SRAM XX1 - Info, Reviews, quirks, avaiability and more

Over the last year, idea of SRAM's new XX1 group has captured the interest of mountain bikers around the world.    Here at Goose Creek  we like to see a solid season on a product line before we go deep and really buy into a new concept.  Our reasoning is that we like to see the bugs worked out on other peoples bikes before we drop the cash into the newest latest and greatest.   As an added perk,  pricing tends to come down after the initial production.    This all assumes that the product takes off,  and I think it is safe to sat that XX1 will be arouind for a while.

With a limited production in 2012 and a continued wait for the 2013 products to hit the market,  the biggest problem with the group right now is availability.   Rear derailleurs and trigger shifters are especially in demand as there is no substitute or compatability between groups.  On the bright side,  hub manufacturers are stepping up to the plate and we are seeing increased availability of drivers that will now allow you to use the specialty XX1 cassette on hubs from DT Swiss, Hope, Stans No Tube, Industry 9 and others.   So lets have a quick look at the group and see what the fuss is about.

Concept:   SRAM's basic idea was to take the simplicity of the 1X (one by) system an eliminate the quirks.   For the past few years we have seen riders go to 1X systems   in order to simplify their bikes and eliminate problems arising from chain suck, and shifting issues.    The primary problem is that with the number of dropped chains riders have started adding bash guards,  chain guides and other trinkets which basically offset the weight savings of eliminating derailleurs, shifters and rings.     The second problem is that by definition you lose gear range on both high and low end.   By using specialty chainrings and cassette,  SRAM solves both issues.

Chainrings:   One of the most crutial aspects of the system is the customized chainring which features variable widths on the rings so that the ring perfectly meshes with the different widths of the wide and narrow links in the chain.   The precision of these rings and slightly longer teeth, allow you to run the system without guards.

Cassette:   With a huge range on this 10-42T cassette you can ride in almost any condition without feeling that you are missing gears.    The biggest obsticle here is that the small 10T cog is too small for standard hubs,  so sram developed a specialty driver that will replace the free hub body on your hub.   

Driver:  Unless you buy a wheel pre-setup for XX1,  you will need to replace your free hub body with a driver.    Drivers are available for a wide range of hubs and more are being added to the list.  As new drivers are added,  the overall cost of the group comes down because you have a wider selection of wheels and a higher chance of simply adapting your current wheels to the system.st

Cost:  Expect a XX1 upgrade to cost you about $1300 at retail pricing.  

Availability:   Right now,  parts are scarce unless your shop has a group in stock,  but we should see SRAM releasing a new batch to the public soon.   Here at Goose Creek we are trying to by up as  much of the XX1 as possible so that we have service parts for our existing customers.  Look for products up on our wesite shortly and if you want to touch and feel,  we should have products in store to look at shortly.  

Find the problem, win a prize

Ok,  as professional bicycle mechanics,   a significant amount of what we do is undoing what home mechanics did at home.    You may or may not beleive the number of people who say "I was trying to do (fill in blanlk) and it just doesen't seem to work right,  so I am giving it to you to figure out."  Most common on the list is "I had some spokes loose so I tighented them..."  Occasionally a home mechanic will create a mystery by doing something strange like using parts that are not compatable.  Often it takes you a while to find the mistake because your brian just doesn't question that it could ever be set up the way it is.    At any rate,  here is one we didn't notice until we started to put the bike back together.   The first person to spot the problem in the picture, and post what it is in the comments section will get a free waterbottle.   Also we know that the chain is not installed,  we just hadn't gotten that far when the picture was taken, the problem is more interesting than that.     (if you are local, you will have to pick the bottle up at the shop,  if you are elsewhere,  we will send you a coupon for a free waterbottle with order from our website.   Contest excludes employees and people who saw this bike while in the shop.)

Update:  Congrats to Peter who was the first to spot the problem.   As a side note, it may interest you that on this same bike they asked us to install this crank....

Night Lights and roadside hazzards

A near death experiance prompts me to remind eeryone that when you are riding at night your lights are not only safety and for vision of the road,  but also for keeping an eye on what is going on around you.     Oddly enough I came to this realization while testing out the x-fire Bike Lane tail light so I was really paying more attention to what was going on behind me than in front.

Those of you who know me know that I am a big advocate of the Knog Skink front light that has plenty of power to see the road ahead of you,  and for my commutes I go back and forth between my 350 lumen off road light and my little Skink. 

On my way home last night I had my Skink and my Knog Strobe both on flash mode and my new Xfire on the rear.   It had grown dark buy I had not yet moved my lights to constant mode,  and I was on a small back road (Old LaGrange Road for you locals).    This road is roughly wide enough for a car and a half,  so when there was an oncomming car, I knew I had space, but needed to be close to the edge of the road.   Those of you who night ride know that if it is truly dark,  an oncomming cars lights will blind you, unless your lights overpower the cars.

