Availability of SRAM road brifters?

depends on how much lever throw it's gonna want--you might not have to
return it all the way to make another upshift, so potentially it could
be just as quick as the current stuff.

Sheer speculation of course. :P

wrote:
wrote:
Why would the high-end folks change? It would have to be a dramatic
improvement or far, far less $$. Why not go for the lower market?

I doubt they are looking for changes. They are just looking for the
person who is going to buy a new high end bike. I suspect there are
more than a few people who have Campagnolo Record and that other
brand's expensive group on expensive bikes. You don't have to have
only one company's group on all your bikes.

From a marketing perspective it probably makes sense to go high end
first. People buying cheap groups don't actually buy the cheap group
separate. They get whatever the factory bike company puts on their
bike. Whatever the factory bike company is able to buy cheaply by the
thousands and thousands from the parts factories. Only people buying
high end bikes specifically pick which grouppo to put on which frame.
There is no take what the bike factory says is for you.

Lower cost parts buyers also are not likely to want to be guinea pigs
for an untested, unknown grouppo. Low cost parts buyers want something
common that can be fixed anywhere. Not something no one has ever seen
before.

While I agree SRAM would be targeting the new factory bike and OEM
market (they have demo'ed new brakes, so their gruppo is complete), I
think the upgrade market is much more significant than you (or even
SRAM) think. Roadies generally do not replace bikes as often as their
mountain brethren, and I know plenty of people who are looking to
upgrade the 10 yr. old 8spd (Shimano) drivetrain (with other than
Shimano brifters) without going through some "shimergo" *******ization,
with all the different pull ratios and "hubbub" hacks.

When I was 10yrs younger I'd buy high end, but these days I don't ride
enough to justify the high end when it comes to modernizing the
drivetrain (to accommodate an older & different riding style ). To
me, the appeal of the SRAM brifters is that it looks like it would be a
better fit ergonomically than Campy Ergo. Even Shimano hoods feel a
tad large for me, never mind Campy Ergo, which I suspect is built for
Sasquatch.

I also agree reliability & usability are important factors, so
hopefully SRAM will field test their equipment with some pro teams.
AFAIK this hasn't really happened yet.

It's just really too bad the SRAM brifters won't be available until
2007. There have been rumors that Shimano and Campy are working on 12s
clusters, and FSA is working on 11s.
(http://www.campyonly.com/rumors.html) This implies you can have
something like a 13-24 straight block (not that I'd want one of those).

I wonder how many speeds SRAM will have by 2007?

Because the Japanese have priced the "hi-end" folk out of the Simplex
market ?

On 9 Oct 2005 13:22:31 -0700, wrote:

From a marketing perspective it probably makes sense to go high end
first. People buying cheap groups don't actually buy the cheap group
separate. They get whatever the factory bike company puts on their
bike. Whatever the factory bike company is able to buy cheaply by the
thousands and thousands from the parts factories. Only people buying
high end bikes specifically pick which grouppo to put on which frame.
There is no take what the bike factory says is for you.

Lower cost parts buyers also are not likely to want to be guinea pigs
for an untested, unknown grouppo. Low cost parts buyers want something
common that can be fixed anywhere. Not something no one has ever seen
before.

Also, a producer has to work out the bugs. Recalling 100 Dura Ace brakes
is a lot cheaper and better for your reputation than recalling 100.000
Tourney ones, for the same amount of profit. It's not *just* that the high
end gets new stuff first because they're more willing to pay for it --
it's also that as the bugs are worked out by the manufacturers, they're
more willing to trust the engineering in the high-volume applications.

Jasper

On 9 Oct 2005 15:36:15 -0700, "damyth"
wrote:

While I agree SRAM would be targeting the new factory bike and OEM
market (they have demo'ed new brakes, so their gruppo is complete), I
think the upgrade market is much more significant than you (or even
SRAM) think.

Uhm, yeah. I hear this exact same argument out of many of my fellow
computer geeks: "we upgrade all the time! Why won't they think of us
instead of catering to Dell!". The problem is, it doesn't work that way.
People who upgrade either PCs or bikes are the top percentile only --
everybody else just gets a new one when the old one's dead or they feel
like a pick-me-up. It's better in bikes than in PCs -- parts wear out much
more. So the parts market may be up to 30 or 40 percent as large as the
OEM market, rather than 10. Still, quite a few people never even wear out
their original *chain*, let alone their original cassette (although
admittedly they often do both at the same time). OEMs are where the money
is. Parts is where the second bit of the money is. And way, way behind
there is the upgrade market.

