Mountain Cog
Hosted by an enthusiast and a mountain bike industry expert featuring laughter and passionate guests.
Mountain Cog
073 – SRAM vs Shimano, shoutouts, and stupid bike stuff.
This episode features the MCP hosts Josh and Dane and is pretty MTB-techy. It starts out with a couple shoutouts from Josh to bike industry brands 1up and PNW for excellent customer service. It transitions to cover some of our listeners perspectives on “stupid stuff in the bike industry”. And finally, it concludes with an epic and aggressive argument (in good fun) between “Team Josh” (who rides Shimano drivetrains) and “Team Dane” (who rides SRAM drivetrains).
Links and stuff…
1up: https://1up-usa.com
PNW: https://www.pnwcomponents.com/
Team Josh: https://mtb.shimano.com/us/products/mtb/
Team Dane: https://www.sram.com/en/sram/mountain
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all right , take two. It's funny because my one of my buddies has already mentioned the bong noise and I don't know if he realizes what you're doing. You know you're just doing the slurpy thing in your mouth with water in your mouth, but it's whiskey, by the way, but yeah yeah, nice, but it's funny Cause, you know, last time you did that I think it was my. Was it my first time as co-host?
Josh:Yeah, I think so, yeah and uh, so I, I will forever remember that but yeah, did you hit the record button I hit this time, so 69 episodes published, about 10 episodes recorded and not published the first time ever that we've started and dana and I got about three minutes into this podcast it was the best three minutes it's too bad, they're not gonna hear it was a good like we'll see if we can recreate it no, no they missed it I'm sorry if they're not paying attention, all right, so it's sunday night, dane, and I uh tagged up.
Josh:Let's see it's 7 53 pm. Yeah, and we started at what? Three three o'clock we met at the trailhead we had intended to do a mountain bike ride. Had a big group plan to come, but uh, we've had this crazy spotty weather today with. We've had everything in the local area from rain to sleet to snow to hail to to sunshine.
Dane:It's just crazy and uh where we live.
Josh:Um, you know, not all trails are like this and it's for sure like if you live up in the pacific northwest right, you ride in the rain.
Dane:That's just what you do Cause it's always raining. Yeah, but our trails?
Josh:um, you know we try to maintain the tread and when it rains we try to give the trails time to soak that up and deal with it, Cause if you ride on that you'll jack up the tread pretty bad. Um, so we decided, did like on a paved trail. Yeah, and Dane showed up with a goddamn e-bike.
Dane:And.
Josh:I'm on an acoustic bike or a naughty bike. I want to start out by giving a couple shout-outs, and I don't know that Dane's going to agree with these shout-outs. I have opinions, he's got opinions. Okay, and keep in mind that Dane runs and owns a bike shop and I do not.
Josh:I'm a consumer but from my perspective, a couple of shout outs to a couple of companies, and the first is 1UP and that's the number one in UP. There's two different 1UP companies in the bike industry. What I'm talking about is the 1UP company that makes bicycle racks like car racks. So I've got a 1UP rack for my car or for my wife's car and we've had it I think I bought it maybe three or four years ago it was quite a while ago and a couple of the, and it's been an amazing rack. It gets used all the time. It's like forever on the back of my wife's car. We've driven all over with it, long distance trips, you know, all day long. My wife that's. You know she's got a Honda pilot and that's how she transports her bike.
Josh:And a couple of the arms got bent, uh, over time over the last four years and so they got bent so bad that it, like what the rack wasn't working great, and so I wrote um one up. I'm like your product's been amazing. I've already got 10 times my money's worth out of it. I'm super happy with it. These arms are bent. I'm trying to figure out what to do. I don't want to buy a brand new rack or whatever. So like can I bend these back or is there? Could you sell just these arms? And they're like hey, these arms bent because you didn't maintain the rack properly. Here's how to maintain it.
Josh:And they showed me they sent me some links and stuff and then they said hey. And then they said hey, we'll send you some new arms, nice. And so, for free of charge, no shipping, no, nothing. After four years, yes, or three years, I don't remember exactly. They sent me these arms super quick install, like 15 minutes, and the rack is like and now I know how to maintain it, because I actually paid attention. By the way, if you have any bike products, you should pay attention to how to maintain them it's very important, especially and how to maintain them.
Dane:It's very important, especially when you're spending good money on a very expensive product Rocks don't even last forever.
Josh:But just I want to give a shout out to One Out for, like how they treated me, my personal experience, a data point of one, but like I was super stoked, they showed me how to maintain it and so that those arms don't get bent again in the future and they weren't bent for the first three years, and the bent again in the future, and they weren't bent for the first three years.
Dane:And their only reason they were bent? Because over time the bolts get tightened and really all I had to do was loosen the bolts. I didn't know that and you know no, so they were bending from so so yeah, so my wife was forcing it, yeah, no, I mean.
Josh:Well, let me just say it this way someone in our family was forcing it without telling me that there was an issue, and that forcing ended up bending the aluminum racks, anyways, um, so shout out to one, out for just amazing from, from Josh's perspective, my perspective, amazing customer service. And here's the thing, and I'll I'll I'll say something in Dana, I know you want to jump in. Um one up doesn't work with bike shops and a one up.
Josh:The number one UP is a different one up, that's O N E up. I'm not talking about that company, I'm talking about the number one UP. So one up doesn't work with bike shops. Their products are amazing and people I think pretty much universally agree that their products are amazing. I think they would be even more amazing if they worked with bike shops.
Dane:Yeah, it's as a bike shop owner.
Dane:It's really difficult when a company decides not to, you know, sell their product through your business.
Dane:So we call that consumer direct and we were talking we want to do a whole podcast on consumer direct so that we can kind of share different perspectives, you know, because sometimes they get a bad rep and sometimes they don't. And one thing I can tell you about consumer direct that I really find pretty common is that level of customer service is good because you are directly dealing with them and that's who they deal with every single day. So I don't think that's a bad thing. But I'll have a customer from time to time say, hey, I want to get a one-up wrap, can you get it? And I'll have to explain to them they're not consumer or they're not. They're not, they don't work with bike shops, they're consumer direct. They don't support independent bike shops and that often leads to a really uncomfortable conversation that I have to have with people and it's not really the customer's responsibility to police that or to deal with that you know, and they're just getting product and there's nothing wrong with that.
Dane:But we have a lot of customers that are just friends. I mean honestly, I'd say, like, most of the people that come to our shop are friends, and so when they hear that that brand does not support the bike shop, uh, then they actually they may buy a different type of rack, they will.
Josh:So I got one. I got one more shout out, sure, and that's uh, pnw, yep, yeah and uh. So the shout out goes like this so pnw, um, uh, we have pnw loam droppers on multiple bikes. They've been great, uh, multiple years that we've had them, and uh, on on my wife's cross-country bike or downcountry bike, because we over respected or over what do you?
Dane:what do you call it over?
Josh:torqued over over suspensioned. What do you call when you put bigger?
Dane:oh, overstroked, overstroke, yeah yeah, yeah, do you remember? You put a like a bigger damper, what?
Josh:did bigger damper what uh, air shaft, air shaft, yeah, a bigger air shaft in lacy's scott anyways. Um, it was getting kind of crunchy. It wasn't. It wasn't returning well, occasionally it would get stuck. It was just not performing well. So I was like I screwed that I'm gonna buy the new. Now we're talking about the different one up.
Dane:Yeah, the O N E. Yes, one up, I was going to put cause cause.
Josh:I've heard their V3 droppers like the bees knees, yep, I got one on my bike.
Dane:Yeah.
Josh:It's amazing.
Dane:I have a PNW on Chili's Right.
Josh:Yeah so. So I was about to. Then I got this email from PMW that said hey, do you have a PMW dropper? It's got some miles on it. Here's how you maintain it, here's how you service it, here's how you get it back to like new state. And I watched the video, which was a short video, like five minutes and I was like, holy shit, I can do that. So I got some super slick, grease Slick.
Dane:Honey was the stuff that I use, but there's slick oleum is a whole bunch of different slick oleum is the same thing, is it really? Yeah, so slick oleum is the actual company yeah, it makes it. And then slick honey was a I can't remember if it was a particular.
Josh:It was branded for bikes, but it's the same exact stuff but it's like a high viscosity grease that's different than like your typical bike grease. Yeah, it's.
Dane:So the biggest property is one super slick, which is great, but it will dissolve in oil. So we use it in the suspension shop all the time because I can lubricate parts that are going to be in oil, and the oil isn't, or the grease isn't, uh, waterproof, right, so it won't float down and plug holes and so, uh, so forever slick honey's been popular in bike suspension. For that reason. Now, don't put it in your hubs, you know why. Because it'll melt It'll, dissolve It'll dissolve.
Josh:That's not good.
Dane:And so there's certain places that you want to use it and if it's a high heat or high susceptible to water, you want to keep it out of there. So you want to waterproof grease in like hubs and things like that.
Josh:So so, like with basic tools and about 30 minutes and they're very simple instructions which I'm sure you can get on the PNW website, I was able to, you know, strip apart, just like a field field dress, this um field dress, that's a, that's a mill, or I think that's like a hunting term or something.
