Mountain Cog
Mountain bike podcast that will make you laugh and learn. Featuring a wide range of passionate guests. Available everywhere (Apple, Spotify etc).
Mountain Cog
105 - Cables Are Back! SRAM's Mechanical Transmission: Eagle 90 & Eagle 70 (& other new stuff) - Jimmy Nordloh, SRAM Field Guide
Tired managing batteries, firmware updates, and paying for expensive electronic drivetrains? This episode with SRAM's Jimmy Nordloh goes deep into the new Eagle 90 and Eagle 70 mechanical transmission systems that deliver transmission's shifting performance without electronic complexity. The new mechanical transmission uses the same cassettes and flattop chains as the wireless transmission systems but use a traditional cable. At ~$670 and ~$490 respectively, these systems are for riders who want transmission performance without the heavy price tags, apps, or batteries.
SRAM has also standardized on mineral oil across their entire brake range (including the new Motiv brakes), eliminating DOT's moisture absorption problems while providing better lubrication and system longevity. Additionally, a completely redesigned Reverb AXS B1 dropper post increases reliability and reduces cost by switching to a simple air-over-air system that's easier to service and more reliable long-term. With 250mm travel options and improved tire clearance, this dropper solves fitment problems on small frames and includes a "Ride Active" feature which SRAM says… “provides beneficial suspension characteristics during technical riding without compromising pedaling efficiency or proper bike fit”. Do you agree?
Links:
Eagle 90 Transmission Drivetrain: https://www.sram.com/en/sram/mountain/series/eagle-90-transmission
Eagle 70 Transmission Drivetrain: https://www.sram.com/en/sram/mountain/series/eagle-70-transmission
Reverb B1 Dropper: https://www.sram.com/en/rockshox/models/sp-rvb-axs-b1
Motiv Brakes: https://www.sram.com/en/sram/mountain/collections/brakes/brake-collections/heavy-duty-brakes?filters=&sort=Relevancy&page=1
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Thank you for the homebrew, by the way.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:You're welcome. Delicious, shout out, that's too good. I beat you to. It Did not sound the same. It doesn't sound the same. No, mine sounds like a 90-year-old doing it.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):We used to do that on the SRAM hotline, trying to fit it in before someone picked up. Oh really, oh that you know if you work with phones like customer service.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:That's got to be like that movie Waiting. Did you ever see that movie Waiting, where they're just doing all the shenanigans? I bet you anything that happens in call centers.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):You just got to find a way to entertain yourself.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:You cannot go postal, yeah like the cubicle's got to drive you insane. Well, yeah, cheers guys, it's good to be back.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Thank, you again.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Good to be a guru Surrounded by sick bikes. Yeah, great humans.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yes, yeah, I bought some of those Vittoria liners from you man, just so you know, there's a receipt over there too Did you buy some more. Yeah.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Oh, that Stupid light. I can't wait to run those. Um, yeah, we'll see. Yeah, I mean I've tried the old ones and I was happy with them, but the new ones incorporate kind of a bead locking profile.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Whereas the old ones were round and so they were great if you ran flat. But the new ones kind of have, like this bead lock that goes in and kind of holds your bead in place and and, and I lost a mountain bike race because of that and I was really bummed about it, are you?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:sure that's the only reason you lost. Let's be honest, okay, uh all right, that's.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):That's enough about pool noodles. Let's talk about real bike parts.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Sorry, sorry yeah, well, yeah, I mean they're expensive pool noodles, jesus yeah, they are they are. They are so, but way nicer than some of the other ones out there. Some of the other ones are literally pool noodles.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, and surgical the Vittoria one is nicer and surgical, Like what is it Strap? Or tubing, tubing. Yeah, oh my.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:God.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So okay, night mcp sitting guru bikes with return guest mr jimmy nord nord low.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:yep, god damn it, I got it right, look at that nice, I don't even try, I just call I everybody's like hey you, hey buddy, hey guy first name only yeah, that's the bike biz. Yeah, it is retail in general, like you just I forget.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):I I learn as many names as I forget every day.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I can't imagine how teachers do it, you know, but I get, I guess, aiden caden.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Oh my god, don't even get me started yeah. But yeah, it's going to be back. Um yeah, Jimmy Nordlow, jim Sram, field guy Arizona, you know it's interesting part.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:You know so like. One of the metrics that we pay attention to really closely on this podcast is consumption rate. Yeah, Now we're getting into like deep podcasts, like nerdy stuff, but like consumption rates, effectively like how long do the listeners on average actually listen to the episodes? And part of the reason why we're keeping this going is our consumption rate is really high. It's like way over the industry average. Um, we're just.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:that means people actually want to listen to people or they don't turn us off, right.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:But the episode with you was unusually high for the life, for for the life of me, I can't figure out why that is.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):My mother always said I had a face for radio. So so do we.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I got to tell you. So I'm learning a lot from my son, my nine-year-old, and so that means that you have good riz and you're not Skibbity Toilet, Skibbity Ohio or Skibbity Ohio.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Toilet. I am from Ohio. Are you from Ohio, blame?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:it on Ohio. Oh, sheis, blame it on Ohio.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Sheis is right, cincinnati down on the river the old Germantown, oh man, so yeah.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So last time we talked we knew that SRAM had some stuff coming out that we couldn't talk about on air.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yep.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:And some of it's come out or all of it's come out. All of it's come out, all of it's things that Jimmy won't tell me or he doesn't know, so we'll, we'll get to that.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Well, they love to speculate. Yeah, yeah, I mean.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I'm sure they got stuff in the works all the time.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yeah, I mean, that's the boilerplate answer. Here at SRAM we're always working on new products.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I'm sure there's always a, a a room you can't go into.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, before we get too deep, he never told us his joke. Oh, we need a joke.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Tell us your joke. We've talked way too much. Did we miss it? Did we not make it in?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Did you not start with?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):it. No, you didn't, I don't. The white.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I think, you told us before we started.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yeah, we hadn't been recording, all right. Well, dad joke intro, okay lighter well, one's heavy and one's a little lighter.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Oh jesus christ dane has a tendency of ruining the punchline on dad jokes.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:He's done it in about four or five episodes. That was an alley-oop. Yeah, I, I think so. I.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I think that was a dunker, so all right, can we start with the, with the grubo, with the drivetrain, because, like, uh, I feel a little dirty, because it's getting me excited. Yes, I'm sitting here wearing my Shimano hat and your.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Flamingo shirt.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:And my Darko Flamingo. Yeah, I like that. I just bought a bunch of these shirts. That's mountain bike style.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I just bought a bunch of these to ride in. I really feel like you need a gravel bike at this point. I have a gravel bike, Okay yeah, that shirt is a gravel shirt if I've ever seen it.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Well, this is all you're going to see me in all summer, buddy, because I bought four of them.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Okay, different prints yeah in that time, SRAM has pioneered the groundbreaking innovation known as a shifter cable. No way.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:You mean they're going to attach the shifter to the derailleur?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Via a wire With a wire. Yeah, you know what's faster than wireless Wire?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I love it when you use the buttons by the way, we don't ever use this.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):I know it's the DJ Shock Jack. I love it. I'll use them more. Do you have them?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:labeled. I do Okay, good.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):But yeah, we brought back the cable. It's, you know. Ultimately we knew that even among enthusiast mountain bikers there are people out there that just don't want the added overhead of charging a battery, you know, pairing, wireless connection, firmware updates, et cetera. You know you just want to be able to grab your bike and ride. So we did so. So, yeah, we did finally bring the you know transmission ecosystem to the cable Luddites of the world.