Planned obsolescence in cycling

I was just helping someone get a smaller chainring for their bike and ended up changing the whole crankset, as it seemed to be so difficult to get the one that fit the FSA cranks. All of the direct mounts seem to do pretty much the same thing, but with a slightly different shape hole. I suppose they all want to be the one who invented the standard, they all might have their own patents, they might want to prevent mixing incompatible components but all of these might as well be compatible and you could just ride to the local bike shop and buy a chainring.
https://www.tradeinn.com/f/13717/137172330/fsa-single-comet-direct-mount-chainring.webp
https://www.bike-discount.de/media/image/dc/a7/e6/Shimano_XT-SM-CRM85-Kettenblatt_20072654_a.jpg
https://www.hi5bikes.fi/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/97564.jpeg
https://www.tradeinn.com/f/13692/136924837/race-face-cinch-direct-mount-chainring.jpg
https://www.velonova.lt/image/cache/catalog/products/remote/sram-x-sync-2-eagle-direct-mount-dantratis-3mm-offset-1x11-12-pavaru-0-1200x1200.png
https://www.sram.com/globalassets/image-hierarchy/sram-product-root-images/chainrings/chainrings/cr-x-sync-direct-mount-d1/productassets_cr-xsnc-dm-d1_fg/006218027002_p0_00.png

I went for paying more for the V12s over the V8s as I read they were serviceable. I didn't realise that meant serviceable only with a special and expensive tool! Presumably servicing a V8 is possible, if not officially.

Separate tools for alllll

https://www.dmrbikes.com/Catalogue/Pedals/Pins-Bearings-Axles-and-Tools/Classic-V12-and-Vault-Tool
https://www.dmrbikes.com/Catalogue/Pedals/Pins-Bearings-Axles-and-Tools/V8-Classic-and-V8-Mag-Servicing-Tool
https://www.dmrbikes.com/Catalogue/Pedals/Pins-Bearings-Axles-and-Tools/V8-v2-Pedal-Tool

While I generally agree with you, CUES is not the best example of effort with their riveted cranksets etc. I'd also bet good many that those shifters will break in 2 years or less. I sincerely hope to be wrong though.

Anyway, I'm not the target audience for new stuff. I'll keep on hoarding good condition 90s MTB parts so my children can ride proper bikes while growing up.

Anything created before or after Hollowtech II BSA68 BBs is banned. Problem solved.

This, unironically. Although square taper cartridge BSA for low-budget stuff could stay.

I'd almost allow it but even my old 9s race bike in Oz got upgraded from one when I took back a 10S groupset a few years ago so I'm free of those as well. The external ones are smaller and lighter to ship once we've killed off all the cheaper cranks, job's a goodun.

Everything else is banned.

I hope the right to repair laws will force component makers to make hacking electronic devices possible.
Rendering a perfectly good set of 10 or 11 speed shifters impossible to use with 12 speed is bullshit.
The new groups from China can adjust to different cassettes.
They’re going to be serious threats to Shimano and SRAM.

Indeed, one of the great things about electronic is that theres no physical reason why shifters can't all be cross compatible, they are literally just switches. Or indeed you could just programme your derailleur to be any speed you want.

It should be amazing, but businesses are stuck in their old ways.

Yeah, see also Shimano not making XTR RD work with 2x

But none of this is planned obs

Haha was looking for something else and found photo of me doing bearings in Speedplays

I had to customise those pin plier things so I could take the circlip off

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To add my two cents :

Ebikes.
Its a shame because alot of bike tech or components weren't necessarily built for ebikes so from the get go alot of stuff will use up quicker or break and be replaced.
We've essentially turned one the greener modes of transport into something between cars and technology and that comes with the obsolescence of both ; technology and batteries age quickly, the more mechanical pieces there are the more likey something will need to be replaced or can wrong >>> add recommendations for the number of km for a pair of tires, how many charges your battery can go, updates of softwaretc etc !

Otherwise and on a wider spectrum, I think that disc brakes were a huge move on obsolescence in the bike industry.
Yes they do offer better stopping power in more conditions, but that was a big move that has affected the industry !
I mean I think we all agree it was coming, but I can't imagine the number of bikes that we're swapped in or replaced when the first gravel and road bikes started coming out.
And all the bikes that now so many people won't want to ride or look at buying because disk brakes are the new thing, and as disk brakes have more variety and mechanics from brand to brand, its not always a simple swap out from bike to bike to bike...

