebit.
I'm like really, and and you'dthink I'd be all for it, cause
I'm selling a product but Istill can't quite wrap my head

(59:53):
around it.

But I'll still sell them.

So no problem.

Well, that's exciting.
I'm excited to pick one up.
Can I ask you one finalquestion?
Hit me, okay.
So performance tiers for yourbrakes and RockShox forks or
RockShox products you guys wentto a different naming convention
.

Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgi (01:00:13):
It keeps changing and it's
confusing me a little bit.

Josh "Magellan" Anderson (01:00:15):
So maybe, as our last and final
question for tonight, can yourun our listeners through what
are the performance tiers on theRockShox products?
What are the performance tierson the brakes, so that they all
understand.

Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM) (01:00:30):
You bring up a great point, josh, we gotta
send you to marketing.
Yeah, so for suspension it isselect, select plus ultimate.

That's good, better, best is there a
base level below select?

um, no, no , even on the oem side.
Yes, select is, is the, is what?

Dane "Suspension Guru" Higg (01:00:43):
was the zeb we were seeing with no
oh zeb r oh god, it's true.
Okay, I'm just gonna throwthose weirdos out there throwing
a wrench in it, and we'vemostly moved away from that.

But yeah, select, select plus ultimate
good, better, best for breaksbronze, silver ultimate again
good, better best do you have?

do you have two separate marketing
departments and do they getinto a ring and fight?
Why didn't you do Ultimate,Select, Select Plus on the
brakes?

You're preaching to the choir here.

Dane "Suspension Guru" Hig (01:01:12):
I've got to send you to Chicago.

But one more question what's
Ultimate Expert?

Oh, so the Expert Kit is above Ultimate.
It is the all-inclusive tuningpackage.
Expert Kit reflects the factthat you get all the rotor sizes
, all the pad compounds and ableed kit and a carrying case.

We call those special edition kits
.

Is that fair?

Yeah , special edition Expert it kind
of splits the same thing.
Is it always going to be thereor is it going to go away?

I think, as long as we keep doing those
brake kits.

yeah , it'll always be there.
Okay, it's pretty cool.

Hey, Jimmy, we really appreciate your
time, man.

Thanks a lot for coming out tonight.
You guys are awesome.

Are you sure you said earlier you
weren't ever going to come backagain?
That's true, I'm reevaluatingit.

We grow, we grow on it.
Josh gave me a beer.

Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgin (01:01:57):
I gave him a, you get a hat from
him.

He said he was going to bring me
one next time we see him.
Okay, I'm just saying.

I'll bring a SRAM trucker back to the shop
.
You got to give it to Josh.

I don't think I'm going to get it.
Yeah, I don't know.

Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgin (01:02:11):
I will wear it.
I'll wear it.

We'll see how it looks on me first.
Okay, if it gets to you, I'llwear it to the.
You got any final words for ourlisteners?
Any final thoughts?

Cables, batteries, it's all your
preference.
Just ride SRAM.
Yeah, thanks a lot man.

That was awesome, for sure.
Thank you, guys.

All Episodes

105 - Cables Are Back! SRAM's Mechanical Transmission: Eagle 90 & Eagle 70 (& other new stuff) - Jimmy Nordloh, SRAM Field Guide

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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;}105 - Cables Are Back! SRAM's Mechanical Transmission: Eagle 90 & Eagle 70 (& other new stuff) - Jimmy Nordloh, SRAM Field Guide