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, Well, so here's the crazy thing is, there's a few companies that have taken the cable housing ports off their bikes yeah, so you can't even run that system now on their bikes and they have like two versions, maybe two frame quality versions. Which companies are that? So Santa Cruz is one of the ones that I know of. I thought there was somebody else.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Specialized, did it on the.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Stumpjumper 15. Yeah, so on the high-end frames there's no cable option.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:It has to be wireless. Interesting yeah.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:And so that's kind of weird, right, you know, you'd think SRAM would have told them.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:How much did you guys pay them to do that? To eliminate cable holes?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah right.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):You know I do like it in the sense that it makes for a clean frame and I think it makes it easier for frame designers to go without cable holes, but you know, at the same time, you want a bike that can accept as many of the options out there. I mean me personally. 90% of my bikes are still wireless, but in fact I did actually go back to cables on my aluminum stump jumper. That way I have a future proof EMP proof.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Cause that's something that mountain bikers really stay up late thinking about.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Holy crap, is that going to be a new category of apocalypse bikes?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Are we going to see apocalypse bikes Exactly?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Exactly. The preppers are coming in hard right now.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):But yeah, I got to say I've been riding the Eagle 90 group for about a month now and I'm really impressed. I had ridden it, uh, about a year and a half ago in just a mule like environment, on a test bike in San Luis Obispo and was really impressed by it then and uh, actually didn't hear a lot about its development. I think that we had kind of gone back and forth about when to launch it. So I wasn't even sure that, uh, you know, beginning of this year, that this was going to be the year that we launched it, but very excited that we did. Um, yeah, it's got a really great crispy shift quality.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):It feels like you know the XO mechanical of old Um and yeah, the new cable pool ratio, the new shifter, all have a very smooth feel. It's I mean, it's the full transmission experience, just minus a battery yeah, so so you've got.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Now you've got a. You can use a regular transmission chain.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Uh, front chain ring yes, compatible, compatible with all existing transmission.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:So all of that's exchanging and you just it's really a rear derailleur and a shifter Yep, so that's cool. So if you've got a, I can't imagine. But somebody may have a transmission currently wireless and want to go to this.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):If they've forgotten their battery 10 times in a row at the trailhead and they go. I just can't do this anymore they can keep their entire existing drivetrain and just bolt on the derailleur and shifter.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:But I'm seeing them show up on bikes already and I have a feeling it's price point orientated. Would you say that you're covering a price point that you'd been kind of?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Price point is definitely a focus, because AXS obviously adds another layer of cost, complexity et cetera. But I do want to say that it's not just geared towards someone who can't afford AXS. It's for someone who wants this group, who wants transmission and specifically, for whatever reason, does not want access.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Which was just we see that it's a real thing. It's not like a crazy idea that somebody would be like oh, I got all the money in the world and I don't want batteries.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:That's an actual, legit thing that's me, yeah, for sure so it is.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:It is a thing, a thing. So okay, now, uh, again, I'm playing devil's advocate a little bit, not hard, but uh, so the the big thing that you're going to give up that. I think that access kind of uh touted as a big thing was that that derailleur was kind of shifting at the optimum time, and probably the biggest drawback that we ever heard about access transmission was the speed of the shift and we would actually show people that it's shifting at when it's supposed to and not whenever it felt.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So you're gaining back the speed.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:No, I don't think you are Well, at least in the reviews that I watched.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:You are gaining back the speed.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):That's just perceived shift feel, so that is just the impulse from your thumb the shift to the derailleur. So ultimately you're still getting the same shift speed because the chain is still waiting to hit the shift ramps on the cassette. So it's more perception than it is actual shift speed.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Because you can't do five shifts at a time.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Right, so the new mechanical shifter is limited to two shift.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, for the acoustic. Yes, one shift for the e-mode.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Can we call it Amish yeah?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):The Amish, I don't know why.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay, well hang on a second. So I'm going to call bullshit a little bit. Okay, because I watched a side-by-side comparison in a video today of Axis and Eagle 90. Yes, and this is dumping multiple gears to go from your lowest gear to your highest gear. Yeah, and it was significantly slower on Axis.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Okay, so in that scenario of like you described like spamming shifts, like that yes the mechanical will move faster because it's a direct impulse from shift lever to derailleur, so there's no hesitation in signal or the firmware of the derailleur. So the firmware of the AXIS transmission derailleurs is intended to wait for the cassette to rotate around to the point where the cassette shift ramps are available to the chain.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, and it buffers yes. The cassette shift ramps are available to the chain. Yeah, and it buffers yes, because you can hit it 12 times super quick and then just keep pedaling and it'll shift as as you pedal.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):yes, it'll keep shifting, yeah say, for instance, you hit the shift button, it will you know. Quote unquote wait until the right time. Yeah, based it knows what gear, what cog on the cassette it is in, versus a mechanical which doesn't right and it will wait the approximate amount of time that it takes for the next gear and its shift ramp to come around full circle for the chain to migrate onto.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Which has been the selling feature. The big selling feature is that it's it's. You're not popping chain links, you're not popping gears, you're not wearing your stuff out premature, you're. You're getting a full, a full, um, you can use full power. You know so, like a lot of people are like well, when I go down a hill and then go have to go back up and I have to go through my gears, I can't get through them fast enough. I'm like spam, that shifter, you know to however many you want, and then give it full power and it'll just shift as you full power up that side of the side of that hill yeah, so the mechanical will still shift under load it will, but at a maximum of two years at a time.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yes, yeah and so, and so I think it's, I think, I think what? What, ultimately, is the feel of you being able to shift it faster? Yes, is there, whether or not the shift ramps aren't any different?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:but it actually. I mean, they showed it, they showed side by side and they showed them spamming a mechanical and spamming the access. And it got all the way through and then it was like one, two, three and then the access got there.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yeah, cleared the rest of the cassette. Cleared the rest of the cassette.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So in that case, like the use case where you're descending down and you're going to go up a hill really quick and you're stupid and didn't have yourself set up right for it yeah, you can. You can get into that higher gear, maybe by doing damage, maybe popping your chain, maybe wearing out your components faster, but out for that climb you can get there, you know, a fraction of a second faster.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah. So, and I think a feel wise, I think there's a certain amount of people that want that. You know they do yeah.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):And that was part of it too. So, like you said, beyond just the price point, there are the people that just prefer that feel. I would say that the cassette ramping is optimized for Axis because, like I mentioned, it knows the difference between, for instance, cog-7 and COG-6 and the amount of shift ramps and basically, yeah.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:The right time to do it.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yes exactly, whereas the mechanical transmission does not, but it does still allow the chain to migrate. I am an american, god damn it. I want control when I don't want the robot to tell me when to shift.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I want when I hit the button, I want that fucker to shift let me guess you don't wear a seat belt or use cruise control so one thing to keep in mind about uh transmission access versus the mechanical what do you call it?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:the 90 series.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yes, 90 and 70.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:70 and 90, is they're sharing the same cassettes. But that already, even if you're using mechanical on that cassette, it's already an upper tier level shift profiling cassette. In other words, it's not super low end, it's already shift so good. So when you go back to mechanical with it, it's not like you're going back beyond and to a low end setup.