Dane:Yeah, cause you do that to animals.
Josh:Yeah, I have field dress but I was able to quickly kind of do a basic maintenance on this dropper post. Uh, it was super easy, not complicated, and I guess those are synonyms. But um, at the end of the 30 minutes I had this dropper that was working like new again. Yeah yeah, I was like holy shit. So I actually wrote P&W and I said thank you for putting this out, because this refurbed my or gave these droppers new life, and I'm super stoked. I have one on my downcountry bike that I'm going to refurb as well when it needs it, and I know now that it wasn't a hard, hard thing to do and, uh, and for a home mechanic it worked out quite well, as long as you have some basic tools and some slick honey or some kind of high viscosity. I think high viscosity is the right way to say it.
Dane:I can't remember viscosity it's like really thin grease.
Josh:Yeah, super slick, super slick honey, right, yeah, so anyways, shout out to PNW, shout out to one up a couple, uh, recent recent experiences that I personally had that I just wanted to mention them on the podcast. That's awesome.
Dane:So PNW is one of those that one that I was mentioning. They do consumer direct and they sell through us, through the shops, and I was really happy to start carrying them because they're really reasonably priced, they're good quality, they're easy to work on and we do the same service you did in the shop and it's really low cost for most people. So if you don't have the tools and don't have the sick honey and you want the shop.
Josh:Don't have the time.
Dane:Yeah, Don't have the time. That's a that's a big factor Um the uh I, I God, we carry so many droppers, so many. And every single one has positives and negatives.
Josh:Yeah, what's your?
Dane:favorite. Oh man, it changes. I was really down on Fox for a little while.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:We started servicing them, and now it's one of my favorites. Isn't that crazy?
Josh:It is weird.
Dane:Yeah, so I was going to tell you about my favorite. Now I think I'm getting back into Fox. I like the 1-ups that's on my bike, so I've got almost every the one-up v3, the well. I've got a one-up two and a three okay, which is the three like amazingly better not really the twos were pretty money.
Dane:They're gonna hate me if I say stuff like that, like I'm not evaluating it on a lot, a ton of stuff. You know it goes up and it goes down and that's what I want, and it doesn't suspension, and it doesn't you know, have a ton of suspension.
Josh:What does that mean? Okay, so it doesn't. It doesn't like yeah.
Dane:So when a dropper goes bad, in most cases you have a movement from the air that that lets it pop back up to uh, over a seal into the oil and no one knows what the hell you're talking about okay, all right.
Josh:So what does that feel for the?
Dane:what does that feel like for the rider it? It feels like it has suspension, like it it?
Josh:so it bounces, yeah, yeah so when your dropper goes up, it should just stop and be stable yeah, and when? When it starts to go bad, it kind of like squishes, yeah, and so on.
Dane:Your pnw, it's a cartridge base, so that means that when you serviced it, you're servicing what we call the outside.
Josh:Yeah, not. That's why I called it a field dress, because I didn't get into the car.
Dane:Yeah, yeah, the cartridge. When it goes bad, they're sealed and you just get a new one and one ups are similar, uh, and so a lot of brands are now the Fox are rebuildable, so they don't have a cartridge, so I have to put O-rings in and maybe some bushings, uh, but there's no.
Josh:There's no cartridge, and so punk rock dan's got one on his bike. He's got a giant bike, okay, and his seat will do a complete 360 so he, that giant brand, is made by a company called sdg.
Dane:Yep, if you ask him if he wants it fixed, I'll fix it. The kit is like 20 bucks and I think we charge 45.
Josh:Okay.
Dane:So it's a $299 post when you don't buy it, branded as giant STG. And what's happened is the key ways that hold that, that that thing keeps it straight. Yep, those little brass keys that fit those spots in that one, they're plastic. Oh, that's the problem, it's, it's. I don't know why, why I? It's right, it's dumb first time I saw it. But the the repair is super easy.
Dane:uh, he can maybe do it if he's mechanically inclined you guys can do it yeah um, it's the same process that you did on the pnw, except you just put in new keys are you?
Josh:are they now? Can you upgrade and put brass ones? I have not looked into that.
Dane:I just bought the, the new kits that that basically have the new keys, and I've fixed a couple of them. They they really are actually decent posts. They're also cartridge based, um. So so that's because we have a suspension company we look more at like if it's serviceable. So here's what happened with Fox is they weren't serviceable at the shop level when they first came out and we didn't like that. Thompson is another one that wasn't doing that, and so we tended not to sell that product, because if you've got to send it away for three to six weeks to get it fixed, worthless to me, we're not really into that, as a consumer, it's worthless to me and consumers will get it stock on their bike and then they're stuck with it, you know.
Dane:And so, and then Fox had a little issue where we're not really sure what happened, but they were having a nitrogen issue where the right amount of pressure wasn't in them, and so the post wouldn't go up all the way or get stuck Like from like brand new, brand new. We were having bikes brand new on the floor and so, um, I talked to my fox representative, who's awesome, and he and I figured out a solution that would work. And he goes, give it a shot, see if it works. And I tested it on two customers that we knew real well. Um, we tested that they were brand new bikes, yep, and uh, we tested it and they lasted over a year with no issues, yep, and so it became the standard and now Fox recommends it. So now more service centers is doing that. So I I don't want to say that I invented it, but I'm pretty much- was one of the first ones to bring it up.
Dane:Yeah, and I don't know if Ed would say that I invented it, but back then his a natural, a company's natural response is just send it back and we'll fix it. And our response is no, we want to fix it now and we want to have it ready and we have the ability to fix it now. So let's figure this out.
Dane:And so that's what we did. We figured out a fix, we're fixing them regularly and now we're rebuilding the new version. So the old version took a certain amount of tooling, which was around $600. So for me to buy $600 worth of tools to fix the old version, which they're not making anymore, didn't make any sense and so I didn't do it. So I invested in the new tools for the new one and now that we're rebuilding them, I'm pretty happy with them. They rebuild real well.
Dane:Now you want to hear a little trivia is we were doing a couple in the shop the other day and I'm constantly revising how they rebuild these things because they'll put out instructions, but I don't think they always do the most efficient job. Or maybe they're putting out the instructions when it's new and they haven't done enough to really kind of streamline Right and I streamlined, streamlined their. Their old instructions had us just dumping so much fluid, you know, and this stuff's expensive. It's 1.5 um weight shock oil, and so it's rare. You don't see it very much. We have to buy these really small bottles and they're expensive. And so anytime you're in a shop environment and you're getting rid of a ton of oil and excess, I'm looking for a way and so, like good oil, like yeah, not not like no, no, this is like when you're putting the new oil in their process, had it kind of overfilling and letting it.
Dane:You know, like, like come out and yeah lots of excess fluid and you know, in our system we have what's called a wet table, which means that when the suspension overflows, it overflows into a, a table that drains into a catch.
Josh:We've got one of those in my bedroom a wet table for a different reason I think.
Dane:but I'm just probably not the same thing Um our table is a lot like a coroner's table. Uh, it's definitely not the kind of table I have.
Dane:Yeah, and so, basically, when stuff leaks out, it leaks out into a catch bin, and so we don't get it all over. Most shops don't have that because they're not dedicated to suspension, and so having a a a suspension service where it's getting all over the shop is really messy. And so we developed a new process on those that I didn't spill maybe not even two CCs of fluid, and so that's huge, and so now we have a process where we're rebuilding those with no waste. Yeah. So, uh, pnw, shout out right. Yeah, back to that servicing your own product.
Dane:they're awesome if you ever want pnw, you can get it at your local bike shop. Uh, if, uh, if you can't ask them, they probably can get it for you and you don't lose. You just get a lot of extra help if you do that.
Josh:All right, all right, punk Rock, dan, if you want to fix that SDG or giant branded SDG dropper that's doing a 360. He kind of likes it. He thinks it's a feature of his bike. He gets to like it. It's like a bar stool.
Dane:Yeah, he gets to, like he can do different weight distribution when he, like you know, for cornering man, for cornering, oh you could like put a whole new level of put your hips into it All right, so some more things.
Josh:So like, this is awesome. We're 45 minutes into the podcast. I know we haven't even started. We haven't even talked about the stupid stuff.
Dane:But like A shout out to Ashley, justin, brian brian, all the people that posted up questions, we want to start.
Josh:We want to start with some of their stuff.
Dane:Well, I was going to say so. Uh, ashley had a bunch of questions and I took some pictures so that I could look at them easily. Oh hey, this is awesome. One of her questions of stupid stuff that she wanted to bring up was why are seat posts so complicated, uh, and so, um, she has stating in her question that she's changing a lot of saddles, and why are they so weird? Some of them are reverse thread and what have you, are they really? I haven't run into reverse thread. They're better than they used to be. Some of them got really stupid, like in the early 2000s, like mid 2000s. So I'll give you an example Like the Fox, new fox, uh, dropper posts. They have a weird hardware in there that is reverse thread. Now, the irony of that is, when you turn it with the wrench, it goes the right way, but it's turning backwards because upside down, yeah, because what it's doing is it's as you, you're turning it. It's unthreading, so it's tightening, but you're turning it the right way.
