Bike Manufacturers Are Making Bikes Less Repairable
Bike Manufacturers Are Making Bikes Less Repairable
Just like cars, tractors, computers, and seemingly every other product category, bikes—and especially e-bikes—are going all black box on us.
Ifixit take on current bike/e-bike manufacturers.
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It's funny that the high end (human powered/"analog") bikes tend to actually be pretty good at this. Want to change your $5k+ bike from 11s to 12s? Yep, should be doable --- you'll need to replace group set and possibly the rear hub, but it's totally possible.
Upgrade from cable to electronic shifting? Again, totally doable.
Switch from Shimano to SRAM or Campy? Yep, should be possible.
Now, if you crack your carbon frame...well, that's another story.
When you crack your carbon frame you can move the other gear to the new frame (though it's a bit tatty and the new SRAM drivetrain is so much cooler than the old one
(I buy a frameset and whatever specialist gear from a manufacturer and have a local bike mech turn it into a bike, I reckon I'm pretty safe from the problem as long as I'm able to run human powered)
Except if they change BB or axle spacing standards, which seems to be happening every few years.
I struggled to find a half decent 135 QR 29er wheel last year for my Trek Xcaliber. A nearly $2000CDN bike from 2016 with nothing wrong except the free hub, and everywhere told me to just get a new bike.
I like my bikes, but I really hate the people running the industry.
Trek is particularly bad about this: they now sell a "platform" instead of a bike. This makes it comparably hard to get replacements for a Domane or CheckPoint because certain parts are sized for that bike and that bike only.
But a 135 QR 29er wheel isn't that special, so finding one that wasn't either a junk hub or $600 hub shouldn't have been an issue. Even finding TA non boost wheels is becoming difficult.
I ended up finding a lightly used Nukeproof wheel for around $100.
Thankfully the fork on that same bike is just using off the shelf SRAM parts.
I'm a road bike guy, so that's probably my ignorance showing. I've sat out the recent evolution in MTB stuff.