So that is where I was,  hugging the side of the road with very little visibility and luckly going pretty slowly when suddenly a deer stepped right in front of me.  Fortunately I had scared it enought that is started runnig,  but I came within a foot of it before it disaperared in a clatter of hooves.   Two otherse crossed in front of me,  at least one behind me,  and I looked up I looked up in time to see a large buck siloetted against the night sky standing on top of the railroad track.  

I bet the car had a great view of me crashing throught a herd of deer, but all I saw was a white tail and the buck.  A scarry moment,  but a cool memory,  and a reminder that if you are not in the city your lights ought to be bright enough to see whats coming at you from the side of the road as well. 

No Credit card surcharges...

Some of you may be wondering if Goose Creek will be among those adding a surcharge to credit card transacctions.   We will not be adding any new credit card surcharges,  but the thing that has been lost in the coverage of the new surcharge policy is that YOU ALREADY PAY THEM at every retailer who accepts credit cards. 

The fees that merchants pay are so widely variable between different cards that there is no way to keep them straight.  I usually just assume that it will cost me about 3% to make it easy,  but each card has a different "exchange rate" which is a percentage of total trannsaction that is retained by the issuer of the card.  (when i say "each card" I really mean it,   a Visa issued by your PNC bank will have a different rate than one issued by your Rebublic banks,  will be different than a Visa Gold, or Visa Platinum they are all different)   On top of that a merchant service comany will apply their own fee for being your link to the exchange.  This will usually look like a per transaction fee plus a percentage, plus batch, and monthly fees.

If we forget about batch and monthly fees,   an individual transaction for a particular card may be $0.10 plus 2.2%.     So if a customer buys a $500 bike in Kentucky the money trail looks like this.

Cost of bike $500
tax $30
Total Purchase Price $530
Credit card fees charged to merchant $11.76
amount received by merchan for sale $518.24
Tax given to government $30
Net amount retained by merchant $488.24

Because the merchant has to make sure he is paying for the product, paying his employees and making money based on teh $488.24 number it is safe to say that you are already paying a $11.76 surcharge on this sale already.    Until recently the merchant could not itemize this surcharge, you paid for it even if you were a cash customer.    

To combat this,  Goose Creek instituted a 2% discount for cash and Dwolla sales over $60 some time ago.   We will not be changing this policy.  As always we appreciate your business,  and remind you that when you pay with cash your money is going to the people providing the service rather than the credit card companies.

The Fiscal Cliff Explained so a cyclist can understand it.

Three people are in a car about to drive off the fiscal cliff. The driver and the co-pilot are sitting in front and the cyclist is sitting in back along for the ride.

Driver: OMG we are about to drive off a fiscal Cliff!!!!!

Co-Pilot: Quick Turn the wheel and get us back on the road!!!!

Driver:  No can do, this road is clearly too dangerous to be driving on.

Cyclist: Why am I in a car,  I hate cars.

Co-Pilot:  Just follow this road a little further, I'm sure we can find another way down.

Cyclist:  But the signs the whole way up have said "Warning: Dead end and Fall hazard"

C-pilot:  I don't think they really meant that, they were just trying to scare you, lets go a little higher.

Driver: Besides I am pretty sure that if we floor it, tilt our heads to the left, close one eye and hope really hard,  a bunch of pink sparkly faeries will catch us and set us back on the ground.

Co-Pilot:  That's Crazy

Driver:  Just because you are a bigot and don't think faeries are as good as the rest of us doesn't mean they aren't real and won't help us.  In fact, the only way my plan can fail is if you don't hope for the faeries hard enough.  So if we total the car and sustain serious bodily harm after I drive this car off the cliff, it will actually be your fault because you are a racist.

Co-Pilot: I'm not racist, in fact my daughter has a binder with faeries all over it, and I help her with the math homework that she keeps in it.  Why just the other day I was having lunch with my friend Larry,  and I brought up the topic of her binder full of faeries and was saying how great it was that she would share it with me and if she lets me I am going to bring it with me to work next week.  So don't tell me I don't like Faeries because....

Cyclist:  Um.. guys we are still driving towards a cliff.  Couldn't we just turn around?

Co-Pilot:  Not anymore,  I just paid a friend of mine at the DOT 5 million dollars to move the bottom half mile of the road to the top of the mountain to buy us some  more time,  but bozo here is intent on driving off this cliff here instead of the one we just put in on the top. 

Cyclist:  I think I just saw some sweet singletrack, let me grab my bike off the top of the car. 

Driver:  Not just now I need to get up some speed if we are to break through the guardrail

Co-pilot:  Couldn't we just drive the rest of the way up with two wheels over the edge and two on the road.

Driver:  Nope your plan won't work,  it's my way or nothing. 

Co- pilot:  Ok,  but if it doesn't work,  I blame you.

Driver:  I'm Flying!!!!!!

Co-pilot:  No this is free fall,  where are the faeries?

