In this month’s news show we are covering the fallout from Shimano’s crankset recall. What has happened? Which cranksets are affected? And we answer your questions about cycling’s biggest product recall ever!
Elsewhere we dive into the first ever ebike motor from SRAM, that has an automatic gear shifting function. Are bikes becoming cars?
With the release of the Pinarello Dogma X, 2024 Giant Defy, and the Specialized Rouaix SL8, we look at the resurgence of the endurance bike. Wider tyres are becoming the norm, does this mean they’re becoming gravel bikes?
Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:25 Cycling’s Biggest Ever Product Recall
04:38 Bikes Going Automatic
08:22 Are Endurance Bikes Just Gravel Bikes Now?
Read More About Shimano’s Crankset Recall
→ https://www.bikeradar.com/news/shimano-crankset-recall/
→ https://www.bikeradar.com/features/opinion/shimano-crankset-recall-analysis/
NEW SRAM Powertrain eMTB Motor | Future Of Cycling Drivetrains?
→ https://youtu.be/L7PZmjoTdqg
THESE Are The Fastest Road Bikes in 2023
→ https://youtu.be/8YemrSZYRM0
NEW 2024 Giant Defy | What’s Changed? + First Ride Review
→ https://youtu.be/iuVRo-LiZVk
The Gravel Rider’s Choice? Specialized Roubaix SL8 First Ride Review
→ https://youtu.be/zUU1yBCuSVE
BAN Gimmicks From Bikes! News Show Ep.6
→ https://youtu.be/6xexdbdzBM4
The Pinarello Dogma X
→ https://www.bikeradar.com/news/pinarello-dogma-x/
Listen to the BikeRadar Podcast
→ https://www.bikeradar.com/bikeradar-podcast/
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Hello and welcome to this month’s news show we’ve got a packed show with plenty to discuss from The Fallout of Shamano crank set recall yes and we’ve also got a tech development that makes your bike like an automatic car and a steady moves towards gravel of the humble endurance
Bike there’s a lot to get through so let’s start with problems for Shimano we will start with one of the Year’s biggest stories in the cycling industry if you didn’t already know Shimano has recalled a number of its crank sets with 2.8 million units affected globally this is a global recall of some of shimano’s 11-speed holch Road crank sets with more than
760,000 affected in North America alone the United States consumer product safety commission says the recall applies to cranks over an 11-year period from January 2012 through August 2023 3 after a reported 4,519 instances of crank sets separating there have been some questions from you our viewers and as ever some of you have
Provided some let’s say excellent ways at looking at this before we take a look at those I just want to give you the basic facts if you have not seen them yet so firstly we’ll pop the affected cranks on the screen now uh the recall affects both crank sets specs on
Complete bikes and aftermarket uh so if you bought some cranks just alone then these are affected too y inspections will be done up participating local bike shops North America is the first for inspections and those should have started already Europe and the rest of the world should follow soon consumers
Whose crank sets show sign of bonding separation or delamination during the inspection will be provided a free replacement crank set from Shimano that the dealer will professionally install and the replacement cranks will come from shimano’s 12-speed ranges now some of you have asked about cranks that
Failed before the recall and that was a question that I had as well well prior to shimano’s announcements cranks that failed out of their original warranty period may not have been replaced this may mean that many riders were forced to purchase new cranks neither of shimano’s statements includes details on whether
These Riders who have previously replaced crank their own expense due to a failure would be in line for new crank sets or some other kind of compensation we asked Shimano for an answer and they told us that if a rider still has the effective crank set it
Will be considered as a new case and can be taken to the dealer for inspection if it has been discarded however Shimano won’t take any action then if your cranks are affected by the recall but are deemed safe to use by the professional dealer you won’t get a
Replacement I don’t know how you feel about that Tom but I’m not sure I’d be really reassured I’d certainly be inspecting my own CS regularly if not changing them just in case many of you have also asked why Shimano has waited for so long given this issue has been
Known about and reported on by several media Outlets including us for a number of years we asked Shimano why they issued such a large scale recall said they monitor any warranty issues that arise with all of their products Unfortunately they followed that up by saying that they are not able to go into
The specifics of the process and timing with the authorities this is one of the main issues with the whole situation there has been a lack of clarity that has left many of you at home as well as us with some questions but at least some
Of you can see the ligh as side yes I did like this particular comment Checkmate Shimano I bought Sora built like a tank and then there’s this one from Kevin good thing I can only afford tagra Tom you’ve been a bike mechanic and I’ve been a bike mechanic as well
How many of these cranks have you seen cuz I’ve only seen one in the past yeah if I recall correctly from my memory I think it was five that I saw in my time at a retailer and that does go back quite a while in my case as well I don’t
Know when your example was Liam but several years ago yeah so we are both intrigued as to why Shimano have only just issued this recall but we’d love to know more of your thoughts so let us know down in the Comments while Shimano was having a very bad time samam has launched an ebike motor that makes your bike like an automatic car now I bet you’ve got lots of things to say no idea what you mean I’ve never had any opinions on electric bikes or cars either seriously though putting my ebike
Prejudices aside Eagle powertrain is definitely going to make some waves it’s shrams first motor and perhaps surprisingly I was certainly surprised by this it’s teamed up with an existing motor manufacturer rather than going it alone yeah so they’re using a Bros motor which is similar to specialized I
Believe yeah absolutely so if you already have a specialized turbo ebike you’ll be familiar with the motor and the top tube display is very very similar too so while it is similar to the specialized unit it does does get a unique tune to Shram so it packs more
Power at 680 WS of peak assistance versus 565 wats of the specialized version Peak torque is the same at 90 Newton met and Battery capacities are 720 W hours and 630 W hours while there is also the option of a 250 W hour range extender available separately if you want to know more
About the motor then be sure to check out our launch video but Liam I want to talk to you about how we interacts with shr’s transmission as you alluded to that seems like the biggest thing for me now I don’t want to spoil Alex’s excellent video but he seems to think