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:You're going backwards to like a super high end. Let's talk about this. So you guys released two Groupos, the Eagle 70 and the Eagle 90.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, and.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I got some prices here. Tell me if I'm wrong, but for the full kit 670 for the 90 box, everything minus the bottom bracket.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yep, everything minus the bottom pride, it is on the shelf. Yeah, we sold. Shout out, guru.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah and everything is cassette, derailleur, cranks, shifter and chain yep, okay. And then the eagle, 70, 490 dollars yep, okay, and the way I like. If I go back to like SRAM's previous mechanical group sets like the 70s, kind of like an NX level, and then the 90s, kind of like somewhere between GX and XO, and 70 is poised as the current.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):S1000 transmission mechanical equivalent so yeah, taking NX and GX Eagle 12-speed out of the equation, just since they're two different drivetrains like operating on two different kind of premises.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:But now you've got a, so it's not like 90 is a mechanical XO1, you know, it's not that it's, it's sitting under GX.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):No, it is. It is sitting right next to GX.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Cause it shares the chain and cassette.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yeah, shares the chain and the cassette. The only thing that's different is the railer and shifter. Yeah, and then same thing with eagle 70. So s1000 is the primarily right now oem transmission group and that's what utilizes the uh hyperglide compatible cassette, um and and yeah, the drag spring clutch derailleur. That's the main difference between the two, derailleurs, is that the the eagle 90 uses the same v4 clutch as the GX transmission derailleur.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay, and that's a bearing-based clutch.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Is it fluid? No, it's not a fluid damper like the Roadworks.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So roller-bearing clutch versus drag spring clutch? In the 90, it's a roller-bearing clutch and in the 70, it's a drag spring clutch.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yes, that is correct. Geez, I'm going to have to look at pictures for that. But the cool thing there is because with transmission we have the fully replaceable clutch and cage assemblies yes say, if you have an eagle 70 derailleur and you go, well, this, this cage clutch assembly just isn't doing it for me. You can upgrade just that cage clutch assembly oh, so you could make your 70 uh kind of hybrid. 90, yes, with, with just the addition of a cage I heard the hot setup is to do um.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:You do like a sl drivetrain uh xxsl drivetrain with the mechanical 90, but you put the sl cage on it yeah, you save about 90 grams that way 90 grams, so one of the lightest setups you can do interesting, yeah, isn't that crazy?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):that is crazy yeah, okay, so that is the cool I, I would say that's the thing that, uh, distinguishes it from NX of old is that you know the previous Eagle generation derailleurs.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:You know you're locked into your clutch and cage et cetera, and they're not replaceable Right In the previous generation.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):On the previous generation there were no replaceable outer or inner links, parallelogram links, cage clutch assembly, nothing yeah.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:If your derailleur was damaged for any reason, you had to get a new derailleur. Yeah, dude, I gotta ask you a really ignorant question.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I'm learning that clutches wear out after about a season in derailleurs, and I wouldn't say that, okay, this is what, this is what I've read, um, so, but yeah, that's not my question, but maybe you can answer that too, okay, so so I'll two-part question.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Sure, do they like. How frequently do they wear out? And then the second question okay, is this the only one that can actually replace the clutch?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:it's the only derailleur. No, what will hold up, do you? You just shut your mouth when we're not talking about uh, so you can replace the clutch. Service the clutch on some shimano derailleurs. So we have had to do that because they had a series where they rusted.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Um, you can service them and they have an adjustable uh clutch so you can um mitigate the the deterioration of that, because it's it's kind of like a I mean it's a clutch, it's like metal on metal, rubbing uh like it's. That's how they work and so there is going to be deterioration over time. I've seen it, in different circumstances, wear out way faster than others. I've noticed and remember I have a little ecosystem. I'm not all over the world, but I've noticed some bike designs will wear it out faster than others because they have more chain. Growth Makes sense and so that clutch is being activated on suspension movement.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, gotcha. Which suspension designs do you think are more? Can we get that specific? Are we getting too nerdy? No, no, it's not too nerdy.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:It's usually as if your axle path takes you farther back and basically your chain length changes. Your rear wheel, as it moves through its travel, is going to get farther away, which is going to bring the tension of that lower chain down, and it's going to pull the cage forward as you go through the suspension. It's crazy because I've noticed something lately and I may have brought this up before On Turner's bike, which I tuned super soft for.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Switchblade. I've got old XO XO on it, so 11 speed. And when I his suspension is so soft cause he's not even 90 pounds it's so soft when I push on the back I can feel the clutch Like I feel fighting the clutch actually fights it, and so like in this day and age where we're talking about downhillers putting O chains on.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I was going to say you're going to put an O chain on that changing all these other things, for you know, suspension, kickback and stuff.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I'm like the clutches are actually probably doing more to them to that than than anything, Cause anytime that rear wheel moves backwards and the chain grows the, the derailleur cage has to pull up the the, it has to release a little bit of the chain and that activates the clutch so so the kind of back to shram yeah, it's 90 in the 70, so the derailleur itself on the 90 in the 70, you know, really like heavily serviceable fully rebuildable
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:yeah, there is some difference. Replace Replaceable Replaceable Is that safer? Like you can't pull the clutch apart and fix it If it goes bad, you get a new cage with the new clutch.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):On Eagle 90, you can actually replace just the clutch assembly on the cage. So it does require. You've seen that T25 safety bolt head with the pin in the middle. So on Eagle 90 and GX transmission and up you can get just the V4 clutch assembly. Sweet, use that safety tool to replace just that to the cage On Eagle 70 with the drag spring. Drag spring is not replaceable. If you replace that it's a whole cage.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:That was my question. Is there any other differences in the replaceability, repairability of the 70 versus the 90 derailleur?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):No same thing. You can still replace inner and outer parallelogram links, upper B-knuckle and lower cage. That's awesome, that's the only thing you lose is that you can't free the clutch assembly from the cage on 70s.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Can you still stand on it?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yes, you can stand on it.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:We don't encourage people to do that. They had a heavy dude standing on it like a Josh clone standing on it like a josh, a josh clone standing on yeah, and so yeah I he might be bigger than you.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yeah, he's a unit, he's a big boy. He's a big boy, he's corn fed. Yeah, he's corn fed.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:But canadian, oh nice. And then, uh, we talked about single upshift, two downshift, except for on the e-bike group. Oh yes, it's limited to one. Now they said you can run it. You can run the two on your e-bike, but it voids the warranty yes, uh-huh, yeah, so why is? That is that because the e-bikes put so much power into it yeah, uh-huh, the, the pedal assist is just so much power.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yeah, single click only. And that's for axis and mechanical transmission groups. Um, I would say so, mechanical versus axis. It's also worth noting that you do lose the override clutch.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:So my my access transmission on my e-bike I, I guess it's. I didn't notice anything different.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Like is it different in a multi-shift.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I don't straight to jail. Yeah, I know your warranty has now been. I know that I'm going to pull up this episode when you go to warrant they're going to be like Nope, I did not know that there is a different shifter for your access.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Well, so no for access. You just limit it from the app.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Oh, okay. Well, yeah, I never opened that app. Don't tell me that. I'm sorry, man Dude I, you know.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):But the thing is, we also make it totally usable and operable without using the app. But the thing is, we also make it totally usable and operable without using the app.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yes, exactly, and I actually use my app with the flight attendant suspension Right. You need that to actually view those settings.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):But yes, for e-bike and access shifting, yes, you do need to enable single click or disable multi shift from the app.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Okay, so it's the same shifter, but for mechanical.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):it is a specific standalone single-click shifter. Okay, Interesting.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, so now the big question.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):What's your e-bike. So that was on my SL at first.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Depends on the day, but now it's on my AM, so I had a lightweight right.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Pivot shuttle AM, I would say on an SL bike it's probably in that bit of the gray area, because you're only getting the what 60 newton meter assist. I know how to shift.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Seriously, Actually, that's a problem when we're working on bikes in the shop. Somebody will come in and be like there's something wrong with my shifting and I'll take it for a test ride. Yeah, it's you.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:No joke, you are the problem in this system.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:It feels fine. I don't know what's wrong with you.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):And then I have to go watch them do it and they're shifting and I have to purposely try and time my legs to not be at the shift to shift wrong.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, this is mostly happening with front front derailleurs back on road bikes, you know, uh, where they're just kind of knocking the chain around and getting it to come off the cranks you don't have to do that with the SRAM 90 Eagle 70 Eagle Access.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:You can shift anytime you want.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:No, but as a….