Josh:I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about right now. Jesus Christ, Dane, what are you talking about?
Dane:So they've set it up to where, as you're turning it to tighten it, it is actually unscrewing and it's pulling the head of the seat post tight against the rails. It's.
Josh:I gotcha.
Dane:I gotcha, but because they reversed it, you're still going in the tightening way, okay, so if it was a normal screw and you were doing this, there's logic behind that, it makes sense, but it's backwards.
Josh:Yeah, but it's actually like. No, like, like, like.
Dane:If you don't look at it and you don't have to take it apart and you just put a seat on it and tighten it. It makes sense, it makes sense it works right.
Dane:I understand why they did that. They did a great job because if they had done it the other way would mess with people. They would just have no idea. And so the only time this comes into play is when you take the hardware apart, so like when we're greasing that hardware so your seat post doesn't creak. Then you have to turn it a different way to get it out of there than you normally would.
Josh:That can be counterintuitive.
Dane:It's weird, yeah. And then one of the things about seat post clamps that drives me nuts is one. They come apart Like why can't you just get them to open up enough to get wide?
Dane:enough to get the seat off but not fall apart all over the floor Like I. It drives me nuts Like that. That is stupid, like why can't they do that? But do you want to hear some of the stupidest ones, right? Okay, one of the stupidest ones I've seen is where most of the seat posts now are kind of two bolt, what they call two bolts. So they have a two opposing bolts, yep, and you basically tighten one and it tilts it one way and you tighten the other, it tilts the other, and then you tighten them both at the same time and tensions, and, um, so some company at some point decided to make it look smoother I don't know, know, or offset or whatever and they hid the bolt inside the post. Inside the post, yeah. And so to access it, you either had to go in through the top, like a BMX bike Kind of like the BMX, yeah, yeah, like we were looking at for your dirt jumper, yeah or they would have a little dial that you'd have to turn, shut the front door.
Josh:So what?
Dane:you'd have to do is loosen it so it's loose enough. Then you'd have to turn the front dial to get it to the angle.
Josh:What the hell company did that.
Dane:God, I can't remember. I'm sure it was somebody big, but they figured it out. Yeah, they got rid of that. Yeah, as soon as they do that, immediately, people go to the store.
Josh:How did that get through product testing?
Dane:they're like yeah, this probably is dumb, so you're assuming they do product testing?
Josh:oh, for christ's sakes please.
Dane:We are the product tester oh my god and I've seen that in the bike industry forever is that that's another stupid thing. Is that? Why do these companies keep continually testing on us? So they do not. They do a certain level of testing and they have pros and they have riders and they'll send stuff out. No, they'll. They'll test that product, uh, to an extent, but they don't do um like. My uncle used to work for gm proving grounds, right, and this was up in phoenix and he would do this because they had a whole dedicated um proving grounds for heat, for how hot it is in the desert, and so they would drive these cars for months and months and months to test them out. The bike industry doesn't do that. They don't fly the bike to some weird climate and try it out.
Josh:They don't have the money to do that. No, it's a different.
Dane:It's interesting. They just listen to you when you go.
Josh:This broke and then they fix it on the new one. Well, let's make an offer bike manufacturers right now if they want to send us product, yep, we will test it absolutely.
Dane:I've done that, I've done these.
Josh:Send us product, yep yeah and if you don't know how to get a hold of us, momcog at gmailcom. Yep, yep, I have a, I have a. I have a thing related to the post that I had on my list, so okay what's yours back? On on the badass chick ashley writes comment yes, yes. Anyways, my stupid thing is the interface at the bottom of a dropper post. Yes, where the cable comes in. Okay, that interface on most droppers sucks. You want to know?
Dane:a trick, please. When you set up the dropper and you got it on your lever and you're now ready to push the dropper into the bike, or you've put it in too far and you need to bring it back up, you're always risking that that cable will pop out, pop out or get kinked up or something, and they slot it on purpose so that you can assemble it correctly. If they made it so, you couldn't. You'd be pissed about something else, right yeah?
Josh:fair enough correctly.
Dane:If they made it so, you couldn't. You'd be pissed about something else, right? Yeah, fair enough. So one of the tricks we use in the shop is if you activate the dropper lever while you take it in and out, there's no slack shut the front door yeah, that is awesome. It works now. That is awesome. I'll warn you, some bikes you have to have three hands. Yeah, because you got to activate the lever while somebody is kind of feeding it through the frame the cable.
Josh:Yeah, and then and so. But I could, you could activate it and then like a lot of rubber band or use a zip tie or something like that.
Dane:Yeah, so that works pretty well and and so when we have rentals right, um, that is something that we show our rental customers because that's awesome, because you know they're changing that post that will maintain the tension, and that's the problem that I have.
Dane:Yeah, yeah, because if you pull up, you activate the post, it gives it slack and then when you put it back down it's like the housing can pop out of where it should seat yeah and then your dropper doesn't work and you're like god damn it, now I gotta take it apart and seat that again.
Josh:Then do the whole thing over again I gotta tell you you along these lines, I have replaced most of the dropper. These are not like the reverbs.
Dane:This is mechanical.
Josh:I don't know if there's other digital or electronic droppers, but the lever I've replaced most I mean the Fox one is good. Most of the other ones are fucking garbage. Best I can tell, I've put wolf tooth on every single one.
Dane:Every bike I have's got the wolf, wolf tooth yeah it works better than any dropper lever I've seen they were one of the first to just put a pinch bolt instead of putting the cable head jesus christ.
Dane:Like how simple is that you know, what's crazy is, every once in a while I'm replacing a dropper for somebody and the question is, do they need a new dropper lever? And if I look and they've got a modern one by dropper lever, I don't try and hard sell them on a new one, you know, because I'm. You know, really, if they've got the old school one where you kind of break your thumb trying to use it, yeah, then I'll try and sell them a new dropper lever. Yeah, but they're not cheap. They're like 40 to 80 bucks depending on which one you get.
Josh:Yeah, I think the wolf tooth I get is and I don't get it from Dan, I get it on Amazon is like 60 bucks.
Dane:Did you know you can get it from the shop?
Josh:Is it for?
Dane:60 bucks you let me know. We'll see, because I need like six of them. So so so. But back to the this lever thing, the you want to talk about. Something that just frustrates you in the bike shop is you've gotten a dropper post for the customer. The dropper post post interface the new one that they're getting to replace the crappy one that came with the bike or whatever yeah, is now got, like it's got. It takes the cable head. So, like the fox droppers, they have a little cut.
Josh:Well, no, they got the cable areas where you need a cable. Yeah, you're like what the hell do I do now?
Dane:yes, and that and that that is frustrating when you have to call the guy back and go hey, I'm putting your dropper on, but evidently I need you know. No we actually at our shop. We came up with options and so we have a fix for that. How do you do it?
Josh:we have uh, we've bought brought in special barrels yeah, that, have the little that can crimp, that can. Yeah, that kind of duplicates, what?
Dane:that yep yeah and so sometimes, depending on which which products they are, we can put them at one end or the other, and so those special products are nice and they save somebody 50 bucks and it's like a two dollar item. I'm down for saving people money.
Dane:I love saving people money, um so okay. So you reminded me of another stupid thing, and we're still on dropper posts. Uh, hydraulic reverb line. So hydraulic, like what I don't does, it is a reverb to suck. Okay, all right, I'm gonna give you a little insight because, remember, I'm the guy that fixes them.
Josh:This is a RockShox SRAM Reverb Dropper post. They have both.
Dane:Been around forever. Probably one of the OG posts.
Josh:So they have both the access version, which is wireless.
Dane:Wireless yep, which I think is amazing. By the way, it is I can tell it is the regular. The regular, which is hydraulic. Yeah, but it's been around for For a long time Over 10 years 15 years.
Josh:Oh shit, have droppers been around that long?
Dane:Well, so let's put it this way the first droppers before the Reverb sucked.
Josh:I just bought a bike that once today suck so well, no, this is worse.
Dane:So if you, you would get a dropper that would have like three positions and it would creak like crazy and there was nothing you could do about it gravity drop. Gravity dropper was one of them. I just bought a bike for the wall that has a gravity dropper and I'm super excited. What's the wall?
Dane:the wall is at the shop are vintage bikes yeah, so you have a bunch of old school vintage bikes now this vintage bike is a pivot, so that's not very vintage because they haven't been around that long, um, but it's got a gravity dropper on.
Josh:You know you're old when you're putting pivots on your vintage bike.
Dane:Well, you know, time's really flown yes when you can call a pivot vintage. It's got 26 inch wheels and a uh gravity dropper what gravity dropper?
Josh:yeah, so gravity droppers gravity drop.