That Bosch is still the motor of choice now as an entire ebike powertrain though samam has got it covered better than pretty much anyone else haven’t they really in Alex’s own words he does think that if you were to isolate the ebike motor on its own then Bosch still has
The edge in terms of its power delivery and power but overall does seem to think that powertrain is a better system overall does have the auto shift feature as we’ve alluded to so that will shift you automatically between gears and Coast shift as well which is actually
Similar to link Glide di2 Liam which I think you’re fairly familiar with with di2 things I do like a bit of di2 but what I want to come back to Tom is how is this like an automatic car is this literally going to change gears for you
You yeah absolutely so using an array of sensors on the bike it will shift gears for you it’s a very very clever system you can fool it though which we had a few times while we were filming and Alex had while testing so if you’re going bombing downhill and then you suddenly
Get to a steep incline back up you’ll go to Power into it and normally I mean I certainly would I’d stay in the change gear and up my Cadence but in this situation it will change into a harder gear for you so where is a human in
Control of the drivetrain would go oh I just want to keep it in this gear powertrain will shift into a harder gear for you and while you can’t override that it’s not fully automatic so there is still a semi-automatic thing in there but it is definitely an interesting
Development I certainly see this being massively popular with people that just want to hop on a bike and go across town maybe they’ve got a couple of hills in the way they want the assistance of the motor but then they don’t really want to deal with changing gear and all of that
Stuff so they just pedal it can’t be any simpler really but until we can really you know sort of as I allus to in the video until we have a bike that can actually read the trail ahead of you and act in the way that a human would it
Might not be perfect every time for experienced Riders but certainly for newbies as Liam alludes to could be a great system to try out so once again let us know your thoughts in the Comments now moving onto endurance road bikes and road race bikes are a bit long and low for many of us so endurance bikes have long been a popular choice for club and recreational cyclists I mean they’ve always offered the feel of a road bike with wider tires and a
Slightly more accessible position but the latest generation of endurance bikes have in my eyes at least strayed dangerously into gravel bike territory yeah I’d have to agree I mean recently we’ve seen new bikes from specialized giant Pinella with the the ru sl8 the defi the Dogma X offering tie clearance
That we’d have seen previously on gravel bikes just a few years ago in fact specialized is openly admitting that with front suspension and flex built into the rear end their gravel Racers will likely be choosing the rub Bay for some gravel events in the future now as
A fan of comfort and a user of full length mud guards I love seeing all of this space but big tire clearances do have an effect on the geometry which Chang is how the bike handles um Tom what does adding bigger tires do to the way that the bike handles well if you’ve
Got a bigger tire the main difference is going to be in the fork clearance and also in the rear end of the bike as well so to fit a bigger tire in you physically need more space so the fork has to be longer which means the front
End is higher the rear end also has to be longer to accommodate that so it is going to slow down the bike’s handling so you’re not going to have your sub you know thousand mm wheelbase on some of these bikes with these bigger tires I I
Guess that makes it for Road riders that might make it a bit slow in terms of the handling if you are used to a road race bike but if you are someone that just likes chilling out for a few hours on your ride then this is going to be a
Nice relaxed ride isn’t it yeah definitely so it’s not going to feel as sharp on descents or in tight twisty sections where you really want to flick it from one qu to the next but if you’re like me and you as well Liam when we
Just want to go for big long days out in the saddle you don’t want to go crazy fast it’s just nice to have that bit of extra stability you can sit back a bit relax enjoy the view enjoy the good British Countryside so yeah these bikes are definitely popular for a reason and
Like we said you can even stray onto gravel as well I would say though Tom I think endurance bikes have actually been released from their shackles a little bit cuz these days they don’t have to be race ready in terms of the UCI for road racing because the teams are using their
Regular road race bikes for like the cobal classic so it has kind of allowed Brands to be a bit more inventive with their insurance bikes cuz they’re not you know hemmed into what the pros want no definitely I mean Pros are using 28 mil rubber now for racing the which is
Well yeah and the rest even bigger sometimes which is what used to be The Preserve of the endurance bike so those lines between Road Race endurance are blurred so it seems pretty logical to me that the grounds between a gravel bike and an endurance bike would merge I mean
I had a Genesis Dayton which was one of their first gravel bikes which came with 32 mil Tire as a standard you know and that was considered a gravel bike back then I mean definitely an interesting move in the right direction I would say that there is still a clear difference
Between endurance road bikes and gravel bikes Tire clearance for Two Plus in tires on some gravel bikes for example is is the absolute def ining feature of some of those bikes there’s also the slacker positions for better off-road handling lower gearing to kind of winch yourself up those off-road climbs and
Also additional mounting points for carrying all sorts of bags and snacks yeah you’ve got like Fork Mount SL yeah all the snacks cake or waffles in Felix’s case um but yeah we’ve seen one by gearing a lot more on gravel bikes as well and while we have a whole separate
Video on why one by gearing should be kept to off-road bikes on the road it’s still not really a thing but obviously massive in the gravel world so still a couple of differences between the two that separate them out but the lines as ever with the bike industry are just bluring
More and more uh what do you think of this do you like the fact that all bikes are coming in sort of a grally road form or do you prefer to have your road bike your gravel bike your endurance bike your mountain bike all those nice separate things let us know in the
Comments below so if shr’s automatic shifting ebike motor has picked your interest then be sure to check out Alex’s excellent first R review video with the link just up here before you go remember to like And subscribe and we will see you next time I can get down off me soap box now
26 Comments
What do you think of Sram's new Powertrain?