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Right, am I making your case Kind of, kind of For the single click.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:What do you mean? Kind of, there is still…. Okay, so this is… I'm putting on my mechanic hat. Okay, so there's still shift ramps, there's still optimum places for them to be lifted so that they don't damage or hurt anything or wear sooner. And so if you just ham shift and you don't shift when those are appropriate, you're going to put more wear and possibly hurt the system.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:All right, well, so so help me with this Cause. This was one of my questions and, again, I watched probably 14 videos today on this yeah. What I would like pretty consistently through all, and these are these are not SRAM guys, these are independent. Independent, you know. Whatever influencers out there reviewing the products mindless shifting under load, you don't have to let off during shift. This is, this is eagle 90 yes, is that not the case?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:it's transmission is. That's their, I know, but I'm going to tell you the. I gotta tell you the bike shop answer, because jimmy won't be at the bike shop all the time, and so what the bike shop's going to tell you is you've been trained, uh, we've been trained to always light up, lighten up on our shift, uh, pedal stroke okay, so that the chain has a chance to get that, to lift the chain up to the next cog or down, and so that's something that's ingrained to us. Transmission, transmission access, when it came out, said you don't have to do that anymore, you can just hit the button and you can do it at any point, at any load, and you're fine.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:And the penalty we talked about a little bit earlier. You're going to have to wait a split second for it to catch up and shift for you.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:But when you take the electronics out of it you're getting shaded a little bit more towards the old way. Is that fair?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):I would say. I would say that is fair in the sense that, like, access does wait for you because it is not physically moving the derailleur until it knows that the, the shift lane for the next cog is coming up soon. Yeah, so there there is a possibility. Yeah, like shifting, it's more, it's less so about shifting at the wrong point mechanically for the drive train and more about shifting at the wrong point Like physically for the, you know, for the rider perch, as that thing moves up and under load.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:The difference is you can be pushing that derailleur over and shoving the chain against the cog that it's going to climb up when there's not a shift ramp.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Whereas with access thousand percent understand everything you're saying All right. All right. Every fucking video I watched today said the opposite of that Every video you probably watch and I haven't watched them.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Probably had them doing it at a fast speed and not as slow speed.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:All right. So to our listeners, okay, go get a Eagle 90 and try to shift it under load and please come back and tell me who is going to shift Great.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:So that's. The other thing is the level of difference is very small.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So, like Jimmy's giving me like really dirty looks right now. I don't know. I don't know if we're like in a bad never coming back to this podcast no, no, because what you're saying is like what the?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:the? The shift quality in the transmission chain and cassette is so good that even if you were to degrade the access a little bit with a cable, it's still going to be better than most of the stuff out there yeah, dean's got a really good point with that, with the fact that you know most of this shift under load capacity is engineered into the chain and cassette.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):The derailleur is just the messenger, and whether that's delivered by electronic signal or cable is beside the point. The shift under load capability is delivered by the engineered cassette and chain.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, and the little bit that the XS has over, that is just its ability to time it A little bit of fine tune, yeah.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, Okay so. So let's talk about cranks for a second. Were there new cranks that came out, or did those come out before? Because my understanding is you guys have the the 90 cranks all the way down to one 50.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yes.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:EMTB.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):And I just put those on my bike 155 for acoustic. It's really short Really.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, dude, and the 70 goes all the way down to 165, 160 for EMTBs.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):So the crank difference is there. The Eagle 90 crank is very similar to the GX crank, just with a steel chainring. The silver chainring looks good. Don't both groupos have a steel?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:chain ring. Uh, the silver chain ring don't they all have? Don't both grupos have a steel chain ring?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:on the 90 and the 70 yeah on the 90 and the 70 yes uh, but gx, between between gx and eagle 90, um.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):So the eagle 90 mechanical crank is a little bit heavier than its gx counterpart, um, but it's still eight. Bolt direct mount, chain ring, um. And then, yes, with a crank length options down to one 50. Uh, yeah, I mean we're trending towards shorter and everything, so I put one 55 on my e-bike and I love not having to worry about pedal strikes at all, but I do find myself, I'm like, I feel like I'm spinning.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, what's the? What's the e-bike that you?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):ride. I have a Cannondale Motera. Okay, a Bosch.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:You have it mullet. Yeah, that's why you're hitting cranks.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Well, yeah, that's why I swapped the 155.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):And then the big distinguishing difference between Eagle 90 and Eagle 70 cranks is that Eagle 70 actually is still the three-bolt direct mount, so it is not power meter compatible.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Okay.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):And they power meter compatible? Okay, and they're all dub? Yes, and are they're backwards compatible? Yeah, you can use any transmission crank with any of these eagle 90, 70 groups, that's one thing that I love like that interchangeability, so you can run x, x, sls.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, you could run on a mechanical system, and so you can cherry pick what you want all these parts are interchangeable.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):You can build your own group, yeah and I think one nuance.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:The lowest that your like complete group goes is 165, otherwise you have to buy the cranks separately separately okay and the and the eagle 90 crank is like 155 bucks, so it's not no, it's not crazy.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, it's not. What's the weight on the eagle 90 versus the gx? I don't know I mean, is it my head?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):but 20 grams, I would say probably within that realm between between comparable crank arm lengths and chain ring sizes.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, it's probably there, okay, so not a big amount you can. Now did you say eagle um gx comes with a steel chain ring uh, eagle 90 no gx.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Gx is alloy chain ring yes, gx transmission yes, okay, that's what I thought so okay so yeah, so don't don't be afraid of the steel.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:It's not that much heavier and it'll last a lot longer.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:And they still have the new profile.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):And it's silver.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:So on your tooth profile, this is something we see in the shop all the time. As that tooth wears, it's wearing to not stretch the chain. Is that correct? Like, Like, you have a certain tooth profile that you guys are really proud of. Yes, yeah that hooks the rollers, yeah, so chain yeah, Chain stretch is more.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):So about actually wearing down the rollers? You're not actually increasing the length of each chain link. You're just you're reducing the overall diameter of the rollers, yeah, or the the pin play. So that is that is something I want to hammer home here real quick, go for it.