Dane:Now, if I was a bike packer, I want a gravity dropper. Why? Uh, it's a spring and a peg like there's, so it's easy to maintain if you have a problem like, yeah, they don't blow up, you know, they just creak like crazy and make a ton of noise and um, but they were super durable. You know so before after, yeah. So the droppers the first droppers that came out were pretty horrible and the reverb came out and it was revolutionary. It worked great and, compared to everybody else, it blew them away and they started showing up everywhere and imagine what your dropper feels like now. That's what, back then, reverbs felt, like they, and they were good, but what they? They made a weird decision and I'm not really sure where this came from. This is a stupid thing in bikes and I don't know why RockShox did this. But they decided to engineer. Instead of having a cable that activates it, they decided a hydraulic line, and hydraulic fluid would would be better. Which is it dot fluid? No, it's, it's actually suspension fluid or mineral oil.
Josh:Is it mineral oil? It was.
Dane:So mineral and and suspension will react to the seals the same way. If you put dot in there, it'll destroy them. So and and if you mix these, by the way, so those don't mix mineral oil with dot oil.
Josh:Yeah, so it's a disaster brakes.
Dane:Brakes are the biggest thing. Do not mess that up um.
Josh:And so, in fact, let's, let's, double click on that. Yeah, whatever your hydraulic brake system is, please, please, please, make sure you know exactly what the right fluid to put in it, because if you put the wrong fluid, you're gonna fuck it up beyond repair, like in most cases.
Dane:We just retired a guy's brake system because he put dot fluid in a mineral brake system why would you do that mineral? Oil is so easy. You know people like to fix stuff, and just because you own tools doesn't mean you can fix stuff let's go now.
Josh:You're making me feel bad. I'm just saying you know, it's not always. I'm sorry to anybody that I've fixed.
Dane:so just just don't think buying the tool means you can fix it. Just own the fact that you've got to learn how to work on it or suffer the consequences which can be $400.
Dane:But this stupid RockShox reverbs. So history on RockShox the first couple generations, they called them the a series. Uh, they had just a number of design flaws, so they had issues. And then they coupled that with a hydraulic lever which is totally separate from the inners of the dropper. So now the bike mechanics, home mechanics, whoever's working on it, have to figure out how to bleed the lever and fix the post and often confuse the two.
Dane:So this is what happened with reverb. So when they first came out yeah, that doesn't take into account some design flaws that had to be figured out in different versions that came out later, the current version, I think we're on C. So the first versions were A, then there's A2s, then there's B1s I think there was B2, but don't quote me. Now we're in the Cs. So these design differences have made the post pretty solid and I would say it's a good post. But they had such a bad reputation for so long that people are just you know they don't want them Like I don't stock them. You know I won't stock them and I don't see them on bikes Hardly. The only one that people want is the wireless, is the access.
Josh:Yeah, and there's something really I mean like the weight sucks, but I've heard I don't have one Cause like well, they do work great.
Dane:I can't resolve myself to spend that much money. Yeah, it's expensive, they do work great. They have some, some perks. So like we have a couple guys who race and if their race course is pretty tame, they will go with just a straight carbon lightweight post.
Josh:And it's super easy to just pull the post out If you have a, if you have a.
Dane:if you have a challenging course where you can use that post, you can just plop that sucker on. You don't have to run lines, you don't have to do anything. You just put a clamp on your bar and boom off you go. It's super easy to do that.
Dane:We have another guy who does bike packing and gravel bike and so on his what is gravel bike and gravel bike, and so on his what is gravel bike? So gravel bike, oh, just rides or gravel. Well, so he was doing, uh, like he was using his gravel bike as a bike packer. Also, it was like a mountain bike with drop bars yeah, what do they call that? Like gravel king or monster, monster, gravel yeah yeah, I'm building one right now for the shop, and it's monster gravel too cool, that's another stupid thing I thought in bikes.
Josh:It's weird know it's like a drop bar mountain bike.
Dane:Yeah, literally Like. So the idea is more traction, more control, more comfort um rougher terrain, but more hand position, so it's actually makes kind of sense. Uh you know, like in the early nineties, one of my treks was a mountain bike, but they sold it with down tube shifter bosses and you could buy the version with, uh, drop bars. I wish I could remember. I want to say it was a trek 7000. Okay, and so do you know what down tube shifters are? Yeah, okay, so this, this mountain bike are you shitting me?
Josh:had down tube shifters on it, yeah, like friction shifters or indexed.
Dane:Well, it had the bosses, so you could put whatever you want which one? But if you didn't have those bosses, you had to buy some crazy clamp-on system. So this bike was designed. This mountain bike was designed.
Josh:We're getting old school now. We're talking about down-to-chip.
Dane:This is before suspension forks, so that's how long ago. And so this bike came as either a drop bar mountain bike or a mountain bike, and so it's pretty cool my old shirt, my old surly cross check yes before I got the the light speed that I wrote today.
Josh:That was my. It was a cross bike, but I use it as a gravel bike. Yep, but eventually, like I got sick, uh, I think my, you know I'm cheap right. You know that, because when I told you what I want to do for my e-bike.
Dane:you're like. You're like you didn't say it, but you're like god damn it, josh, you can't do that for that price, but I think I broke the. I had Altegra nine-speed shifters on it or something and I broke the levers.
Josh:They just shifted and nothing happened. I just crashed or something, and it just ruined them and I'm like, oh shit, I got to fix this bike. What am I even doing? I was looking at the price. I'm like I god damn it. Yeah, I found on ebi I could put friction shifters on it for like four bucks or something I literally like the touring ones that go on.
Dane:Did you put them on the down tube, or just? Put them on the end of the bar they were on the down.
Josh:Okay, yeah, why no? No, I've had both. Yeah, I had, I had bought, uh, dura ace, yep, I first I had them on the, on the bars, yep, and then I think I crashed and broke those as well yeah, like because I had that bike for like 20 years and then I'm like screw that, that's too expensive, I'm gonna put them on the down tube they still have those.
Dane:Great, yeah, yeah, it worked. Great, it is amazing. You can still get bar in shifters for bikes and and touring bikes. Use them and you know all kinds of weird bikes.
Josh:You know like people build all kinds of weird I gotta tell gotta tell you like I liked for that bike, not a mountain bike Cause for a mountain bike. I think you need the index to get there real quick. But for the for for like a for the gravel bike that friction shifter was was awesome, like I was. I was for the price Like it was an amazing someone should should like offer like a super inexpensive, well-built, solid quality gravel bike with friction shifters.
Dane:I think so too, so working on a doing a tune-up on a friction bike is awesome yeah, you don't have to do anything.
Josh:No, you just set the limits. That's all you do set the limits and make sure that everything else is on the user right yeah, it's it.
Dane:You know they kind of suck to ride. You know it's one of those like things that you get used to. I used to ride that bike like way back in the day, so it's possible, you know, but we're so spoiled now, you know all right, so what's our next user?
Josh:okay, user suggested kind of on kind of on a little bit.
Dane:It's more to the suspension side. Who is the user? So justin, justin?
Josh:what's justin's last?
Dane:name dietrich. Um, yep, so I like, like this. What he thinks is stupid, and because it's something that I do and I don't think we can fix this, uh-oh, but I get it. So here's what he says. I hate that I can't buy suspension with a damper valved for a weight or style of rider. It would be nice to buy a Fox or Onyx bomber.
Josh:he just slammed all those together.
Dane:Onyx is a dj bomber is marzocchi well, so fox shocks, onyx is dvo and the bomber is marzocchi, so yeah, so with a heavy stack for heavier riders like myself, I can't imagine if it was a lady and tipped in 100 pounds. I bet they're all stiff so okay so okay.
Josh:So so what is so? What is Justin?
Dane:So his stupid is why is there a generic valving when you buy a fork and he's right, okay, so when you buy a, fork he, he is, and there's exceptions, but he is right.
Josh:So like if you buy a Fox, a fork and I'm a, I'm a 240, put now 240 pound man used to be a 305 pound man, that's freaking awesome.
Dane:Congratulations, by the way. Um, now that I see you, enough I don't notice it. You don't notice it, yeah which is fine, but when I don't see you for a while, you see it. So now imagine you buy a fork yeah and it is meant for you and lacy.
Josh:Yeah, that's the forks that we have, yeah and so what happens is lacy weighs like I don't know what 120 pounds or something and I weigh 240 pounds yeah, so why are they the same fork for two totally different people?
Dane:yeah, so there's lots of uh suspension answers to this. So number one when I talk to other tuners and other people that do suspension, they will say that's why they exist. So vroarsprung and um push industries, these guys and guru suspension. We're at a different level because we're more service. We do tuning and we do valving and all of that stuff.
Dane:We just haven't hung our hat on only doing that, yeah, and now push has gotten out of doing service and they only create product and and that's's it. So they're no longer working on people's stuff Really. Yeah, they're only working on their own.
Josh:They're just doing like you know, like inverted, inverted forks, now Yep.
Dane:Their new fork, vore sprung, is very similar. They started off just like us, like a guy who just likes suspension and was into it.
Josh:That means you're going to be making suspension products soon. Is that what I'm saying?
Dane:I've already started thinking about it. Um, we'll see. I need to have time. Um, if you're looking for investors, yeah, right here so, uh, but they do come up with stuff. There's another guy, anthony uh diaz, he does this thing called the runt uh, and he's a suspension guy like me, okay, and he's done team mechanic stuff similar.
