Article about SRAM in Forbes
 

Interesting article on the evolution of SRAM.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimvino.../#660213d64d05

A couple of points for careful thought a

"One common theme is that the practices have to put people first. “With Value Stream Mapping, for example – it’s about seeing how material and information are flowing, but it’s with the goal in mind of making jobs easier,” Winterkorn said. “It’s about tapping into the knowledge of that 30-year employee to empower our workers to solve problems. In the past, we focused too much on tools. Now we focus on people – their ideas, their training, and so on. The tools come after.”

“Our people are a strategic advantage,” said Lousberg. “The innovations they come up with are huge, and our culture is one of our secret weapons, and our secret sauce is our people.” Winterkorn agreed. “I travel the globe and tell people, our products don’t make SRAM great – our people do.” "

It's one thing to pay lip service to employee empowerment, it's quite another to put it into practice. I have never worked for SRAM, and don't know anyone that has. I have, however, worked for companies that only claimed employee empowerment as a policy, and others that actually did it. A company that transform their culture into a learning organization is quite rare.

I can say I like SRAM products. I have two old mountain bikes with older gripshifts, two bikes with Red 10 drive train (one with a full Red gruppo), and two with Force 10 drive trains. I have a 2017 Cdale Habit that came with Deore XT, but I'm changing over to an Eagle group. I haven't had any issues with quality or performance from them yet.

Article about SRAM in Forbes
 

They came up with one crappy product that ruined countless bikes, and then they used borrowed money to buy up a bunch of more serious manufacturers and make those products crappier.

I'm not as impressed about that as Forbes is.

Article about SRAM in Forbes
 

On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 12:31:41 AM UTC-7, Chalo wrote:
They came up with one crappy product that ruined countless bikes, and then they used borrowed money to buy up a bunch of more serious manufacturers and make those products crappier.

I'm not as impressed about that as Forbes is.

Looking at it I cannot see why you would want to pay big bucks for a group that wouldn't only shift one gear at a time. I did a metric yesterday and never got out of the small ring and had to shift at least two gears on every one of the million rollers. With Campy or Shimano that's easy.

Article about SRAM in Forbes
 

On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 1:48:50 PM UTC-4, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 12:31:41 AM UTC-7, Chalo wrote:
They came up with one crappy product that ruined countless bikes, and then they used borrowed money to buy up a bunch of more serious manufacturers and make those products crappier.

I'm not as impressed about that as Forbes is.

Looking at it I cannot see why you would want to pay big bucks for a group that wouldn't only shift one gear at a time. I did a metric yesterday and never got out of the small ring and had to shift at least two gears on every one of the million rollers. With Campy or Shimano that's easy.

Sram red shifts up four at once, the SRAM force shifts up three at once. Both down only one. I do kind of miss my old Chorus Ergo group that let me shift down three at once, but not enough to justify the cost.

Article about SRAM in Forbes
 

On Monday, September 16, 2019 at 1:52:10 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 1:48:50 PM UTC-4, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 12:31:41 AM UTC-7, Chalo wrote:
They came up with one crappy product that ruined countless bikes, and then they used borrowed money to buy up a bunch of more serious manufacturers and make those products crappier.

I'm not as impressed about that as Forbes is.

Looking at it I cannot see why you would want to pay big bucks for a group that wouldn't only shift one gear at a time. I did a metric yesterday and never got out of the small ring and had to shift at least two gears on every one of the million rollers. With Campy or Shimano that's easy.

Sram red shifts up four at once, the SRAM force shifts up three at once. Both down only one. I do kind of miss my old Chorus Ergo group that let me shift down three at once, but not enough to justify the cost.

Another thing I don't like about double-tap is it requires too much intelligence. If you're on your last cog and think you've got one cog left and hit the shifter, it drops you down a cog -- kind of the opposite of what you wanted. With Shimano, you're just reminded that there's nothing left -- and that you are old and decrepit and need more cogs. As far as shifting loads of cogs at a time, that's never been a big issue for me. I have a bump-stock on my shifters -- well, fast fingers.

-- Jay Beattie.

Article about SRAM in Forbes
 

On Mon, 16 Sep 2019 16:26:28 -0700 (PDT), jbeattie
wrote:

On Monday, September 16, 2019 at 1:52:10 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 1:48:50 PM UTC-4, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 12:31:41 AM UTC-7, Chalo wrote:
They came up with one crappy product that ruined countless bikes, and then they used borrowed money to buy up a bunch of more serious manufacturers and make those products crappier.

I'm not as impressed about that as Forbes is.

Looking at it I cannot see why you would want to pay big bucks for a group that wouldn't only shift one gear at a time. I did a metric yesterday and never got out of the small ring and had to shift at least two gears on every one of the million rollers. With Campy or Shimano that's easy.

Sram red shifts up four at once, the SRAM force shifts up three at once. Both down only one. I do kind of miss my old Chorus Ergo group that let me shift down three at once, but not enough to justify the cost.

Another thing I don't like about double-tap is it requires too much intelligence. If you're on your last cog and think you've got one cog left and hit the shifter, it drops you down a cog -- kind of the opposite of what you wanted. With Shimano, you're just reminded that there's nothing left -- and that you are old and decrepit and need more cogs. As far as shifting loads of cogs at a time, that's never been a big issue for me. I have a bump-stock on my shifters -- well, fast fingers.

