Why is Shimano so hated by some?

(Evan Evans) wrote:

let me just paint a black & white picture. The Campy guys love there
bikes ,worship them & enjoy any opportunity to tinker with them. The
Shimano guys say "it works lets go ride".

???

What are you trying to say? That Campy users don't enjoy riding? That
Shimano users don't like to tinker with "there" bikes?

Like most sweeping generalizations, yours shed no light.

--
Ted Bennett
Portland OR

In article ,
says...
In article ,
Tim McNamara wrote:

Shimano is like the Microsoft of the bicycle world, the difference
being that Shimano products are reliably good. Campagnolo is the
Apple of the bicycling world- their products arguably work better and
last longer, but there is a premium to be paid.

I think that analogy is somewhat flawed. Unlike Apple, Campagnolo really
hasn't shown much evidence of being an innovator over the years, often
lagging well behind competitors and loosing market share because of it.

What they do do when they finally get it into gear (pun intended) is take
other people's ideas and refine them to a very high degree.

You've just described Microsoft, too!

--
Dave Kerber
Fight spam: remove the ns_ from the return address before replying!

REAL programmers write self-modifying code.

"Dana Earl" wrote in message
...

Gee, and George W. Bush and Dick Cheney aren't on the Board of
Directors. How can that be??

How do you know they're not?

:-)

Matt O.

Zog The Undeniable wrote:
: Tim McNamara wrote:
: Suntour would be
: perhaps the OS/2 of the bicycle world- late and great. ;-)
: And still running a hell of a lot of ATMs throughout the world!

unfortunately not for long. the banks are rolling over to M$ in droves.
god help us when they get there.
--
david reuteler

(Chalo) wrote in message . com...
(Evan Evans) wrote;

As a frequent visitor to this group. I've noticed that there are a few
posters who use this as a platform to steer people against the use of
Shimano components. What's wrong with Shimano?

My take:

1) Shimano abuse their position as market leader to displace other
options from the marketplace, particularly the market for new complete
bikes.

2) Shimano make lots of weak, breakage-prone, quick-wearing, and
non-serviceable parts for the lowest possible cost, then proceed to
charge just as much as the market will bear.

3) Shimano make equipment to serve the most easily accomodated 80% of
users, while ignoring the rest.

If you don't have unusual requirements for bike components, don't care
whether other sources and options are available to you, and don't care
whether other sources and options are available to others, then there
is no reason for you to avoid Shimano products.

If you appreciate variety and choices in the market for bike
equipment, note that buying Shimano products works to reduce the
variety and choices available.

Until there are sumo class racers that win polka dot jerseys (at the
Tour) five years in a row, I doubt Shimano would make equipment
specifically for them.

(Richard Chan) writes:

Tim McNamara wrote in message
...

... $400 bikes nowadays work better than $750 bikes of 20 years ago,
in terms of shifting and such...

Make it ANY price and it would be correct.

20 years ago, $750 was pretty close to the top of the line.

BVM writes:

On 29 Nov 2003 02:50:57 -0800, (Chalo) wrote:

2) Shimano make lots of weak, breakage-prone, quick-wearing, and
non-serviceable parts for the lowest possible cost, then proceed to
charge just as much as the market will bear.

I used to think that Phil Wood hubs were really good, until I bought
some. In 1-2 years I had to send them back to the factory for
servicing.

Huh. While I, OTOH, have two Phil hubs old enough that they have
steel centers with alloy pressed-on flanges- more than 20 years old,
I'd guess. They've never been serviced and are still silky smooth.
Do you live in Seattle or somewhere else very wet?

(Cary Weitzman) writes:

In article ,
Tim McNamara wrote:

Shimano is like the Microsoft of the bicycle world, the difference
being that Shimano products are reliably good. Campagnolo is the
Apple of the bicycling world- their products arguably work better
and last longer, but there is a premium to be paid.

I think that analogy is somewhat flawed. Unlike Apple, Campagnolo
really hasn't shown much evidence of being an innovator over the
years, often lagging well behind competitors and loosing market
share because of it.

Interestingly, Campy was developing Ergo and field-testing it in the
pro peloton before Shimano was developing STI.

Most of the lost market share was in the mountain bike arena, which
Campy did not pursue competently and soon dropped. This left the
field to Shimano, who wisely leveraged their dominanace in MTB to
include OEM road components. IMHO most of that loss of market share
is from that, and also Shimano's wisdom in knowing how to deal
effectively with the needs of bike manufacturers. The cartridge BBs,
cassette hubs, V-brakes, etc were all designed with the needs of the
manufacturers in mind, not the needs of the consumer.

Basically, Shimano is better at business than Campagnolo. That's
different than making better components. As I said before, though
(and note I am speaking as someone who prefers old Sun Tour, uses
modern Campy and avoids Shimano whenever possible- I really *don't*
like STI), Shimano's stuff is just fine.

What they do do when they finally get it into gear (pun intended) is
take other people's ideas and refine them to a very high degree.

Like slant parallelogram rear derailleurs and indexing (which Shimano
copped from SunTour when the latter's patents expired)?

David Kerber writes:

In article ,
says...

What they do do when they finally get it into gear (pun intended)
is take other people's ideas and refine them to a very high degree.

You've just described Microsoft, too!

Except for the "refining to a high degree" part. Miscrosoft tends to
refine to the most fugly common denominator.

"Evan Evans" I've noticed that there are a few
posters who use this as a platform to steer people against the use of
Shimano components. What's wrong with Shimano?

My bikes are mostly a mish-mash of parts from Campagnolo, Sachs, Shimano,
Suntour and even Simplex. And Miche, Ofmega, Gipiemme, Dia-Compe etc. My
stuff all works. I couldn't care less about Shimano being the 900-pound
gorilla. All I care about is whether it is cheap, strong and light.

Like most Japanese-run manufacturers, Shimano's strength is its engineering.
They have a deep commitment to R&D.

What they do especially well a

- Cassette hubs: Best design and implementation ever. Even their mid-range
units (Deore, or Tiagra and up) are as good as anything else out there. No
reason to pay more for a cheap cartridge bearing unit by some machine-tool
disadvantaged, small-fry manufacturer?

- Headsets: Their cartridge bearing design solved a fundamental problem.
No threadless? Ream the threads out.

- Cranksets: The new Dura-Ace crank is brilliant. Their older cold-forged
cranks are solid value. Why pay a bunch of money for a heavy, CNC'd piece
of junk? Looking at cranksets from other makers that have I-beam cross
sections, are painted, or have grooves milled into the arms, it makes you
wonder: do these guys have any engineers on staff??

- Derailleurs: solid value. Even the cheap stuff works well.

However, Shimano falls down is when it acts like a western corporation -
i.e. it is motivated by quarterly profit targets, and is run by marketers
and lawyers. This occurs when it gets pressured into producing something
that does not make sense, specifically some trendy thing that takes off and
Shimano has to respond fast or lose market share. Examples:

- 10-speed. Why??
- Paired spoke wheels. They crossed the spokes from between the rim and the
hub to dodge a ridiculous patent on paired-spokes. A pointless concept.
- The aero stuff from the 80's. Best just forgotten.