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:The first wear item on a one by sram drivetrain, especially our 12 speed, is the chain ring yeah the chain ring will be the first thing to wear out okay, that's interesting because that's like the last thing that on other well yeah like back in the day um, we used to tell people like on your doubles front chain rings there was two, two drive trains to every set of cranks. But now you've got all of that work being done by one, so it's twice as much work For transmission.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):The cassette and chain are very much intended to wear together to mesh together in a sense. Like you know, throwing a new chain on you know, a ridden transmission cassette probably won't have the best results compared to just replacing the front chain ring.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Okay, that's good for us to know. The other thing that we're seeing in the shop is we're not seeing a lot of chain perceived stretch, you know. But one thing that we do see and Abby has a new tool is deflection.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yes, yeah, actually, that's a really good point. I was just having this conversation with a lot of shops recently. A lot of the chain checkers on the market don't register any kind of perceivable, or at least just like actionable, wear measurement on flat top chains. So the best way to measure that, like you mentioned is the Abbey deflection tool is just how much the chain is able to like flop over to the side, like the flex in those flat top links.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:So is that registering?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:No, I got it. Maybe we should explain it a little bit more for the listeners.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:So what we're seeing, so what we noticed was, as Eagle Drive drains were wearing out, especially flat tops, so we were seeing on the roads first is shift quality was dropping, but then our old chain checkers would get checked and the chain wouldn't seem like it's too long.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:And so then we're okay. Well, we've got to straighten the hanger, we've got to do all these things. What kind of lube are we using? We're trying to figure out why the shift quality is dropping off. What we realize is that the link plates are getting play side to side, and so when the derailleur pulley is activated and pushing the chain over, there's so much side to side play that the chain doesn't actually flex over to hit the next shift ramp and lift up. And so if you replace just the chain, which we were doing, um, you were finding that that stiffer chain would now be hitting the shift ramps and getting lifted up to the next cog, and so the shift quality went way up you guys buy the abitool uh yeah, oh yeah, it's sitting right.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Uh well, the guys, we only have one and the guys keep coveting it well, there it is yeah, it's, it's the green one behind the uh screwdrivers over there it is.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:So yeah, it's cool, it's a great tool yeah, it checks length and it, but the it's one of the only ones I think that does deflection. Yeah, I actually. So I'm just going to give you, I'm going to pat myself on the back Before that existed. When we found this out, which was like three or four years ago, it was quite a while. I don't remember when that came out, we actually had our workbenches. I had drawn a picture of a….
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:You made your own custom. Yeah, I had a picture of a you've made. You made your own.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I had yeah, I had a picture of a shram. We took a flat top, we stuck it on the bench and we traced it out, and then we basically took the one that we realized was having a problem and put it down and traced it out, and so we had a visual representation of how much different they were so you actually stretched it.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:we, we say well, how much lateral movement did it have? Yeah, we deflected it, deflected, deflected it. Thank you.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:So the deflection, by the way, that's a term that I used to use in golf and we had a deflection board and you would put a golf club on this board and you'd put weight on the golf club and that weight would deflect or bend the shaft and then the number would tell you how stiff that was. Yeah right, that's because I said shaft. Yeah, is it. Are you gonna do that when I say shaft, so shaft. Oh, you missed who's the cat yeah shaft, oh my god okay but anyway uh that's.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):That's a really good point, that's the deflection, uh a lot of people are like, for the record, people, a chain doesn't stretch. You cannot metallurgically stretch a chain.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's what they call it, but it does get longer and that's the crazy part. So when you measure a chain pin to pin over 126 lengths, it can be a an inch longer. Uh, it, because each roller and pin has deteriorated and that tolerance can stack, so you can have a one millimeter difference on one. But when you do it over 126, you can have 126 millimeter difference. It's not that much, but you get the point, you know, I think people perceive it as like you're like you're the metal, like you're not pulling the metal.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:You're wearing down the actual distance between rollers, yeah, and the and the actual um the roller, but also the inside, not just the outside.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):So yeah, no, that's a really good point. Let's see that tool on your guys's bench yeah, it's a.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:It's a good tool. It helps us figure this stuff out because the the the wear profile so far on the eagle stuff is pretty long lasting. I mean, shram gives some crazy numbers about how long.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):I've seen people get 10000 miles out of a flat top chain.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:We don't say that because somebody is going to come in with 9,000.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):This is someone who said 10,000 is someone who is keeping up meticulously on their on their maintenance, but it is much longer than it's possible yeah.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:And if you get, if you spend the money, because until now you've had to get access or you've had to get electronic, which pushes the price point up. Until now it's been a big expense and you can say, hey, this stuff lasts longer.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Is there a lube that you would recommend for a flat top? Is there one that you guys?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:prefer over others. Do you have to lube the shaft?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):I would say lube is still firmly in a personal preference and environment dictated. Okay, so there's not one Wait, wait, wait, wait that answer you need to.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, that fully deserves a button.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:What am I? No, no, no. The other button.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Oh that one, yeah, that fully deserves a button.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:What am I? No, no, no, the other button. Oh, that one, yeah, because he was like it.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Your lube of choice is dictated by your environment.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, there you go. He said lube choice and dick in the same sentence. Oh my God.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Jesus, all right, all right.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:To get us down the drivetrain rabbit hole.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Let's move on to the next hot topic, which is brakes.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Is it true? You guys have gone away from DOT completely.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Well, we won't be developing any new DOT brakes.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:But you don't sell any right now.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Any legacy product that's out there.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Forget the legacy products, just the three that I can see on your website.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:The new product does not have DOT.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Okay, and all four piston.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yes, that is correct.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:That was kind of crazy, right, so that's got to change. I'll put money down right now.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Hold on, I have money. I did not expect you to go to bat for two piston brakes.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I'm telling you right now that there's somebody. He's got two piston on every bike I'm putting money down One dollar. One stinking dollar Money down that somebody at SRAM is working on a two piston lightweight Money down. That somebody at SRAM is working on a two-piston lightweight cross-country World Cup rig.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Well, what else can I say, besides Nino's already winning on the Moda four-piston?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, but that's Okay.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):If you're winning, why would?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:you need, first of all If it ain't broke, don't fix it, dane, why?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:would you want less power? First of all, if you're being paid by a sponsor to do something, you do it. I'm telling you right now.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):He does it for the love in his heart.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I'm telling you the Piccolos, the trick stuff. Piccolos don't sell out for a reason they sell out because they're stupid light. Somebody at SRAM is developing this. I have money on it right here.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):That's a fat wad of cash. That's fat. Josh can attest.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:It's $1.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Do you want my spiel on mineral oil? Yes, go for it yes, we do, absolutely. Yeah, I'm taking my one dollar back yeah, so sram did tout the benefits of dot for a long time and you know, there there are a few and that's, you know, a higher boiling point. Uh, it's water soluble, it's uh interchangeability regulation right, you can get it anywhere.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):You can get it in an auto parts, auto parts store, internationally, etc. I think the big thing that we would fall back on is, you know, the dot does have a higher latent boiling point, but that is only in a moisture controlled environment. So the second that your DOT, which is hydrophilic, it absorbs moisture versus mineral oil, which is hydrophobic, which resists moisture.