Damn you Shimano!
If you love Shimano, stop reading now, cause it's rant time. I don't carry on much, but I'm going to now.
Let's warm up with the new XT hub.
Apparently, the new XT (m77x) hub is failing all over the place. Here's a thread on MTBR forum. And one on point83. One on Bike Radar. My buddy Alex has also told me stories of many a LHT owner in Seattle having XT hub issues.
It sounds like there's two problems introduced by the latest Shimano innovations:
1. New aluminum axle. Since it's aluminum, instead of steel, as god intended axles to be, it strips easily. It strips because it has a nipple looking thing on the end to step down the diameter so the hub fits into a standard drop out. (See circled bit above)
2. And since it's aluminum, of course it must be oversized. Which reduces the amount of room where the bearings live in the freehub. Which means it uses smaller bearings (3/16" instead of 1/4"). (See arrow).
Main failures are stripped axles and sticky/blowing up freehubs where the bearings aren't holding up.
So that's lame. But that's just the beginning.
I've bitched up a storm about my sandals in the past. The quickie version: I love the old Shimano Sandals. They weren't perfect, but they were good enough. And then they went away and were replaced with lame shoe-sandals. Then, in a glorious twist of fate, Shimano abandoned their lame shoe-sandals and brought back a new version of the classic sandals. This ended well, but it took 3 years to come together.
Now, Shimano has quietly dumped their MT-60 shoe. This is a cryin' cryin' shame. I did a tiny mini-review of these shoes about a year ago. In short: they rule. They're comfy daily drivers that are Gortex lined and work 95% of the time I'm not wearing my sandals. Even in the dead of winter... and yes, I own the Lake Winter Shoe. bleh.
I love the MT-60 and it's going away. And there's no replacement on the Shimano site for them.
Why? WHY? Why does Shimano always do this?
Why didn't I horde?
I know the world is full of real problems, but man this drives me ape shit. What is this? This need to "innovate" endlessly where innovation is not needed. Errrrrg!
End rant.
4 comments:
Heads up, if you want another pair of MT 60 shoes , WIGGLE UK still have them in stock at US$116 (maybe more if not regular customer) that is what I paid 24 hours ago as a platinum customer, with free postage.
2nd post, I have been thinking about adding Shimano wheels to my Montague Paratrooper. Silly me I thought that being a big International company that they would maintain a good quality product for ever. I got verbally shafted by a "salesman" at AUSBIKE recently when I asked about gearsets and the ranges that would suit the above mentioned bike.Getting totally turned off by Shimano and their representatives.
Thanks for the tip Llewllyn. Note also that the LX hub is "normal." And cheaper.
Now that I work in a bike shop, hording becomes all top easy. I was just oblivious to discontinuations before.
But SIDI is ending their 3-strap line! AHH! And the Specialized 2010 Jett saddle isn't as amazing as the predecessors!
And now I horde.
At least it's at a discount! :)
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