And yeh electronic groupsets take us back to the ebike thing, the more it becomes tech the easier it is to control the life span.

Argh! Though apparently you can get it done with a 1/2” bolt, rather than the fancy tool.

Re: Cues. Some of them have the chainrings rivetted to the cranks, so it seems wasteful to me.

And Shimano, Fucking Sram and Campy all constantly changing bolt circles for chainrings.

Just yesterday I changed the case on my 5 year old Garmin 520+ because the rubber buttons on the side wore through, and water could enter the case freely.

It could have been a 5 minute job if it was made with a gasket (or liquid gasket) and screws, but no, I had to spend a fair bit of time scrubbing it clean of glue before putting it back together. Well annoying, but also a sense of pride that I could do it.

One upside of the rise of aliexpress, Taobao and the like is that now theres direct access to parts that are otherwise not really available. The case I got was very clearly a previously assembled whole unit, with its serial sticker removed. I doubt I could have gotten this via Garmin UK, much less for £20 with a new battery.

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asymmetrical

Asymmetrical how? Have you considered how the arms are totally optimised for the torque delivery now?

This nonsense. I dont notice any difference in torque delivery from 110bcd 5 bolt chainrings, which also look way better imo.

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And even these chainrings are not all the same, there is difference in the shape if the mounting points;

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Chainrings do annoy me. I can see that having the cranks fixed to a hollow axle running within sealed bearings is perhaps a better solution than a square-taper bottom bracket, but asymmetric 4-bolt chainrings seems like the most marginal of marginal gains at the expense of a huge amount of convenience in 5-bolt designs.

It should be amazing, but businesses are stuck in their old ways.

They really aren't. The risk of opening up the firmware to allow users to modify it is too high for a business. Who would bear responsibility if someone screwed up changing the source code and bricked the system? Users would expect the manufacturer to fix it for them, but that comes at a cost to a business, so prices would go up to cover those potential costs.

This thread should be merged with the middle aged thread, as it is full of grumpy middle aged men who think the world owes them.

On an obsolecense tangent. I'm currently looking to rationalise my cycling stuff (although you wouldn't think it) I've one more bike to sell which will leave me with 4 track bikes and 2 geared bikes. The track bikes will all have 144bcd cranks (3 will be octalink bb's) and the two geared bikes will both be running 10spd Veloce.

Hopefully the ability to interchange parts will reduce unnecessary spend/acquisition/retention of parts.I'll be hitting the classifieds with sales at the end of October

I would kind of argue that this is for the better in that we're not stuck with 53/39 and some manufacturers are finally understanding that us normals aren't riding up mountains at 30kph and some of us ride in slop up hills and need lower gears.

I don't really know what changes have been made since I've been using powermeter cranks but haven't Shimano been on 130 and 110 bcd for ages, then went to the lighter/stronger offset shared 110bcd for Di2 because normal chainrings weren't stiff enough and they could share the bcd between "small" and "large" rings? Hard for me to say if this is better or worse given most of my cranks aren't actually Shimano.

5 year old Garmin 520+ because the rubber buttons on the side wore through

My Garmin 1000 was 6 years old when the same thing happened. I ended up trading it in for a new 1030 because they couldn't provide a spare part for the case. That's the kind of waste we should be looking to eliminate.

grumpy middle aged men who think the world owes them.

Quite a lot of it is grumpy middle aged men who would like to fix their things instead of replacing them with new.

As for new standards, I still say, if there's a new one, don't fucking buy it unless it actually becomes the standard and everyone is using it. Stop the compulsive upgrading to dead end parts.

I did this. Got rid of my fixed and 3 singlespeeds and moved anything I wanted to keep that wasn't 11s Di2 to Australia or Poland. Unfortunately I got into MTBs and that shit is all 12s microspline but hey ho, at least the Scott and Stanton can share wheels and groupset bits.

this is for the better in that we're not stuck with 53/39

I agree but on 110bcd 5 bolt you can fit a 34t inner ring