Seems cool you can mix and match again, but time will tell whether their improved wear and tear resistance is marketing dreck or actually pans out. I kind of get the feeling it's not going to be as good as using thicker 7/8/9-Speed chains.
Also kind of worried about parts for my traveling bike. Really don't want a 1x11 on that one, even if has similar range. Hope Microshift keeps cranking out 3x systems.
I'm gonna guess this is to smooth over drivetrain problems that e-bikes have. Low-tier derailleurs and cassettes are simply disintegrating when they're attached to even a moderately powerful motor. They also don't do well with the mid-drive motors that are becoming more popular. I'm also really excited for finally combining 9/10/11 gear spacing. That should just be universal across all manufacturers. There's no reason not to.
Should be cool. I really don't like the prominence of low quality drivetrains. It's the part of the bicycle most likely to fail, but also the part that should fail the least. Skipping gears, stuck chains, shift spacing failure, all that stuff you get with low quality junk should be stuff of the past. But like you said, guess we'll see if it's just goofy marketing. Shimano's got a good reputation for a reason.
tbh in a sensible world your average consumer would ride an internal gear hub, but that doesn't sell because 21 > 8 gears, as we all know, more gears means more gooder
yeah if in 30 years we don't see the elimination of derailleurs entirely, I'm gonna be disappointed. Internal hubs are simply better in every conceivable way. I don't know if derailleurs are still more popular because of price, or supply chain problems, or cyclist ignorance, but something's gotta be done
They get stupidly expensive if you want more than 11 gears that the shimano alfine offers and even that's not cheap. Also seems fairly impossible to change because the mess of planetary gears required there is just hard to do, stick moves left/right is a lot easier to pull off.
You don't really need any more than that for just going around, if you like riding long distances though for cadence reasons alone you'll want more minute steps. They're also not great if you really wanna lay down the watts for some reason, even pinion only gets a max rating of 250nM in. Shimano has their stuff at 50, Rohloff is in the middle with about 130. None of these are particular hard to exceed if you're really hammering on it and if they break, they're broken.
Hubs have 8 speeds now? My bicycle is literally from :19::84: so I was not aware of how advanced this shit was getting.
Ever since Fichtel & Sachs / SRAM dropped their internal hubs in like the mid 2000s (sort of a slow death type situation) the regular consumer market is basically Shimanos 3, 7 and 8 Nexus internal hubs and their Alfine 8 and 11s. Latter one gets pricey though.
After that you get Rohloff with 14 gears (really pricey) and Pinion, which attaches to the crank set and goes up to 16, but it does require a specialty frame and the gearbox itself ain't cheap, getting into really, really pricey here.
Enviolo is pushing into the market, they do CVTs for bikes - mostly electric because the abhorrent inefficiency isn't such a problem. Soo....infinite gears on that one, I guess. They're now coming with automated shifting though, kind of fancy. You can get a all-wheel drive automated shifting e-bike with ABS these days.
Honorable mention to Bromptons weird gearbox design that gets you up to 6 speeds here.
After that is just niche stuff. They're still making repro Sturmey Archer A2K automatic two speed hubs (shifts via centrifugal force) or stuff like the Schlumpf drive (crankset gearbox with 2 gears, attaches to your standard issue bicycle)
Yesterday was the frist time I tried a 2x9 and I didn't like it so they better keep making the 3x
