That would be something I'd personally consider out-of-date with modern chains. Apparently that makes me a "Lazy, careless cyclist" as I would never use grease on a chain. Nor would I ever follow this insane method of cleaning a chain.
Guess I'd consider myself to be an efficient cyclist, which may be construed as "lazy" by some.
edit: reading onward, he claims "Serious cyclists, who value performance..". I wonder what he considers "performance", because it sure appears he didn't consider or measure drivetrain efficiency.
Knowing how much of a PITA even modern in-depth chain cleaning is with solvents... I can't read that article as anything but satire. Even with old roller designs, an overnight soak in paint thinner followed by an ethanol bath should get the whole thing close to bare metal. Maybe the disassembly is specific to getting roller grease applied properly, unlike how he mentions manufacturers just dip the chain in a homogeneous lubricant? I'm surprised Brown didn't advocate for chain waxing over using grease for performance and maintenance reasons.
I hadn't actually read the chain cleaning page before but I did read his page on chains, which to an extent is contradicting with his chain cleaning page:
"New chains come pre-lubricated with a grease-type lubricant which has been installed at the factory. This is an excellent lubricant, and has been made to permeate all of the internal interstices in the chain. The chain and this lubricant need to be warmed during application.
This factory lube is superior to any lube that you can apply after the fact -- well, unless...see below."
Hard for me to tell what is original content vs. new. It has been empirically demonstrated that factory lube and grease are considerably inferior when it comes to drivetrain efficiency (performance) compared to a wet lube, which is less efficient than either dry lube or wax (with or without additives).
I've waxed chains for a while in the past but stopped a couple years ago. I now do a "good enough" quick clean of a chain using an undiluted degreaser, rinse with water and a final rinse with isopropyl. The whole process takes 5 minutes and the chain is clean enough for new application. Not clean enough for waxing, you'd want to throw in a solvent before ethanol/isopropyl, but good enough for wet/dry lube. I've no science to back longevity of chains following above procedure, I generally swap between 2-3 chains during a season to keep wear reasonable and then start fresh in the fall before indoor.
Target fixation - you'll go where you look, for better or worse. Inexperienced riders will often stare right at the obstacle they're trying to avoid and ride right into it.
> I think what pros (eg. pro cyclists) do is that they try to find the best of both worlds - they train a LOT in lower intensity zones so they get very good at fat burning without actually reaching keto, but they then supplement it with the right type and amount of carbs during races so that they don't lose sprint power. But this is only my theory, I have never been a pro, and never been close to these circles.
You couldn't be further from the truth, especially in a race scenario, not to mention a stage race or a grand tour. Professional (and most well versed) cyclist will pile on carbs in the days leading up to a race, eat a pile the morning of the race and then continue to eat and drink a massive quantity of carbs. It has everything with them being able to replenish what's lost during a race lasting several hours, it is not at all sprint specific. They'll easily aim at 100+ grams of carbs per hour.
I would consider myself a well versed and well trained amateur cyclist. Depending on length of training session and intensity of efforts, I'll aim for 50-100g/hr. In a race my goal is 80-100g/hr from the second the race starts. I've done well enough in multiple 6-9+ hour races and training sessions.
For gels, I do maple syrup, which usually comes with a pinch of salt. I will also add 50-100g+ carbs per 750mL bottle. I find it hard to chew solids when biking at anything higher than low Z2, it actually increases my heart rate a bit.
I have three bikes with electronic shifting in my basement. None are “ultra high end road bikes”.
Shimano also brought electronic to their 105 line and SRAM has it on Rival. Neither is high end, never mind ultra high end. I’m not a MTBer so I’m not aware of how that market is, but electronic shifting is definitely prevalent in road, gravel and cross.
I'm not judging relevancy on just the amount of sponsorship but it is a sign pointing to "relevancy". No World Tour team would use Shimano if it's 1% disadvantage over brand X. Seeing Campy not being used at all is again: another sign of this company being relevant, when paired with their loss of market %.
By that logic, you would see very little variety in types of components used by world your teams. Teams are in the business of making money, if SRAM offers them a better deal, team owners will find it hard to say no.