Josh:Where's he based out of?
Dane:uh, colorado Krista was his team rider for a while. I've met him a couple times. He's a cool guy.
Josh:Yeah, similar to me. Yeah, so the Runt is a cool product. By the way, I think Guru is way better than the Runt, just from a branding perspective.
Dane:So the Runt is the product, but Dia's Suspension is the company, and they're like if I could sell stuff that's not full of oil all the time. That's what I'm thinking, but, um, so I'm okay with being oily.
Josh:I'm always elbows deep yeah, that's what she said yep, exactly.
Dane:Um, so just for the record, yeah, it's okay with being oily. So, um, aside from the product, uh, what justin's comment is addressing is that why are these things generic? And so if you talk to those companies, they'll say absolutely, you should have a more tuned suspension to your, to your size, your riding style. You should have custom suspension. Everybody should have custom suspension. So what Fox and RockShox and all these other companies will tell you is we can't do that. We just can't make custom suspension for every single individual. Yeah, too many skews. Well, not only that, but it's complicated, because you can have a 220 pound rider who only rides veil vortex yeah, which is which is like a sorry, yeah, yeah.
Josh:So it's it's. It's like mellow cross country trails.
Dane:Yeah, cross country trails. And then you can have a hundred and pound soaking wet lady who does huge drops at a big bike park, you know. And so you can't go off their size.
Dane:You have to go off their ride style and their size and their type of bike and their type of suspension, and so these suspension companies make them very adjustable and a very wide range of adjustment and if you happen to be on the outlier, you feel oversell, custom tuning yeah, they oversell it in a way that kind of gives the customer kind of false idea of how much it's going to make a difference. Yeah, and I rather look at is it going to really make a difference? I have one customer who said I don't care if it makes a difference, I just want it so that I don't have to think about that.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:And I respect that. You know, and, and I custom tuned his I don't know if he noticed the difference. I ride with him all the time. Shout out to Luke Um, but his philosophy was sound and I'm okay with that. But if somebody feels like they're not getting all out of their bike and they're 180 pounds and they're riding a they're six foot tall and they're riding a large, you know all mountain bike there's a good chance that thing's already tuned for you and all you need to do is to set up. Uh, but if you do, if you take that that same person and he is constantly bottoming out because he's hitting 30 foot gaps then he may need custom tuning. Yeah, uh, so that's the answer to Justin's stupid thing, which is, yes, it's dumb, but they are such a wide adjustment range that for the majority of people, they don't need custom tuning, um, and you can get them custom tuned if you need it. So, okay, what's the?
Josh:next I'm looking to see what other uh, so we had ashley.
Dane:I will do uh, since we're looking, I'll do so. So trent, trent, kendall oh yes, trent, so I raced with trent he raced a e-bike up in bootleg with us. So what's his? Uh?
Josh:so he says, okay, I got a few okay only shram has the nicer derailleur lockout that makes it easier to remove the rear wheel okay, so that it's. It's not a derailleur lockout, but it's the derailleur cage lock, the cage lock, yeah, so I would agree that that sucks, that shimano doesn't have that, yeah, so it's cool, it's so.
Dane:That's what I call a cup holder in the car thing. So that means once you have it. When you don't have it, you really miss it because it's convenient.
Josh:I love that, but it's not enough to make me run that junky SRAM shit.
Dane:You're just picking fights tonight.
Josh:I love Shimano.
Dane:Because I sell both. I love them both, but I will tell you that every single bike that I have has SRAM on it.
Josh:And every single bike I have has Shimano. So, that's perfect. And you know what?
Dane:That's okay.
Josh:That's okay, so then he goes into only Shimano. Only Shimano has a trigger shifter. Yes, yes he's right, sram's trying to wear out my thumb.
Dane:SRAM has double thumb. Yep, shimano. Here's the weird thing about that. Shimano made their trigger thumb thumb or trigger thumb. That's kind of crazy. I I gotta give kudos to shimano for that, because they're more inclusive, right okay?
Josh:yeah, shimano is like the more inclusive more inclusive.
Dane:Yeah, so I would.
Josh:I would say okay, I would say that the SRAM like like cage lockout, yep, it's not as valuable as Shimano. Okay, more inclusive.
Dane:We're talking about stupid stuff and I'm going to tell you. All of this right here gets me to this stupidest thing. Okay, why to the stupidest thing? Okay, why can't these two play together? Why would they play together? They're competitors. Why can't I use a Shimano shifter with a SRAM derailleur?
Josh:You know the answer to that question. I know it, but I don't understand it.
Dane:You understand it, I understand how it works, but what I don't understand is If they make them compatible, they're eating into their own business. Well, eating into their own business. Well, yeah, I mean they would have to. They would have to admit who's right, right which? Is, you know, because eventually somebody would sell more than the other shimano, I mean it was.
Dane:I mean, come on, the japanese versus the thailand so really, it comes down to what's more important to you the cage lock or the trigger shift no, I'm just saying that shimano products work better. No, but that's wrong, they do.
Josh:They work better.
Dane:I love how you say that. Oh, you know what? Wait, I can address that.
Josh:Okay, what are you going to address? Because they do, because you're right At my price point.
Dane:You're right to a point. So Shimano does a great job of making things that are smooth. It just takes them forever to be last place on technology, okay.
Josh:So if you're, if you're concerned with like, like not having quality, and you're concerned with like, the newest, fastest new product, then I would go with SRAM. Access is a great example. Okay so if you're like, I want to make sure that I can wait and see what happens and make sure that what I put out is perfect, excluding DI2. Then it would be 100%.
Dane:Shimano. No, yeah, that's what somebody who comes in second place says. Oh my God, here we go. They're like hey, I made sure that it was safe to run that race by letting SRAM win, all right.
Josh:Here's another, so win all right. Here's another. So he said here's another stupid thing. Shram uses torque head bolts. Did they exclusively on something well?
Dane:so a while ago, uh, and this is true, uh, so like when xx first came out which is 11 speed, one by so again, because shram innovated and made the first one by system. Yeah, and it took Shimano many, many years, yeah, yeah, so, so there's a whole there's a whole thing.
Josh:So you know I do like strategy for a living. Yeah, there's a whole thing about being first mover or second mover, Yep. And sometimes it's way smarter to be second mover, because there's not the risk and liability Yep. Yep Safe Totally quality and meanwhile you meanwhile meanwhile, someone else is doing the crazy out there shit. If you want the crazy out there shit by shram, if you want like good quality, inexpensive products that will last you forever. You, shimano, you remember who got on the moon? First yeah, but do you know the difference?
Dane:have you ever shot? It have you ever shot?
Josh:yeah, yeah, I do have you ever shot an ak-47 so? So here's the difference between okay, we got47?.
Josh:So here's the difference between Okay, we got a great analogy. Here's the difference between Shimano and SRAM. Now, an AK-47 is a Russian product. It's a machine gun. You can take an AK-47. You can put it in a swamp, you can leave it there for like six months. You can pull it out of that swamp, you can throw a magazine in it and then it'll shoot. Now it's the AR-15, which is the American version of a machine gun. Okay, similar.
Dane:AK-47 and the AR-15. Ar-15. And AR-15 is super accurate. I don't know anything about guns, yeah, so AR-15 is super accurate.
Josh:Okay, it's dead nuts.
Dane:Okay.
Josh:Sometimes AK-47, one round will go over there. One round will go over there. Sometimes you shoot a friend, Sometimes you shoot a friend, sometimes you shoot. Well, usually, if you're shooting in a direction you're not trying, you're not aiming towards your friend, but whatever if you're shooting into a crowd, if it's a good 47. If you sneeze okay on an ar-15, uh-huh, it's not gonna work okay. In ak-47, you can keep in a swamp for six months and it's gonna work okay. I want the product it's gonna work.
Dane:I gotta change the analogy. Um, okay, something away from guns. So, um, simple works, right. I would say shimano toyota. Okay, toyota, let's do cars.
Josh:I mean, I mean I ride, I drive a toyota, I drive a toyota too.
Dane:Yep um, shram is like a lexus.
Josh:It's just a nicer version and it and it's better I would say that, like, shram feels more like a harley davidson to me, that when it works it's nice, but most of the time it's not a good analogy. But most of the time you're pushing it, that's not a good analogy. Like have you ever seen a bike with nx or sx on it? Who's?
Dane:got the older design that's been around forever and they don't innovate Harley Davidson or Honda. I don't know, I don't know the analogy there. Okay, we're way off.
Josh:No, no, this is good, this is good, this is good. Shimano's got old shit that works. Sram's got new shit that sometimes works.
Dane:No, no See. I will say that access drive train while it's so expensive. Yeah, and crazy heavy. Yeah, works like a fucking charm crazy it's lighter.
Josh:It's so heavy, lighter, lighter. Okay, add batteries. And is it lighter than di2? I don't even know oh, definitely, because shimano's elect shimano has like like.
Dane:So in the mountain bike in the mountain bike world. Di2 is is like yeah, it's garbage.