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:We're teaching the audience now, I know.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):There's a lot of concepts to this. I'm definitely phobic. But DOT does absorb moisture out of the air, so it sucks moisture into its fluid. I was waiting for that. It sucks it. There we go. So once DOT fluid reaches a certain moisture point, it has a lower, a diminished, boiling point compared to mineral oil. So over time your mineral oil does ingest that water from the air.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Your DOT does ingest. You said mineral oil, oh sorry.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yeah, your DOT ingests it, whereas your mineral oil separates it.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:And then that as it ingests, it changes the chemical composition, the boiling point changes.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yes, exactly so, the mineral oil. And specifically, you know, one thing that's worth mentioning is that our mineral oil isn't just off the shelf Shimano mineral oil, which hasn't changed in 20 years since the original shimano hydraulic brake fluids came out.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):It was developed in partnership with maxima, who does all of our suspension fluids. Yeah, so it's also. It's also a brake lubricant, which is worth noting too. It's like it is a full system fluid that is intended to, like you know, enhance the full performance of the brake. So, mineral oil. While on paper it has that lower boiling point, it has a boiling point that is higher than anything anybody's actually going to conceivably reach on a bike, yeah, and and that dot higher boiling point, like I said, is only in the vacuum of no moisture.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):So once moisture is in that equation, they're pretty much similar there. Okay, Um, but yeah, the main thing with SRAM mineral oil is that it is a break. It is a brake fluid designed for the brake rather than a brake designed around the existing fluid. So, it lubricates, it cleans and it operates as a brake fluid all in one.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Okay.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So so four piston only in the new one. So so, as I understand it, you have three brakes that are out right now. The DB line motive and Maven, yeah, and DB's got versions Yep the two, four and six or four, six and eight.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:DB for DB six and DB eight, and that's the lever design difference. Are all the calipers the same?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):to my knowledge yes, so the the main difference there is the yeah is the lever whether it's matchmaker compatible matchmaker.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:And then there's also uh, bearing or non-bearing.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yes, db8's got bearing yes, db8's the nice one yes, so the high end one db8 is available aftermarket.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Db4 and db6 are going to be oe, yeah, okay, all right. And then obviously maven, top dog, the ultimate gravity performance break. And then motive is you know, it's little cousin slated for anything where maven is overkill this is what I'm talking about.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:So the db series is not going to be for the cross-country people and the maven is clearly for the trail crowd and then and light enduro.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:But the motive is is clearly for the motive motive yes yes, there is a space for cross-country lightweight.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I'm telling you, I'm putting one dollar, it's coming out so motive is rich after this motive is code power level weight.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So it does have the same power as dot code stealth I gotta ask you guys do you guys get like talking points here?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:because it's like every tram guy says, oh yeah yeah, well, it's one of your mark like, marketing is like yeah, it's one tram is a great one of us here at globo gym we're better than you.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):It's fun when you go to a tram thing.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:It's. It's super fun, like, for one thing, we went to the one, uh for the eagle uh for transmission for transmission and it was here in tucson and dude. It was food and partying. It was awesome.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):It was one of the best parties I've been to yeah, we like to have a really dialed approach and, like you know, obviously this is marketing speak too, but, like we, we do try and get all on the same page, like where we fundamentally understand, like the things that we're trying to implement with the products and like speak to them. So like, yes, there's the corporate speak aspect to it but, like you know, it is also talking to the actual function of of each product so so, um the thing to clarify, and I just want to do this, bike shop guy um on these, on these new um mineral systems.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:We want to use just shram yes, maxima sram. So it's, maxima sram brake fluid, okay, and if I were to put shimano in it will the world end I mean it won't corrode your seals like previous cross dot mineral contamination will yeah but you'll be leaving a lot of performance okay, all right. So if a mechanic were to make a mistake or somebody at home were to make a mistake, you at least won't destroy your seals.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):It's not going to destroy you, it's not like the classic, like when someone bled a dot break with mineral and then all of a sudden, you just have chunks of O-ring floating in your syringe.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:We used to pull the top cap off and it just sludged. No, we pulled the top cap off and the bladder. Oh, it would be so swollen it would be so big you couldn't put it back in. Like it was crazy, it was the weirdest thing. It was like the opposite of a shrink gun on your brakes. But yeah, okay. So I just want to clear that up because that caught us. We actually had another shop call us and say, hey, do you have this? And we're like, oh know, the Maxima brake fluid.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, this is a new fluid we need, because we hadn't had any e-bikes come in and we really hadn't tackled that yet. Oh, for DB8, yeah, and this wasn't for DB8. So we've had DB8s for a while, and so is DB8 Maxima only, and if so, does it say it on the lever? Are consumers going?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):to know this. All the SRAM mineral brakes have printed on the bleed screw SRAM mineral only. Okay.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:All right, good, all right. So loving the ambidextrous brake levers? Yes, but that changes Side specific. That changes.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):DB4 and DB6 are not ambidextrous because they are mated to a closed clamp. Gotcha Yep, okay, but DB8. Motive and Maven, yes, all ambidextrous.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yep. One question motive and maven, yes, all ambidextrous. One question you can't fit a shimano shifter if you're using any of these brakes.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):I don't know how ice bag works, so we do this stuff so I think the easiest answer is just going to be to mate a clamp next to your, your sram brake lever clamp yeah, there I.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I want to say, some people make some adapters, yeah, so there's actually not enough room because the way that with the stealth routing, the way the levers come in towards the bar, there's not enough clearance. It's by like two or three millimeters to fit the shimano clamp so my question was was that intentional? No, no we don't, we don't, we don't try to, but you haven't run into that yet.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:We have not run into that. The big thing is we'll have an i-spec lever, so somebody will come in and get a new set of brakes and you're trying to put a shimano shifter or or the opposite they are getting rid of their. I think the opposite happens more often. They're getting rid of whatever drivetrain was on the bike, but they've got shimano brakes and they're putting on like a transmission or something yeah, no, it's the opposite. It's mating. Mating the shimano or a lever shifter to the shram brakes. I'm pretty sure we've done that.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):So I think there's adapters for that. There's a way to it.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:We don't try to preclude any yeah cross matching so yeah, it's there's there's companies out there that their whole mission in life is to try and make that stuff happen. I have to research it. But your interesting note about are the new um kind of close profile levers not allowing for clamps. So you're saying it won't allow for a Shimano clamp or will the SRAM cause the SRAM clamps? Uh, for the new access has got that really round low profile.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Oh, the infinity, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:And so what? What does the clamps look like on the um the nineties and the seventies?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):So 90 is matchmaker.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Okay.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):So it just connects to any matchmaker In 70, I don't know that's a good question. I actually haven't seen the 70.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Do they come with? The SRAM clamp the 90 does the discrete clamp which is like, yeah, yeah, that's the old school.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):So 90 does, but it's also matchmaker compatible.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Okay, and so does that 90 clamp work with the new Mavens and the new um motives.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yes, okay, that does.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So there's, a clamp room.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:We just don't know if Shimano clamps work.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, Is that, is that what we saw? Was it the? You could not make any of these new SRAM brakes with the stealth routing with too close to the lever body. Too close, yeah yeah, the actual lever body is too close to the bar to fit a Shimano shifter.