Driver: You are not hoping hard enough!  we are going to crash

Diver and Co-pilot together:  This is your fault!!!!

Co-pilot:  Hey where did spandex boy go?

 (2  miles away heading for some sweet singletrack)

Cyclist:  mmm Singletrack......

Buy Nice Pedals

I have long said that upgrading a bike to clipless pedals is the single greatest upgrade you can make to a bike. I also remind friends and customers that unlike most other upgrades,  it is one that you will take with you to your next bike.  So while it may not be worth spending $500 on a new suspension fork and putting it on a $300 bike, spending a little extra on the pedals is well worth it because they will look just as nice on your next bike.

All this really hit home when one the guys here asked me about a set of pedals I was putting on my new road bike,  and I realized that I had had them for about 13 years.  There are all sorts of stories here,  but let me run through some examples of pedals I have owned and I think you will see where I am going with it.

First clipless pedals were $30 cheapie SPD style Welgos I bought online.  Rode them on my mountain bike and destroyed them in a season,  repurchased them and destroyed the second set as well.

Time MTB pedals -  Started running Time's on a recommendation from a teammate.   Due to cash constraints I bought the less expensive Time ATAC pedals. Loved the system but found myself destroying them regularly.  It was to the point where I had a box of spare pedals and if ever I had both a left and a right pedal in there I would run them as a set.   Finally I sprung for the Time World Cup Pedals which were times high end version of the same pedal I was riding.   I didn't think about it at time, but as the World Cups quietly worked on one of my bikes I continued to destroy the others on my other bike.
Ended up selling all my pedals (including the World Cups) when I switched to Crank Brothers as I was frusterated with breaking so many pedals.

Crank Brothers-  Landed a sponsorship deal with Crank Brothers and was riding two sets of EggBeater Twin Ti. pedals which were one step off of the top of the line.   After countless 24 hour races, thousands of hours of training, and more abuse than I care to mention,  I am still riding these pedals after over 11 years.  Naturally I was really happy with them and have been singing the praises of Eggbeaters.   A few years ago I brought my wife on board and bought her a cheap set (MRX) of Eggbeaters for her occasional riding,  I also had a second set that I was going to put on my commuter, but never got around to it until a year and a half ago.   In about a year of commuting on the MRX I destoyed a bearing and cracked the shell on the pedal,  and if finally dawned on me.

 I was not breaking pedals because of the brands,  I was breaking pedals because of the quality I was purchasing from that brand.

Suddenly spending $200 on a pedal that will last 10 or more years and outlast 3 bikes makes more sense than buying a new set of $60 pedals every year.

In summary:

Nice Twin Ti Eggbeaters -  11 years and counting
Nice Look Road pedals - 13 years and counting
$180 Times - Rode for 2 seasons and then sold them in good condition.
$30 wellgo's - Less than a season and done
$60 Time's - about a season

Conclusion:  Buy nice pedals.  It is well worth the investment.

Rookie Mistake, Pro Save

Ok,  we have all been there,  you get in a hurry and do something dumb.  So if you need to feel better about yourself,  here is my dumb story and the trailside fix that let me take my son on his first mountain bike ride rather than pack it up and go home.

So here is the short version of the mess up.   Going to take my son mountain biking,  but running behind.   Pump up rear tire. Pump up Front tire but there is a problem at the valve and it is losing air.  

Discover that the valve has separated from my stan's tubeless rim strip.

Remove rim strip.

Forget to sweep the tire.  (note:  if you are running tubeless with Stan's solution, just because you didn't go flat doesn't mean there are no thorns in your tire.  I find that there are ALWAYS thorns in my tire, which make me even dumber for not sweeping it out)

Put in spare tube.

Grab Spare tube and saddle bag off wifes bike

Go to park.

Discover that tube in now flat and leaking rapidly when inflated.

Choose now as a time to remember that wifes bike has schraeder valves so I can't use her spare tube.   Also a good time to notice that her patch kit has rubber cement that is no longer usable.

Now we are at the decision point,  go home or try something drastic.   I will have you know that Lane and I rode for 5 miles which is what made this picture possible.

Also know that the fix lasted not only for the five mile ride,  but also sat in my garage overnight,  and made the 15 mile commute into work the next day without having to re-inflate.

So if you get in a bind and need to fix a flat tire without a spare tube or a patch,  this is one of my favorite trailside fixes.  This is the second time it has bailed me out,  but you can check out the pictures of us undoing the fix at the shop the next day....

 Photo 1:   Me riding in the shop on the temporary fix which has been holding for over 24 hours

 The reveal of how the fix was accomplished....

The 26" Tube which was tied in a knot to make what amounts to a 22" tube which can be stretched to fit a 26" wheel / tire.   Small section of the tire that would have a flat spot due to not having air in it is counter balanced by the extra rubber from the knot and the part of the tube with the hole.  As long as you tie a nice tight knot this fix rides well and gets you back on the trail.  Hope this saves a ride for you sometime.