Eaven
Eaven Cycles - Bikes von Cotic
Moin,
Cy hat im neuesten Newsletter das Thema Steckachsen für Hardtails aufgegriffen. Was meint ihr, sollten die Hartails 135mm Schnellspanner behalten oder seit ihr Fans von Steckachsen? Was sind eure Argumente für oder gegen Steckachsen? Leider hat er nicht geschrieben ob er bei seiner Betrachtung von 135 oder 142mm ausgeht.
Dear Carsten,
Morning! How messed up is the weather today?!! Sunny, snow, hail, wind, sunny again. All that before my second cup of coffee.
Not that I'm emailing about the weather, I'm actually emailing because I need your help on something. We're being asked a little more these days about whether there's a thru axle option on our hardtails. There currently isn't. It's good old 135mm QR. I'm going to lay out my reasons why this is the case and I'm interested to know what your thoughts are on this, whether you're not bothered, simply would like the option to swap wheels between other bikes with thru axles, or some other reason we haven't thought of yet. So, here's the case for the status quo:
Firstly, from a performance point of view, there's no point. A hardtail frame is very stiff at the back end and a thru axle will not make any noticeable improvement or different to this. It's not like on a swingarm of a suspension frame where you don't have that intrinsic stiffness. A Rocket, for example, benefits a great deal from having the Syntace X-12 system we use on that.
Second reason is weight. One of the things I pride Cotic products on is not carrying unnecessary weight. When we had to add a thicker head tube and gussets to the Soul in 2009 to meet the CEN regulations, I redesigned the dropouts to the current design to offset the weight gain. Our current dropouts with mech hanger weigh just 93 grams. A Hope rear QR skewer weighs 65 grams so you have a system weight of 158 grams. We have been offered a thru axle dropout system from our factory which weighs 187grams and uses a Maxle or E-thru axle. Best case here is the Maxle for weight at 74 grams claimed, although we prefer the e-thru for function which is 97 grms from the XTR version. Even best case it's 261grams, and given our preferred option more likely 284grams. That's a 126 grams weight increase - over 1/4 of a pound! - for no obvious advantage apart from convenience and everyone else is doing it. I find that a bit hard to deal with when I try so hard to keep every gram I can from our frames, our flagship 853 frames in particular.
I did design a dropout system in steel for when we were looking at possibly doing the Rocket swingarms in steel last year, but even using the X-12 axle which is only 39 grams, the system weight on this was 215 grams, which is still a fair bit heavier at 57 grams more than the regular QR option.
Finally there's cost. To keep these dropouts even remotely sensible weight they're considerably more complex to make than our current dropouts, plus we would have to make more complex mech hangers and also supply an axle with each frame. Rough estimates suggest needing a £50 price increase on frames to include a thru axle, and mech hanger prices in the £20-£25 region, not the current £13 price.
So that's the reasons why for the moment it's staying QR, but I want to know your opinions on this. I know I might be getting a little too precious about a few grams here and there, so let me know if you think you'd carry the extra weight for the convenience. It's not like I'm adversed to adding weight for performance gains. I have disc brakes, suspension and and dropper seatpost on all my bikes, all of which are heavier than the older technology they replaced, but they bring performance gains which are well worth carrying them around. I can't see that with thru axle hardtails yet, but go ahead, tell me I'm wrong!
Cheers,
Cy
Cy hat im neuesten Newsletter das Thema Steckachsen für Hardtails aufgegriffen. Was meint ihr, sollten die Hartails 135mm Schnellspanner behalten oder seit ihr Fans von Steckachsen? Was sind eure Argumente für oder gegen Steckachsen? Leider hat er nicht geschrieben ob er bei seiner Betrachtung von 135 oder 142mm ausgeht.
Dear Carsten,
Morning! How messed up is the weather today?!! Sunny, snow, hail, wind, sunny again. All that before my second cup of coffee.
Not that I'm emailing about the weather, I'm actually emailing because I need your help on something. We're being asked a little more these days about whether there's a thru axle option on our hardtails. There currently isn't. It's good old 135mm QR. I'm going to lay out my reasons why this is the case and I'm interested to know what your thoughts are on this, whether you're not bothered, simply would like the option to swap wheels between other bikes with thru axles, or some other reason we haven't thought of yet. So, here's the case for the status quo:
Firstly, from a performance point of view, there's no point. A hardtail frame is very stiff at the back end and a thru axle will not make any noticeable improvement or different to this. It's not like on a swingarm of a suspension frame where you don't have that intrinsic stiffness. A Rocket, for example, benefits a great deal from having the Syntace X-12 system we use on that.
Second reason is weight. One of the things I pride Cotic products on is not carrying unnecessary weight. When we had to add a thicker head tube and gussets to the Soul in 2009 to meet the CEN regulations, I redesigned the dropouts to the current design to offset the weight gain. Our current dropouts with mech hanger weigh just 93 grams. A Hope rear QR skewer weighs 65 grams so you have a system weight of 158 grams. We have been offered a thru axle dropout system from our factory which weighs 187grams and uses a Maxle or E-thru axle. Best case here is the Maxle for weight at 74 grams claimed, although we prefer the e-thru for function which is 97 grms from the XTR version. Even best case it's 261grams, and given our preferred option more likely 284grams. That's a 126 grams weight increase - over 1/4 of a pound! - for no obvious advantage apart from convenience and everyone else is doing it. I find that a bit hard to deal with when I try so hard to keep every gram I can from our frames, our flagship 853 frames in particular.
I did design a dropout system in steel for when we were looking at possibly doing the Rocket swingarms in steel last year, but even using the X-12 axle which is only 39 grams, the system weight on this was 215 grams, which is still a fair bit heavier at 57 grams more than the regular QR option.
Finally there's cost. To keep these dropouts even remotely sensible weight they're considerably more complex to make than our current dropouts, plus we would have to make more complex mech hangers and also supply an axle with each frame. Rough estimates suggest needing a £50 price increase on frames to include a thru axle, and mech hanger prices in the £20-£25 region, not the current £13 price.
So that's the reasons why for the moment it's staying QR, but I want to know your opinions on this. I know I might be getting a little too precious about a few grams here and there, so let me know if you think you'd carry the extra weight for the convenience. It's not like I'm adversed to adding weight for performance gains. I have disc brakes, suspension and and dropper seatpost on all my bikes, all of which are heavier than the older technology they replaced, but they bring performance gains which are well worth carrying them around. I can't see that with thru axle hardtails yet, but go ahead, tell me I'm wrong!
Cheers,
Cy