Dane:I'll concede that. I will give you that. Shimano makes quality product. I sell them both. So I really don't like taking a stance. I'm sorry that you are. So some of the reasons that I'll take a stance don't actually have to do with the product, and we were talking about this earlier with Consumer Direct and things like that. Sometimes bike shop guys will make a decision based on how much they get the stuff for, what comes on the bike or you know, whatever. Yeah, um, I would say uh for me. I will give you an example shimano, I think, is a better system if it's mechanical.
Josh:Yep, uh and shram is like 10 000 times better if it's electric.
Dane:Yes, yeah, so so there you go that's a simple thing. If you want that's easy mechanical system, go shimano.
Josh:If you want an electric system, although I will tell you the shram gx and above. So okay, mechanical. Here's what made me above mechanical.
Dane:I wondered where your trauma was from. Shram came from it's an exit sx okay, yeah, oh, dude, so we will not carry sx in the shop. I have told the guys do not bring sx in, except for the cranks.
Josh:Uh, and they crank who cares about well, so just wait here's the thing stupid stuff.
Dane:We're talking about stupid stuff we are. There's this old standard called power spline. That truvative came out with a long time ago. It's a spline system, so the crank arms attached to the bottom bracket with the spline, whatever reason, they decided to make it smaller instead of bigger. And so when spline, technically that sounds stupid, it's dumb, you know. Uh, it's really dumb. And so what would happen is they would come loose, they would strip out.
Dane:They were awful, they were just awful cranks, yeah this is true vative, yeah, yeah yeah, this is true vative, and true vative was part of sram oh, was it, yeah, yeah it was like the ghetto. Sram, uh no, sram acquired true vative at some point and now they've kind of just melded.
Josh:So much it's hard to tell even, even, brandy, yeah, they're still around yeah, so they'll do a lot of like components, uh, and sometimes they'll.
Dane:They'll have a truvative crank on a shram bike. It's really a shram crank, but okay, in shimano they call it non-series and they'll just put shimano on it and it won't be xt or lx or something or slx like that yeah, um, in shram, sometimes their non-series would be like a truvative crank but, like the non-series shram, breaks as an example, like the mt 201s uh, are you talking? You're talking shimano.
Josh:Yeah, they're fucking awesome, they're great, yeah, awesome, yeah but the non-series shram stuff or the sx and nx so s.
Dane:So sx and nx is not non-series. That's the crazy part. So here's the thing about Essex. Have you ever seen the movie Office Space?
Josh:Oh yeah.
Dane:Okay, one of my favorites.
Josh:Yeah, it's a great movie.
Dane:One of my favorite scenes is the copier, so if any of you yeah, when they're out there.
Josh:Oh yeah, that's what I want to do with any so we want to NX or GSX.
Dane:So NX we do Okay With really.
Josh:Yeah, yeah.
Dane:So you want to know what the difference is. What Um SX has plastic and I think this actually affects us in the Southwest desert here because we're so hot. The, the plastic I don't think holds its shape correctly Right Under load and so when you shift it it will just miss. Shift like crazy, we shift like crazy.
Dane:We do not carry that product in the shop it is so bad and I and I will say that right to shram's face it is awful, awful product. Yeah, um, I would take a dior or, uh, a low-end shimano, a hundred times over that.
Josh:So you are correct in that sense so so, so can you, can we, if you're budget-minded?
Dane:which.
Josh:I am the Qs, the Deore, the SLX. They all perform amazingly yes.
Dane:Yeah, they do really well. So SRAM shines at the GX level and above. I would agree with that. The NX does really well if you cherry pick. So for instance I've had bad experience with N experience here. I'll give you an example. I'll put an nx shifter on a gx rear derailleur, an nx cassette and a gx chain on a bike.
Josh:That's our that's our long, as it's got a gx, so that the derailleur is my that's why I say cherry pick, yep yeah so if you have a gx derailleur and an x shifter, yeah, actually I've had problems with NX shifters as well.
Dane:So they have two versions. The nice one has a separate clamp, and that's the one you want, okay. And so, in this scenario, this is our Nika bike. Right, this is for the kids racing. They want the best raceable stuff, but they're super low cost, and so we call this our Nika setup. We'll cherry pick the parts, parts and we basically take the best of what it is, and then we minimize the stuff that doesn't make as much. For instance, the NX cassette fits a HG cassette hub body.
Josh:Right, so does the Q's XT stuff, so might as well just go Q's XT.
Dane:But if you're buying a. Well before that stuff came out well before that stuff.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:And this is one of my points, with the time. So we got serious here. We were joking around, but serious, not comparing stuff one of the reasons we get serious.
Dane:I didn't realize so one of the reasons that I do like shram is because shram had 12 speed a long time ago. Shram had, yes, uh, one by a long time ago. Yeah, and in the bike shop we're seeing people come in with their old two buys and it sucks and they don't want it and they want to upgrade and SRAM was there for them and Shimano wasn't, and they are now. They are now, but we give SRAM a little credit for being there for those people. I don't give a shit about that.
Josh:I want the best product. If I'm putting lowend parts on my bike, shimano is the way to go. But what would you have said back?
Dane:when you had a two-by, you know I was running. I was running shram gx. I would just put shram gx if I had it that's that's it, but that's not today.
Josh:I don't give a shit about yesterday, but we're today, today, our consumers today today shimano, you can put xtr on your bike, right?
Dane:that's who would do that.
Josh:I do it ultra rich people or people that own bike shops. Well, yeah, I don't have the money I've never in my life, besides the, like 20 year old stuff owned an xdr component.
Dane:What the fuck would I do with that stupid thing in bikes? Okay, ready for another stupid thing in bikes yes, the top end stuff's price. It's nuts, it's crazy it is.
Josh:It's like, for what? For four grams I get like, so I gotta pay an extra four hundred dollars like yeah, front door. So I.
Dane:So I do this for a living right. I sit in the bike shop. People come in and I have to talk to them and I have to, I have to you talk them out of xtr and no so one of the things you learn is that it's not your wallet. You help them, it's true. It's true, I love that dude. It's not your wallet. Well, it's not. So if you come in the store and I would buy xtr, I can't assume that you would.
Josh:Yeah, it's not it's not my wallet, buy xtr I do, I've bought it because you're a weight guy well, so that's really the only value you're getting any.
Dane:So here, let's, let's, let's qualify. So I'm a bang for the buck, master, like I love. Bang for the buck, okay, you're well. No, no see, you are a cheap bastard, I'm not gonna deny that, and I'm gonna tell you that your is good stuff, it's great stuff, but if you want the best stuff at the lowest price, it's XT.
Josh:Okay, I got a lot of XT out there. Yes, yeah.
Dane:And so that's the bang for the buck.
Josh:But XT is a couple orders of magnitude more expensive than Dior it is.
Dane:But imagine that you get a 20% gain when you go from Dior to SLX and then you get another 20% when you go to SLX to XT.
Josh:Can you tell, because I have SLX and XT on some of my bikes and, besides weight, I can tell differences.
Dane:So one of the things so that comment it's not our wallet. We have to use the customer's wallet. So we have to figure out what's important to them and we have to figure out what they need and try and help them as good as possible. Now, if you do a disservice to the customer, you just try and tell them what you want, and that's not a good way to go.
Josh:Uh, sometimes you got to figure out, like what, what's driving them, and then match their desires and their available budget to the right product. Yeah, and sometimes that's XTR, sometimes that's Dior I have, and sometimes that's xtr, sometimes that's dior I have and sometimes, in the rare occasion that is a shram product maybe just once in a while.
Dane:Um, so, so, the uh, so the cus. I have all kinds of customers and and one of the fun things about my job is figuring this stuff out, you know, because I like a puzzle, yeah, and so somebody comes in and they will mention a product and I have to first figure out why you know, is it something that they know they want or is it something they just heard about? Is it popular? Did an ad pop up on Facebook and that's why they're asking about it. That's legit.
Josh:No, I'm telling you, man, I bought a bunch of shit from the Instagram.
Dane:Yeah, that's legit.
Josh:No, I'm telling you, man, I bought a bunch of shit from the Instagram, yeah, and so I have to help them through that and then I have to yeah, yeah, well, we're, we're just slaves.
Dane:We're slaves to input. When you see something, yeah, psychological, psychologically. When you see something over and over again, you hear something customer and you're trying to figure this out. We need to respect what you need. So, for instance, if you come in the shop, I'm gonna look at budget orientated, yeah, uh, but I'm gonna try, like I am in this conversation, to help you understand that sometimes, if you let money drive your decision, it'll short yourself yeah and so sometimes you know, if you choose something purely on money, you end up paying for it later he's trying to talk me into spending more on my e-bike.
Josh:Well, not, not really he is, he is. No, I'm telling you he is.
Dane:No, I can get you a cheaper e-bike, but it'll be cheaper and it won't be as good and it's going to pay for it. So this is to my point when you are trying to figure out if cheaper is better, you have to figure out your drawbacks. What is your drawback going to be? So, for instance, you keep mentioning weight, right, and so if you don't care about weight, yes, you can save a ton of money, because in the bike industry it is exponential expense. Yeah, for lightweight. And so when we were talking about slx versus xt, there's a big performance jump and not a huge price jump.
