Gravel / Gravé / Gnarmac / Groad / ATB

Wait what? Which is you?

Saddle roll is Castelli, only one I can find that have provision to strap a pump underneath;

Nice.
I was on a camo Arkose.

At one point I didn't check properly to turn right after turning left off E&C roundabout and nearly got taken out by you.
I then tutted and shook my head.

Arkose experts - I need your help!

I’m currently building up a new bike but have yet to buy the frameset which will more than likely be an 2017 Arkose 4.
I’m hoping to use a set of 650b Fulcrum Red Power wheels that has a 15mm thru axle on the front. I’ve bought a 12mm sleeve that will shim the hub down to 12mm so it can be used with the Arkose. My worry is that the 15mm part of the hub has an outer diameter of 21mm which may catch on the inside of the fork dropouts. Are the Arkose forks flush on the inside of the forks or are they shaped in a way that will prevent me from using these wheels?

Hope that makes sense?

Thanks

Someone tall like me who owns an arkose? I'm 186 cm and I'm undecided what size to buy

A really big one?

But I don't know which one, the L or the XL

6'10

That's 208 cm?

Sooo..basically what they already do?

I'm 6 feet tall

I’m 185cm on a medium

@ShadeBoyy that size I'd assume you'd be an L for sure

should take delivery of my new arkose 3 tomorrow, very excited

Hah, that explain the frozen sausage look you gave.

On my roadbike I have 561mm frame stack and 395mm reach

Even the xl might be too small for you.

Edit. Caught up now.

I don't really want to get into it but from an electronics perspective it would be very easy to design a system of electronic shifters and derailleurs that would work with any number of speeds (up to the precision of your little servos) within some left-right/up-down range (i.e. the cassette would have some maximum width - at least 40mm if you want to do current 11-speed - and a maximum sprocket size - let's say design it to take up to a 50t). Then you just need to tell it the sprocket pitch and the number of speeds and you can put whatever cassette you like on there (assuming that you have a long enough cage). If 13-speed comes out in 5 years with this system you'd just need to get a new cassette and chain and reprogram everything for it to work (as long as it's less wide than the range of your derailleur).

This is not currently possible; i.e. there are only certain combinations of shifters, derailleurs and cassettes between road, MTB, 10/11-speed that work, and so you can't mix and match bits to get the exact setup that you want.

If you ask me Shimano/SRAM probably could allow this right now and perhaps will at some point in the future. If not maybe some computer wizard will write some software to get it to work one day. Or some other company will do it.

I don't really want to get into it but writes massive post

Crayoner moaning at >150 words in a post.

Yeah, I know. Are these comments a waste of my time? Are they a waste of everyone else's time? Do they achieve anything? Have I ever achieved anything? I don't know.

XL? what?

Someone tall like me who owns an arkose? I'm 6'10 feet

... a size S strapped to each foot?

Probs a different (narrower) chain though so software would have to know that, plus swapping the jockey wheels. When there are only two mainstream manufacturers in the industry, what's in it for them?

Yeah - and chainrings perhaps. You could design it so that you just buy a new cage (a few quid if we're optimistic?) and jockey wheels.

But yes, nothing in it for them; in fact they're way better off if you have to buy a whole new groupset for every bike that you want to switch from 10- to 11-speed. It would be really nice for gravel/CX/touring/commuter stuff to have electronic MTB/road mashup groupsets but I guess that's not a big enough market

I think its pretty safe to assume I was responding to your comment about being almost 7ft tall.

The fact that I included an edit would, I hope, have made this obvious.

Crayoner moaning at

tl;dr

I get your very descriptive point, but...

1. They're a hardware making business. Emphasis on business.
   
2. Many people have tried hacking Shimano's system. As far as I'm aware, it's not happened yet, and neither does Shimano or SRAM. See point 1.
   
3. Have you ever spoken to owners of shiny new electronic bikes? Not savvy bike users. Average users? I have. Many of them. They're the same people that will stare at you like a wizard when you tell them you can sync your Di2 bike to a Garmin.
   
   

Now let's make an open system and see how it all works out shall we?