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:That's interesting. We have not run into that yet. That doesn't mean that we won't. It's just, these systems just came out, so we've had the new levels, you know, because I have those on my bike. So we've had level. I don't know if they're newer. Do they have a bigger reservoir now?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:No, it stayed the same. Really, stay the same, huh. So so, uh, let's see, what else do I have here? You guys so shifting gears a bit. You guys released what I think, or what I considered, anyways, to be kind of like a, like a stealth product that you re, you don't even see on the website anywhere. I like to kind of search.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Shimano's website or SRAM's website, forever to try to find it. It's not there, but it's but. But I saw videos talking about it and I saw it on some retail sites. Okay, do you know what it is? No, what they released.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Oh, what is it? He knows Mechanical dropper lever.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):And that's meant to match the stealth routing of our brakes and of the Eagle 90 shifter Gotcha. So it is compatible with most 14-millimeter pull mechanical cable droppers.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Nice, which is pretty much every major one that's out. Yeah, and so does this foreshadow a mechanical dropper coming out from SRAM soon.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Not as I know it.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Did we already talk about that? No, we haven't gotten there yet.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:That's next oh okay, I was segwaying us into.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:That was a good segway, I was segwaying us into. I tripped right over that segway, so we.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):We are still firmly in the wireless dropper category. So, yes, we did introduce cable-operated transmission, but reverb access is still our bread and butter.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I'm going to get another dollar out, dude.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):I do.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I bet you anything there's going to be.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):that's in the works, and yet I still might challenge you on that, because, man, it is so nice to not have to run a dropper cable, I mean. So you mentioned, right yeah.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Josh, you said you're— I'm a shuttle SL.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yeah, sharing between two different size people every time the saddle comes up, pain in the ass.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:The cable gets yeah, it's on a pedal assist bike, so it's getting stuck in the, and that's something I hear from so many demo and rental shops like we.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):We loan out these bikes and they go oh no, I'm fine, I just gotta adjust the saddle height, and they pull up on it and they jam the the dropper cable and then we got a trick.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:You know their trick, right? It doesn't work on this, right? You don't need it our trick is you hold the lever in while you're moving it.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, and that that works pretty good but I'll tell you what I got.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Another thing that we sell a lot of reverb uh access droppers to is um racers uh, they want to keep their bikes as light as possible. Not every course really needs a dropper and a wireless dropper allows them to quickly remove the dropper, and for a course that doesn't for a course that doesn't suit it.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:In fact, if they're traveling, they can go pre-ride the course, determine it and do it right there. There's no cables to be routed or anything, and vice versa. If they don't have it on the bike, it's super easy to just slap on the bike and it's. It's not not slap on the bike and it's it's not. Not a crazy expense to do that.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):The advantage is huge and I said it on my last appearance on the podcast. You asked me what my favorite unbiased Ram product is.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:And.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):I said unabashedly, as expensive as it is, it's the river Baxus and it is still the river Baxus, and it's even more so today.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, riverbaxis, and it's even more so today. Yeah, and it's way less expensive yeah, it is.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):It is dropped in price by about 150 bucks and and I'm not worried about the price.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I'm worried about what's inside the insides, because jimmy took one apart for me and we got to play with the insides I thought you guys were making out, yeah, no, we were just fondling.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Well, I mean, that came first, but okay, that's how quick, you can disassemble this you guys made up, yeah, made out, disassembled, reassembled in that 15 minutes while I was setting up the gear, but the insides are so simple and I, I even, I think, I simple in a good way a simple, simple in a great way, and I I was telling him that we were having a discussion in the shop, that the name should have changed, like it's not the same post but I will say that the reverb name is iconic.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):It was one of the first mass-produced available droppers. That's true.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:That's very true. It's been out since 2010.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):God, man, that's a long time, 15 years.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Jesus 15 years. That's kind of scary that we've only had droppers around 15 years, I know.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So what's? Cool about the new one.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):So I've got one in my hand right now. The Rever, the new one, so I've got one in my hand right now. Uh, the reverb axis b1 it is. It's a c change from the previous reverbs. It is a whole new system. Obviously, the biggest visual difference is that the battery moves from the saddle clamp to the collar and that improves overall tire clearance, especially on long travel and small frames. I I mean for you guys specifically pivot. I think like the Firebird was notorious for that, Like a small Firebird with a reverb axis inserted.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:all the way Rubbing tires.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):At max travel, you could suck the battery out, oh wow. The battery could contact the tire and be damaged.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I just happened to have a Firebird right next to me With a reverb on it, with the old reverb on it, but it's a medium.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yeah, for larger frames, and if you were running the post even just slightly out of the seat tube you would probably be fine, but for those people that were running it full insertion it could end up running into the tire. So you get about seven millimeters more overall drop availability from the new design because you don't have that tall clamp area, exactly, okay, so we've reduced that stack height from the top of the post travel to the saddle rails by seven millimeters, so you know what everybody's talking about.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:The biggest thing that people are talking about I'm not a big fan of it, but it's what everybody's talking about is the new length. You've got a 260? 250.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):250. Longest dropper on the market 250 millimeter long. Jesus.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:That's just this piece.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I got you.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, I'm just saying Some guys need help with measurements.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, I'm just saying I'm not one of those guys.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):You know there are tall $260,000.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Holy crap, $250,000. $250,000, sorry yeah, $240,000 was the longest one. I'm just going to will them to see $260,000.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):But yeah, I mean just trying to increase the options for everyone. So it's available in $100,000 to $250,000.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Okay, and then the $250,000 is only a $34,900.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):No, you can get 250 in all diameters.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Really, yeah, I didn't know that, yes, okay, that's crazy, yeah, but.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):I will say the biggest change is the fact that we have gone away from the hydraulically actuated post, well, the hydraulic internals to what's called an air over air system. Yes so the reverb is now essentially an electronically actuated air spring. Yes, like I was explaining to Dane, as we had the whole thing torn apart, it's a solo air spring. Yep, that's it. Yeah, and you just swap between positive and negative air chambers.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, it's really simple, which is great, great from a serviceability maintainability. Yes, yeah, and there are very few ceiling services, very few components very few things to go wrong overall and cost-wise. So the customer on average we charge around 150 bucks to service a reverb and the cost on this for the first, probably two years is going to be like 50 bucks, you know so, just because it's so much easier so much easier and there's so little to go wrong.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:The old ones had a really complicated, uh, refined way of working, but they've just simplified it like crazy. The other thing is the okay, now, what do you call it? Ride, active, ride, active ride. Okay, that's the other thing. So this is a point of joking. I'm just going to throw it out there because everybody's joking around. Yeah, tell us, because the old reverbs, it's a feature, not a bug. So when the old reverbs, when they had a problem, usually the first signal they were having a problem was they would get what we called suspensioning, which is the post would start to develop, play and act like a suspension rather than a post, and so that usually meant that there was air mixing in the oil or the IFP was having issues, or maybe even leaking and um, and so that was a signal to service them. Now this one actually incorporates that as a feature, not a bug.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So it's an on purpose.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Can you guys explain what?