-- Jay Beattie.

All this up two and down three shifting seems to be quite complicated.
I use down tube mounted friction shifters and can shift from on side
of the chain wheel or rear sprocket set to the other in one pull/push
of the lever.

(Talk about FAST SHIFTING:-)
--

Cheers,

John B.

Article about SRAM in Forbes
 

jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, September 16, 2019 at 1:52:10 PM UTC-7, wrote:
On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 1:48:50 PM UTC-4, Tom Kunich wrote:
On Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 12:31:41 AM UTC-7, Chalo wrote:
They came up with one crappy product that ruined countless bikes, and
then they used borrowed money to buy up a bunch of more serious
manufacturers and make those products crappier.

I'm not as impressed about that as Forbes is.

Looking at it I cannot see why you would want to pay big bucks for a
group that wouldn't only shift one gear at a time. I did a metric
yesterday and never got out of the small ring and had to shift at least
two gears on every one of the million rollers. With Campy or Shimano that's easy.

Sram red shifts up four at once, the SRAM force shifts up three at once.
Both down only one. I do kind of miss my old Chorus Ergo group that let
me shift down three at once, but not enough to justify the cost.

Another thing I don't like about double-tap is it requires too much
intelligence. If you're on your last cog and think you've got one cog
left and hit the shifter, it drops you down a cog -- kind of the opposite
of what you wanted. With Shimano, you're just reminded that there's
nothing left -- and that you are old and decrepit and need more cogs. As
far as shifting loads of cogs at a time, that's never been a big issue
for me. I have a bump-stock on my shifters -- well, fast fingers.

-- Jay Beattie.


I don’t know. I was happy with my Ultegra setup on the last bike and I’m
happy with the SRAM Force on this one. Not sure I have a preference
between the two. The SRAM tap/double tap is a bit confusing. It’s
basically tap/ hold a bit and hold a bit shifts more than one depending on
length of hold. Sounds complicated but you get used to it.

The shifting off the end gets you back the other way thing that you
describe is a bit strange but you know it immediately and adjust.

Most of us dealt with friction shifters successfully enough. These new
concepts are both better in my opinion.

--
duane

Article about SRAM in Forbes
 

On Monday, September 16, 2019 at 7:26:30 PM UTC-4, jbeattie wrote:

Another thing I don't like about double-tap is it requires too
much intelligence. If you're on your last cog and think you've
got one cog left and hit the shifter, it drops you down a cog --
kind of the opposite of what you wanted.

That's an excellent point. I've been bagged by that on a couple of occasions.

Article about SRAM in Forbes
 

On 17/09/2019 8:56 a.m., wrote:
On Monday, September 16, 2019 at 7:26:30 PM UTC-4, jbeattie wrote:

Another thing I don't like about double-tap is it requires too
much intelligence. If you're on your last cog and think you've
got one cog left and hit the shifter, it drops you down a cog --
kind of the opposite of what you wanted.

That's an excellent point. I've been bagged by that on a couple of occasions.


Yeah but it's still just a quick click and a "**** me I'm toast" to get
back to where you were. I don't find it a significant issue. But then
again, I'm not climbing the Pyrenees or something.

Like I said, though, I don't really have a preference between SRAM and
Shimano. Both work pretty well. I guess I like the drop three option
when I'm doing hills that are slightly larger than rollers but it's not
a deal breaker.

Article about SRAM in Forbes
 

On Tuesday, September 17, 2019 at 9:20:44 AM UTC-4, duane wrote:
On 17/09/2019 8:56 a.m., wrote:
On Monday, September 16, 2019 at 7:26:30 PM UTC-4, jbeattie wrote:

Another thing I don't like about double-tap is it requires too
much intelligence. If you're on your last cog and think you've
got one cog left and hit the shifter, it drops you down a cog --
kind of the opposite of what you wanted.

That's an excellent point. I've been bagged by that on a couple of occasions.


Yeah but it's still just a quick click and a "**** me I'm toast" to get
back to where you were. I don't find it a significant issue. But then
again, I'm not climbing the Pyrenees or something.

Like I said, though, I don't really have a preference between SRAM and
Shimano. Both work pretty well. I guess I like the drop three option
when I'm doing hills that are slightly larger than rollers but it's not
a deal breaker.

I REALLY LIKE my 9-Speed Campagnolo Mirage Ergo shifters/brake levers. I can ship up OR down numerous gears with either the rear (for the rear cogs) or with the front for the three chainrings I use with them. The front Ergo is ratchet which means I can fine-tune the shifts to prevent derailleur cage rub and it makes the setup of the shifter a lot quicker and easier too.

I hope to replace the Mirage front derailleur and Mirage Ergo levers with 9-speed Veloce ones only because the Veloce are all silver and then I'd have a full 9-speed groupset on that bike.

I guess we all have different preferences based on our needs, wants, type of riding and length of rides. WHen I've ridden a really long way on my Ergo or barend shifter bike and get quite tired I sometimes reach down to the downtube to shift if I've been riding one of those bikes a lot recently. I have two bikes that have the old Suntour Symmetric shifters on top of the downtube and with those it's really easy to shift BOTH the front and rear derailleurs at the same time with the same hand. Ditto for my Shimano Dura Ace AX shifters also on the top of the downtube.

Cheers