Josh:So I have not seen a big performance jump so where? In the brakes, in the, in the shift quality, shift quality weight yep, yeah, cranks, uh, yep, yeah.
Dane:So now, bottom bracket not so much, right, uh, chain. So so, um, there is a gains in the chain and so you may not notice them. So here's. The other thing is do you actually get the advantage if I'm sprinting at the start of a race in a parking lot to get to get to the funnel? That is that single track, and I am trying to get out in front of every other rider, perfect, so that I don't have to pass them.
Josh:Yep, and I have to shift under load at full speed xtr is going to be better, or xt is going to be better than slx? Yes, exactly here's.
Dane:Here's another one. Uh, I'm a heavier guy. I always have been For me. How heavy the bike is adds to how hard it is for me to get up the hill, even for me, the fat guy.
Dane:Yeah Well, but for me for me we're talking about remember, what's good for you is not always good for me. Fair enough. So when I climb a hill, I don't like it, and so the lighter the bike, the less unliked that is, and so so when I'm climbing a hill, the lighter my bike is. Uh, I, I appreciate that and it makes my ride better. Uh, now, when I descend, I descend like a demon. It doesn't matter, you know, I'm going to have have a blast descending, but the hard part of the ride, the part that I don't enjoy, that much is the climb yeah, and so now the better bike you is, the better the climbers exactly now.
Dane:Here's the thing I have a bike for climbing, and then I have a bike for descending so I have a bike for climbing. It's got a motor no, I have a bike for climbing that doesn't have a motor and it's 23 pounds that's, your that's my pivot mock 4sl and that bike.
Dane:It's a badass bike it's so light and when I ride that bike I feel more lively, I feel better, I feel more fit and that weight difference, that light bike makes a big difference, and so for me, in my ride, I am minimizing the pain and maximizing the fun right.
Dane:Yeah, and so now here's the thing. I have customers that come in the shop. They can get to the top of the hill no problem. They weigh 130 pounds, you know. Yeah, and weight is not an issue. But when they turn the bike downhill, every little shelf that they go off of freaks them out of freaks them out. And going down that hill and having carrying any kind of speed and not feeling scared that you're going to flip over and get hurt is where they.
Josh:So this gets to your point that like really understanding every one of us is different yes, and like we're joking and we're like arguing whatever yeah, we're all coming from a different perspective. From my perspective, where I sit, I care about yep, the low-end shimano works awesome, and and it does and, and, and, the, and, the, and. From your perspective, the high-end shram is amazing but here's the thing about that shram.
Dane:I value what they've done in the industry I value what they've done for bike shops. I value the innovation, so all of those factors go into my mind yeah, which may not go into somebody else.
Josh:Some consumers that they might care about that and other consumers might not.
Dane:Yeah, and they may just be like hey, I want a 12 speed when Shimano didn't have it.
Josh:Right, you have one more stupid thing, okay, and then and then, maybe, oh wait.
Dane:I got one funny one. Okay, go Okay brian trader.
Josh:Who's brian trader?
Dane:I don't know brian, so he he posted up on mountain cogs uh facebook another one.
Josh:He brought up a hammerschmidt, and this is the hammerschmidt, this is the uh, this is like your gearbox 10 10 years ago your box. Is that what we're talking about? What?
Dane:are we talking about 12, 13 years ago? Okay, um, it is a two-speed, um planetary gear system what the hell.
Josh:What the hell is what the hell is a planetary gear. So is this a gearbox?
Dane:so he's saying it's stupid, right? Is this a gearbox? It kind of it's. It's built into a crank so you could add it to a bike. You didn't have to have it built on yeah, this is the future.
Josh:Bro it you think that this is?
Dane:the future. If you notice, it doesn't exist anymore gearboxes.
Josh:Well, I don't know if we're talking about gearboxes or not, but gearboxes are the few.
Dane:Here's what happened with the hammersmith. Uh, you would set this up on a bike and it was a one speed. So this is 12, this 13. Why are we?
Josh:talking about a defunct, 12 year old product that's no longer available. It's a stupid shit in the bike industry because it was stupid and it went away okay, good so so like that's supply and demand it is, but I loved it I did, I would yell back to shimano and shreya I would we were riding.
Dane:We were riding on a local trail that's all gravity which is called bug springs, and we're doing.
Dane:It's pretty aggressive, yeah, and at the beginning of this trail, you, you drop in real quick so you're immediately going. It's all gravity which is called bug springs and we're doing it's pretty aggressive yeah. And at the beginning of this trail, you, you drop in real quick so you're immediately going downhill, so you're kind of shifting down into your you know your um, your speed cogs, you know your 12, 13 tooth to get that speed on the descent, yeah, and it drops down into a little tiny Valley and then it immediately goes straight up.
Josh:Yeah.
Dane:And the Hammerschmidt would shift under load instantly. And so I would get down to that hit the hammer shift shifter which was on the left Cause it would act like a front derailleur and it would dump it to the easy gear immediately under full power. Yeah, and I would go up immediately where all the other guys behind me are fiddling either with their front derailleur.
Dane:This is a while ago yeah and dumping their chain off and have to get off and fix it, or they were having to shift through the backs, you know, to get up to the gear that they needed, and they weren't wide range back then. So is hammerschmidt even in business. So so you're not. You're missing the point. What's the point? I would yell hammerschmidt to the top as I dropped all my buddies on the climb and I would drop them on that trail because of that product.
Dane:And so brian is just giving me shit because you were, because you wrote that, because I would yell hammerschmidt and it was a stupid product and it did go away and to your point, and we can talk about gearbox at a different time. Yeah, yeah, the reason that hammersmith schmidt failed is the drag that it caused once they get the drag thing figured out, I'm telling you, yep, gearboxes are going to take. I think gearbox, e-bikes is going to be well that's already.
Josh:Thing.
Dane:Yeah, like the new shimano no, no, oh, you haven't heard about the new shimano yet. Oh, yeah, I have. I uh the new pinion. Uh, yeah, it's, it's money, yeah, and that is a true gearbox. It's money for today, but like it's coming because the shifting is happening in the gearbox, whereas the shimano motor has a gearbox to reduce the power. Uh, that's it, it's not. So there's drag in the motor, but it's reducing the speed of the motor to a reasonable amount that will drive the chain.
Josh:I'm going to predict the future Now. Gearboxes is the future.
Dane:Yeah, You'd need to listen to pink bike I have.
Josh:I have. They don't agree. Listen, I'm an independent thinker, you got to ride one.
Dane:So next time we go to a bike fest, you have, you have a gearbox in the, in the in I don't know, because the biggest advantage to gearbox is in adverse conditions, because the derailleur gets gunky.
Josh:Yeah, we don't have that. We don't have that so much.
Dane:We have such a great climate where we're at that we don't have a lot of the things you know. I have a lot of friends that are in UK and what they go through there is insane Like I don't know what we would do, but they would have no idea how to survive here at 110 degrees you know, so it's.
Dane:It's just different. It's always climate. You know things like belt drives, gearboxes in the UK and that kind of environment and wet, muddy, nasty terrain. They are awesome and they're almost a necessity. Here you can save a lot of money and a lot of friction, a lot of drag, and not have it.
Josh:So I've got one final thing, okay, and we'll probably end on this, if that's okay. Yep, absolutely so. Uh, and I actually have a handful of things I'm trying to find, like a low end bike for my, my cousin, okay, um, matt the gray man, yeah, but it is, and I hate to like bang, like bash more on SRAM. Actually, I don't hate it, I kind of like it. But like the low-end RockShox suspension, whether it's forks or shocks, which seems to come on every low-end bike, they just suck. Tell me I'm wrong, but like I would rather you put and I think nowadays Marzocchi is the low end version of Fox yeah, I would rather you spec a bike with a Marzocchi Z1 or Z2 or whatever they're calling them Marzocchi and you're still using the grip damper.
Dane:Yeah, well, they have the rail now.
Josh:Oh, okay, is the rail? I don't even know, is the rail a good damper?
Dane:Is the real? I don't even know is the real? A good damper Grip? Damper is a I don't want to say sealed, but it's a damper unit and it uses the IFP. We've covered this before in the podcast, but basically the oil system is separate from the lowers oil, it doesn't mix and it's minimal oil to minimize weight and it minimizes air aeration of the oil.
Dane:That all sounds good to me. It all all works great and the grip's awesome. On some of the marzocchi's they use a rail which is a basically an old system which is very similar to the rock shock system.
Josh:So if you want to get a marzocchi, get one with the grip yeah, and and and.
Dane:sometimes you can just upgrade. So here's the thing about Marzocchi's that they're basically a Fox. Fox wanted to make a more affordable fork. They acquired Marzocchi for pretty much the name, but they really didn't use hardly anything in Marzocchi Right. And when they developed that all went to DVO right. No, no. So the DVO story is the, the guys who did the good Marzocchi.