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:you're talking about to our listeners?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Yes, I can elaborate so at full extension. You are sitting on an air spring at very high pressure, which I explained today, and is just like a high-pressure solo air fork. It's very hard to compress and so it will hold your body weight. As soon as you open the valve, you are basically introducing a negative chamber, and a negative chamber obviously allows for a little bit of suspension travel.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):So once you've actuated the poppet and you've dropped it from its full travel, even by two to three millimeters, and have opened up the negative chamber of the post, you will have that little bit of squish, because air is compressible, oil is not.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:And you have air on both sides of the piston.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yes, so so to you know, forget what's going on in the dropper from the rider's perspective. When it's fully down, completely hard stiff.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):When it's fully up, completely hard stiff when it's in the middle of the travel, of its travel, it's going to bounce a bit. You will bounce on it about five millimeters. Yeah, it's got a little suspensioning, which I have found I actually really like. Yeah, like for technical, for seated, seated, technical climbing. It gives you something to like kind of sit into without getting bucked off the bike.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Let me, let me explain this in josh terms it's buttercups for your butt. It's buttercups for your butt, dude. We need shirts.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):I'm so glad you said that, because that is exactly the line I've been touting around to people it's buttercups for your butt.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:It's buttercups for your butt, yeah.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So we've incorporated a buttercup feature into this post.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, but it's not when you're doing those hard climbs, when you're just riding a fire road climb you still have a fully rigid seating position because, as as a shop that does a lot of fitting, we're concerned about that saddle height and your knees and stuff, yeah. So when you're racing cross country, when you're doing something at full extension, you're still got a proper fit. If you're going to be on a long extended, like gravel type ride where you're not really hitting hard and you're not using your dropper, it's still going to be a proper post and it's not going to mess with it. But as soon as you drop it a little bit for either like control and cornering or descending or what have you, you've got a little cushion and so, uh, which can be nice, and that's your ride style I've never actually seen you drop your post completely no I, I am a knee surfer yeah, so like I gotta keep it old school.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Yeah, I grip.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I grip my saddle with my knees. Yeah, it's true, um and so, uh, so. So this is why I always get so tripped out by 250 millimeter drops, because I never can drop mine that far. My knees can't hang on to it. And then I have to stabilize the bike with my knees, and since they're you don't have 250 millimeters.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:No, that's true too. I have a short legs, so yeah so yeah yeah I've never dropped mine.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:People will come in and they'll want to take away, they'll want to buy a new post because they have an inch of seat post showing um between their collar and their frame and they're like I need more drop. And I'm like, really, you got 170 and you need to go 200 so you can get rid of that little bit. I'm like really, and and you'd think I'd be all for it, cause I'm selling a product but I still can't quite wrap my head around it.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:But I'll still sell them.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:So no problem.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Well, that's exciting. I'm excited to pick one up. Can I ask you one final question? Hit me, okay. So performance tiers for your brakes and RockShox forks or RockShox products you guys went to a different naming convention.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:It keeps changing and it's confusing me a little bit.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:So maybe, as our last and final question for tonight, can you run our listeners through what are the performance tiers on the RockShox products? What are the performance tiers on the brakes, so that they all understand.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):You bring up a great point, josh, we gotta send you to marketing. Yeah, so for suspension it is select, select plus ultimate.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:That's good, better, best is there a base level below select?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):um, no, no, even on the oem side. Yes, select is, is the, is what?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:was the zeb we were seeing with no oh zeb r oh god, it's true. Okay, I'm just gonna throw those weirdos out there throwing a wrench in it, and we've mostly moved away from that.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):But yeah, select, select plus ultimate good, better, best for breaks bronze, silver ultimate again good, better best do you have?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:do you have two separate marketing departments and do they get into a ring and fight? Why didn't you do Ultimate, Select, Select Plus on the brakes?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):You're preaching to the choir here.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I've got to send you to Chicago.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:But one more question what's Ultimate Expert?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Oh, so the Expert Kit is above Ultimate. It is the all-inclusive tuning package. Expert Kit reflects the fact that you get all the rotor sizes, all the pad compounds and a bleed kit and a carrying case.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:We call those special edition kits.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Is that fair?
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:Yeah, special edition Expert it kind of splits the same thing. Is it always going to be there or is it going to go away?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):I think, as long as we keep doing those brake kits.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:yeah, it'll always be there. Okay, it's pretty cool.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Hey, Jimmy, we really appreciate your time, man.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Thanks a lot for coming out tonight. You guys are awesome.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:Are you sure you said earlier you weren't ever going to come back again? That's true, I'm reevaluating it.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):We grow, we grow on it. Josh gave me a beer.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I gave him a, you get a hat from him.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:He said he was going to bring me one next time we see him. Okay, I'm just saying.
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):I'll bring a SRAM trucker back to the shop. You got to give it to Josh.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:I don't think I'm going to get it. Yeah, I don't know.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:I will wear it. I'll wear it.
Josh "Magellan" Anderson:We'll see how it looks on me first. Okay, if it gets to you, I'll wear it to the. You got any final words for our listeners? Any final thoughts?
Jimmy Nordloh (SRAM):Cables, batteries, it's all your preference. Just ride SRAM. Yeah, thanks a lot man.
Dane "Suspension Guru" Higgins:That was awesome, for sure. Thank you, guys.