The logic I'm displaying is using a variety of different metrics in order to come up with a conclusion. I also never said that SRAM is irrelevant, only questioning why Shimano seem irrelevant to the the original poster I replied to - and I also mentioned how much product they push in the second sentence.
But the business of World Tour temas is also to win, as winning means being invited to the big races, which actually have coverage for the ads-on-wheels that riders are to get eyeballs on. If they can't win because of crap gear, they won't use said gear, no matter how much money given to them.
It's a fine balance, right? Some riders of high talent are also pretty controlling on the gear they use, and will bring their own bike sponsor into a team as part of the deal of transfer. Chicken and egg I guess: if the gear is irrelevant, you'll never see it on the Pro Tour.
I’ve have/had mech SRAM, mech Shimano, SRAM Red AXS eTap and the new Ultegra Di2. Well maintained (change cables every couple years), mech just works too and has crisp shifting. While I love electronic and won’t go back to mech on some of my bikes, mech has its place. It has not left me stranded with a dead battery and it hasn’t entered crash mode during a cross race. Mech also won’t brick a $1000 derailleur after a firmware upgrade (it magically came back to life 2 months later, after I had bought a replacement).
I do agree with your first point, I don’t see much revolutionary here.
Electronic shifting is everything I don't want on a bike.
- Another battery to recharge
- Proprietary battery format making replacements difficult
- Needing an app to make simple adjustments. Hopefully it runs and is still compatible after 10+ years of ownership!
Bike components are wonders of precision machining and modern materials but conceptually, they have a beautiful simplicity. Not to get too "give up programming for woodworking" but all of that goes flying out the window the moment you add a proprietary wireless protocol and closed hardware in the middle of it.
Index adjustment on SRAM AXS can be done on the fly from the shifters. Or from the app as you ride without stopping. Try that with cables.
The battery replacement is the real issue as technology gets older. Though to be honest, at some stage it gets more difficult to find parts for any system. I started to run into challenges sourcing several replacement parts for a 8-9 year old bike that had 10 speed Shimano group set, so it got sold and replaced. Batteries are not much different really.
I haven't opened the app since I got the bike... about 2 years ago. You don't need the app to make adjustments... I also haven't made any adjustments in 2 years, so there is that too.
That anyone would think 2 years is a long time for a part not to need adjustment is a symptom of 21st century thinking surely. I'd also suspect you're not riding 100s of km of hilly terrain every week (I do, and have definitely needed to make adjustments, but no more often than on mechanical shifters).
2 years of no adjustments on any bike, is pretty unheard of, regardless of technology involved. Cables stretch, e-shifting gets rid of that issue... there really isn't anything to get out of alignment there.
I've been riding and racing bikes since I was 15 years old and I'm nearly 50 now.
Not much different than a mech cable snapping or the derailleur not being adjusted correctly by a tiny set screw and the chain ending up in your spokes.
Shit has catastrophic failures... that's never going to stop being a problem.
Mech cable snapping vs forgetting to charge the battery? Yes, end user error with the battery, but I’ve had exactly 0 cables snap and I put my bikes through hell.
As long as you have access to a phillips screwdriver, you aren't stuck in the little ring - you can tighten the high limit screw to pick your one gear (at least from the higher ones).
I've never had a rear derailleur cable "snap"; they stretch, fray and may eventually break right at the pinch point but these are either slow delays with obvious warnings or easily fixed on the trail. Compared to a connectivity or battery issue? They don't have nearly as high of likelyhood.
I’ve seen cable breaks happen, though not frequently. I’ve also seen chains break a lot more frequently, I know of 5-6 instances where it happened last year alone locally. All of these were a result of complete lack of maintenance as you point out, though I suppose it would be possible for a newer component to not show signs of wear and still fail.
Guess I'd consider myself to be an efficient cyclist, which may be construed as "lazy" by some.
edit: reading onward, he claims "Serious cyclists, who value performance..". I wonder what he considers "performance", because it sure appears he didn't consider or measure drivetrain efficiency.