Yeah was thinking just about the rear. True, fronts are pretty ponderous.
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I think I can officially say “thanks Shimano” now. 5 boxes showed up while I was out of town. I’ve got a whole bike ready to built with the new Dura-Ace 12 sp wireless groupset, just waiting on the frame from Stinner to be finished. Should be a beauty once it’s finished.
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Goddamn.
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On that note, Shimano wants me to get out into the community for “road events.” Anyone have anything fun in their part of the world they’d recommend?
50-75 miles is my jam, fundraisers, community groups, etc. They’ve also encouraged me to heavily consider RAGBRAI if anyone wants to revive that thread.
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Holy shit.
This is wild. Literally can’t even give Shimano money for most of that stuff right now.
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Shimano goes hard, I guess.
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HFY marley
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That’s not really what “Thanks, Shimano” means.
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Care to educate?
#thanksshimano is mostly used with pictures of 6800/9000+ cranks that have exploded. or other shimano fails
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and you know marley- at first it was pretty cool seeing all this stuff coming to you. but now you post this? and it’s the coolest shit ever. so glad your life choices are being validated! 
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Basically the thanks Obama of the bike world, with just as much shittiness.
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You should definitely come out to NYC for the Five Boro Bike Tour, which I believe is shorter than that but a major event. Maybe even an “All Bodies on Bikes” presence at the tour would be great, bet you could get some sponsors to pay for that! And while you’re here the NYC/Upstate crew can meet you at my place for some real riding.
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I can give a bit more background on it too. I’m officially part of their “Road Crew”, so I’ll be going down to San Diego next month for team camp - we’ll be doing a bunch of media stuff and rides. They’re actively working on expanding what “road riding” means and looks like, which includes me!
Really stoked on this. Did I tell you guys that I officially signed with Pearl Izumi too and am getting a paycheck now?
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i’m starting to think shimano’s years as a reliable provider of high quality, high value components might largely be behind them.
exploding cranks, squeezing ibds, pricing out more and more people… it’s an unappealing composite, and i say this as someone with three road bikes with ultegra groups and two cargo bikes with comically crude shimano commuter groups.
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I think the current competitive landscape doesn’t lend itself to anything but what you see. Also, the number of Shimano cranks that fail compared to the number produced is still very small, even for the bonded dura-ace ones. Maybe it’s slightly higher, but their old forged cranks also failed. It’s very much a thanks social media for giving everyone with a broken widget a global platform.
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i mean sure, i’m not their model road bike customer, but i’m disappointed thst there’s no place in their lineup for very well made but simple components.
the ibd stuff seemed like an at least partially unforced error
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I for one welcome microshift and sensah’s entry into the market and hope they continue to improve. The Advent 1x9 drop bar group is not without its drawback’s but it’s a really good first step into the world of OE spec.
In regards to the #thanksshimano thing, the part that gets me is just the willful ignorance of failure mode (because yeah not THAT many) in 6800/9000 and just pushing forward with 8000/9100. Time will tell if the 12s stuff is “fixed” or not.
Lots of other weird ballups that smell more like early Sram road debacles than a company that has been the leader for basically half a century. Fraying cables and the problem riddled/underwhelming rollout of 1x12 are not doing them any favors. Everyone assumed the 12s trail stuff would be their triumphant return to mtb dominance, but at the shop level, most people seem plenty happy with Eagle and are not keen on more directional chains, ring compatibility complexity, and more i-spec nonsense.
GRX is far and away from their greatest success recently, but it’s pricy for 11s, and the choice to make the “affordable” group 10s just smacks of not actually listening to what the people want. Maybe I’m listening to the wrong people though.
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Yeah, I’m no shimano Stan, as my parts bin has been slowly filling up with SRAM bits, and it’s been my experience doing product support that the DA stuff tends to offer some warning before catastrophic failure, but the general blasé approach of shimano towards breaking cranks is not really a great recommendation of their stuff and the move to 12s and wireless seems to be more competition driven rather than technically desired by the giant, with the attendant drawbacks.
11s is fine, as is 10 and 9, so 12 (or 13!) is more a spinal tap reference and a way to get around omitting front shifting without having a shit set of gears.
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