Josh:Yeah, got.
Dane:So the DVO story is the guys who did the good. Marzocchi got so pretty fed up with the new Marzocchi. This is before Fox, when it went from….
Josh:Yeah, Marzocchi kind of went downhill for a time.
Dane:Yeah, Marzocchi went from Italy to Taiwan and not in a good way and their quality dropped and their performance dropped and they got overly complicated and didn't work very well and the guys who used to do the good marzocchi were so frustrated, feeling all that stuff, they left literally just left yeah, a bunch of them and started dvo, and dvo is the true spirit of that. Older marzocchi like super smooth.
Dane:By the way, we shouldn't be slamming taiwan because, like some of the best, bikes in the world are coming out of Taiwan right now, so please don't walk away thinking Taiwan equals bad. No.
Josh:Actually Taiwan equals good.
Dane:Yeah.
Josh:And there's a whole bunch of other Asian areas that equal bad.
Dane:So the company that acquired them from the Italian original design Didn't do well. They were bean counting, they were more worried about the bottom line and they weren't worried about performance. And when you do that in a passion-based industry, which we are, uh, you lose your customers because you know it doesn't. It just doesn't work.
Dane:now the new marzocchi under fox is pretty much fox product yeah I don't know this a hundred percent, like I can't quote whatever memo they may have put out about this. But basically Fox wanted a product that would compete with the low end rock shock because that's the one place that Fox really could not have a place. They still don't really, because you can get a Judy for 250 bucks and it's a decent fork. So there's different versions and it's rebuildable and if I'm getting a low-end bike, I would rather have that than some of the more no-name brands like sr suntour low-end yeah, so I have a love hate with suntour, so suntour I'm hearing that the new suntour stuff is like so sunny, nobody high-end stuff nobody knows this.
Dane:But the high-end suntour stuff is good, yeah, but nobody knows it because only thing that they ever see is the lowest, crappiest stuff well then, some of the e-bikes are coming out with.
Josh:Some of the new e-bikes are coming out with the high-end sun tour stuff and like they're okay I've walked on, I've watched on like the lone wolf and stuff like that. They're like supposed to be really good. I can't. I can't remember the names, I don't want to misquote them, but like so. But you think the rock, the low-end rock, shock stuff so here's the thing.
Dane:Yeah, I would rather have a low-end bike come with a rock shock fork that is repairable and not disposable then then an rst or sun tour, yeah that ends up, okay, okay I'm with you, I'm at that point when I'm paying 200 bucks for a sun tour, rst or whatever, and I'm paying 250 for a rock shock.
Josh:I would rather have that rock shock but you have a choice between a low-end bike with a rock shock or a low-end marzocchi. What are you gonna do?
Dane:well, so that's the problem. You're not. That's apples and oranges. No, it's not. No, no, okay, now let's ramp up okay so?
Josh:so you're saying that like ramp lowest end, so so like the rock shock, like 35 gold or whatever, so that that's the same. I see the same price point, I would take a marzocchi over a rock shock 35 gold every single time that's what I think, that's what I think is a stupid thing, reba, and a revelation different story.
Dane:Because they're not built, so they. What about the lyric in the? Are those like still?
Dane:good yeah now here's the thing you got. What rock shock does that fox doesn't is they have a huge spectrum, and so you got a cheapie, and then you got the ultimate right. Where does the cheapie stop in rock shock? So there's a couple things that rock shock will do to change the level. Sometimes it it will be the chassis, and when I say chassis, that's going to be lowers, and csu, which is the upper and lowers, and that's like the, the husk. Right. Then sometimes they'll change the damper or the air system, and so, though, all those changes allow them to have multiple levels so what's the lowest level?
Josh:rock shock fork usually select.
Dane:Um, sometimes it's just lyric, but uh like you'll get weird oe ones. I have a oe zeb, yeah, in the shop. It has no adjustment for the damper, like there's no so even zeb it has rebound and that's it. There's no compression adjustment.
Josh:It's the weirdest thing for me, but you had me pull the select off my so so the low end stuff, uh, does not have the same level of suspension. Sometimes they'll change the bushings, so like when you get into sids on the low end sids are good well, so here's the thing they make a low-end sid, and they make jesus christ, this is, this is shram for you, okay? So goddamn complicated that you need like a master's degree to figure out what you do, what fork works fox.
Dane:Pretty straightforward. Yeah, if you buy a fox, it's going to be.
Josh:It's, it's like performance or factory, that well, they have three main levels I know they have like the rhythm, the elite the well.
Dane:So in performance. If the rhythm's a oe, okay, okay, so you'll see that on bikes, but you can't just go to fox what does that mean?
Josh:if I get a rhythm, what does that mean? Original equipment so I know what oe means, but like what is if I get a rhythm versus a regular performance, imagine what's different about those forks, uh, the castings, everything. So it's a pretty, but it's the same.
Dane:It's the same damper not always I mean they yeah, so isn't it just grip or grip too well, so sometimes you'll see a rhythm with a rail what?
Josh:yeah, so the front door really yep, it's weird.
Dane:so so they fox hasn't done this as much as rock shock, so so for the most part, a Rhythm has a different chassis. So a Rhythm 34 and a Performance 34 are not the same. They don't have the same size damper, but they may be both grips Okay.
Josh:Okay, I don't understand that. So the diameter is different. They're not interchangeable. Okay, they're not interchangeable, so obviously the Performance damper is better.
Dane:I'll give you an example why this is important. I'll see somebody online say oh, I've got a rhythm, or I've got a fox fork and it's got the grip damper. And somebody will say, just go get a grip too and throw it in there, and then you'll pretty much have a factory fork without kashima. And that is not true on a rhythm, so you can't do that on a rhythm. And so um so, then uh. So with fox product it's a lot smaller skews, so you have factory level yep.
Josh:And then sometimes you have different damper adjustments, so different, like a fit damper versus a grip to damper and that really is like the if you go to a 32, you get the fits in there 32s, but once you get to 34 unless you're talking about step cast you're pretty much at like. If it's factory, yeah, it's grip.
Dane:To 34, 36, 38 factory 34 is pretty variable. 36 we're not seeing the fits anymore. They're all grip twos, yeah, and of course up from there it's all grip to four factory.
Josh:Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you can get a 36 with a grip.
Dane:That's, that's performance yes, yeah, so, and then there's this weird thing called performance elite, right so what the hell is that? That is, a factory without kashima oh, I love that.
Josh:Yeah, so the kashima is just a fucking it's just a it's just a marketing bullshit right.
Dane:Remember those marginal gains, so like is it?
Josh:is it really worthwhile? Is kashima worth?
Dane:anything. So remember that xt to xtr yeah we were talking about. That's what kashima kind of does. It's not a huge difference, right? I would say and this is just my opinion as somebody who sells- the guru suspension guy.
Josh:Yeah, yeah so your opinion matters.
Dane:More people buy kashima because they want Kashima People to see the Kashima.
Josh:Yeah, this is like. This is like you know, like we talked about this earlier. Yeah, poor people buy brands. Yeah, rich people buy quality. I might as well buy the performance elite, because what the hell is Kashima doing for?
Dane:Well in your stance, right? So if you are taking and I have a friend who does this he'll buy a brand new $1,200 Fox 38, and then he'll immediately want to go out and buy some sort of push spring kit or special upgrade, or you know what I mean. He'll spend all this extra money to try and make it even better.
Josh:Does he have that kind of skill?
Dane:Sometimes and most often not. Or or here's what I find is there may be a different product, or he's just getting caught up in the marketing which does happen, you know.
Josh:And so again it goes back to stupid things, you know if we if we wrap this podcast talk to your LBS well, so figure out what you actually need there are. It might not be aligned with the marketing.
Dane:There are a lot of stupid things out there and sometimes they're super shiny and awesome looking may not be the best thing for you. If you have somebody who can help you with that, you are, you are, are are really ahead of most people, that's great.
Josh:And yeah, that's what you get from your LBS.
Dane:I'll give you one last piece of advice. Yeah, if you're buying consumer direct and you're reading the reviews off of their website, you're not doing a good job.
Josh:I'm just going to tell you product you're buying. If you're reading the reviews off the website of the company that you're buying, yeah, please read.
Dane:Maybe not the most objective from the company.
Josh:It drives me nuts. All right, man, we have, we have. Obviously this is a long one. Yeah, this is a super long one we were planning for this. Um, anyways, we appreciate you all. Yes, uh, let us know, uh, what you think, and uh, hey, man, thanks for coming out.
Dane:Absolutely, we spent like a long time together.
Josh:We were planning on that. I know it's a late night it it worked out All right.
Josh:Take care. Hey, what's up? This is Josh from the Mountain Cog Podcast. You got questions, comments or feedback. Well, we'd love to hear from you. Shoot us an email. You can send it to mountaincog at gmailcom, digging the show. There's a couple things you could do to help us out. First, you could tell your friends about Mountain Cog, and also it would be great if you'd give us a good rating and review over at Apple Podcasts or Spotify or wherever you listen. We appreciate y'all. Go ride, keep the rubber side.