Jasper

Jasper Janssen wrote:
On 9 Oct 2005 15:36:15 -0700, "damyth"
wrote:

While I agree SRAM would be targeting the new factory bike and OEM
market (they have demo'ed new brakes, so their gruppo is complete), I
think the upgrade market is much more significant than you (or even
SRAM) think.

Uhm, yeah. I hear this exact same argument out of many of my fellow
computer geeks: "we upgrade all the time! Why won't they think of us
instead of catering to Dell!". The problem is, it doesn't work that way.
People who upgrade either PCs or bikes are the top percentile only --
everybody else just gets a new one when the old one's dead or they feel
like a pick-me-up. It's better in bikes than in PCs -- parts wear out much
more. So the parts market may be up to 30 or 40 percent as large as the
OEM market, rather than 10. Still, quite a few people never even wear out
their original *chain*, let alone their original cassette (although
admittedly they often do both at the same time). OEMs are where the money
is. Parts is where the second bit of the money is. And way, way behind
there is the upgrade market.

Jasper

Sure OEMs are where the money is. I didn't dispute that. What is
under dispute is the relative size of the upgrade market. But being a
computer geek myself, your (Dell) computer upgrade analogy isn't even
close to being applicable.

AMD didn't have OEMs to speak of for the longest time. Yet they had an
(upgrade) strategy that worked for them. They'd stretch CPU sockets
for years, way beyond Intel, generally speaking, so people can have
drop-in CPU upgrades. Dell went out of their way (than even Intel) to
make their computers non-upgradable, by using proprietary power supply
connectors, etc.

A computer is a replaceable commodity because it's relatively cheap,
given the speed increase you get. A new $2K bike ain't going to make
me 2x faster.

You also can't logically argue that mechanical parts wear out and some
people don't wear out parts (chains and cassettes) at the same time.
People either have reasons to upgrade or they don't, and generally the
reasons don't have much to do with "wear." People upgrade computers
mainly because of new MIPS-sucking applications/OS (say games/Office
suite) that make there old computers inadequate. I want to upgrade the
bike drivetrain, not because parts are wearing out, but I'd like more
intermediate gearing because I'm getting older. (And not to mention 8s
cassettes are hard to come by now.)

It's also much cheaper to upgrade your computer (CPU & Mobo, maybe RAM)
once you already have one (most other parts are reusable, like HDD,
case, PS, etc.). A state of the art CPU & desktop mobo costs ~$250.
Brifters alone cost that much, not to mention cassette, chain, rear
derailleur (if needed), etc.

To
me, the appeal of the SRAM brifters is that it looks like it would be a
better fit ergonomically than Campy Ergo. Even Shimano hoods feel a
tad large for me, never mind Campy Ergo, which I suspect is built for
Sasquatch.

Current Campagnolo Ergo shifters are smaller than Shimano STI shifters.
Its opposite of what you suspect. Find a Campagnolo Ergo bike in your
area and go for a test ride to see if you like the ergonomics of Ergo.

I have many, many hours and miles on Campagnolo Ergo. I have ridden
the Shimano 9 speed STI levers on day rides a time or two. And I have
ridden the Shimano 10 speed STI levers for a few miles. I of course
prefer Ergo. But they all work and I suspect you can easily get used
to any of them and make any of them your favorite.

In article .com,
says...

Actually confirmed by somebody at Sram...push-smaller cog, push
farther, larger cog.

I don't see how this would work. How does the lever know you are going to
continue to push further to get to a larger cog?
----------------
Alex

Peter Chisholm reported:

Actually confirmed by somebody at Sram...push-smaller cog, push
farther, larger cog.

Alex Rodriguez asked:

I don't see how this would work. How does the lever know you are going to
continue to push further to get to a larger cog?

Think about a roll-up windowshade.

Sheldon "Meta4" Brown
+-------------------------------------+
| One can never know what is enough |
| until one knows what is too much. |
| --William Blake |
+-------------------------------------+
Harris Cyclery, West Newton, Massachusetts
Phone 617-244-9772 FAX 617-244-1041
http://harriscyclery.com
Hard-to-find parts shipped Worldwide
http://captainbike.com http://sheldonbrown.com

Alex Rodriguez wrote:

I don't see how this would work. How does the lever know you are going to
continue to push further to get to a larger cog?

The shift happens when you release the button, at least for the first
detent. Presumably, the first detent will be for upshifts by a single
gear at a time and the next detent will be for downshifts. This leaves
open the question of whether there are additional detents that allow
multiple downshifts with a single push. Because of the need to push
against the derailleur spring on a downshift, I would guess that the
shift onto the second detent occurs as you push the lever and not after
release. Essentially, this should be like two STI levers combined into
one.