Disappointed. A tad cranky…
Thats a failure rate of 0.6% How does that compare to crank sets of other manufactures?
You say there’s multiple 11 speed cranksets and then show a 12 speed one…Then you said it’s a global recall which is also wrong, it’s a global inspection and only a recall in the US, that combined with the awful background music meant I didn’t get any further. A shame
if you search for "shimano crank recall", you won't find GCN's video.
The 105 double cranks I was using I had no issues with!, however I used flat bar and the RSL7000 105 rapid fire Shimano shifters that kept jamming and the rackets breaking. Also the cables to the front mech would jam and also the rear the barrel adjuster thread stripped. So I did not have a great experience with flat bar build !😢
I do have to say I agree with you on the gravel bike road bike segment. I just got myself in September a salsa journeyer GRX 600 2x 650b. And I got to say this is a snappy bike. When I've been out riding it I'm thinking of myself geez I could put a set of 700c wheels and slicks on this thing and I could race a crit on it. Yeah the 46 chainring on the front would be a little small, but I could easily change that to a 48, my road race bike has a 48 on the front and I do just fine 😎.
I was wondering why my backordered cranks have been pushed back 3 times, 2+ months each time. Talking the 1x Deore XT, so not the same, but I'm interested in how this recall is effecting business as a whole.
Mine creaks and they won't send it back. So f.. shimano. there has to be a crack visible.
Most of us can recall when we thought Shimano would never issue a recall. A shifty company with the best shifting components!
Never ride Shimano again. For any reason. They have lost my trust. It is that simple.
It's a nice show but your speech feels heavily over-scripted. It's like listening to robots
I have yet to try one out. But, that “automatic transmission” looks mighty attractive for commuters.
Such crap. Poor design, proven faults, no escaping this. Yet they only are replacing cranks with VISIBLE defects. They are there under the surface!
The cranksets should be eddy current inspected, not just visual, fwiw Boeing had similar problems in lap joints during the 90, nothing new here I use fsa cranks
Awesome video on Shimano's crank recall,how can the go from forging crankarms to bonding in such a critical high stress area.Glad mine are solid Shimano crankarms.💯✌🏻🚴♀️
shitmano
5:39 like if you immediately thought of the peak torque YouTube channel.
Shimano re-writes the definition of the word, 'recall'. Recall is commenced to avoid from a negative incident. It's not a recall, if customers already experienced the crank arm falling off, and had to pay for the replacement(s). Yet Shimano still persists to take this, 'examine by professional first' before approving a recall, and doesn't fully refund for the pwoermeter attachment.
Since the problems with the Ultegra cranks have been known for some time, I ride 105 cranks with a large Ultegra chainring and aluminum chainring screws as well as titanium crank screws. Because Ultegra cranks are much more expensive, the Stages power meters in particular cost significantly more.
Mine broke outside warranty so I binned it… Shame as I had a 4iiii power meter so the whole thing ended up costing me a fair bit as replaced with a quarq because wasn't confident with Shimano hollowtech… I have photographic evidence so I think Shimano should give me some sort of compensation
Are older versions affected too? I run a 2010 ten speed Ultegra crankset on my roadbike and, upon inspection, there appears to be narrow gap. So far it has held up fine but I'm beginning to wonder…
Camoagnolo is king
I live in Singapore and I have cranks that fall under the recall. Nobody here knows what is going on. In North America, people are told NOT to ride their bikes and to have the cranks inspected asap. In the UK, a dealer shows the inspection process where everything is taken apart and photographed. Here, the closest SSC will only "eyeball" the cranks and they told me to listen for creaking sounds. I am not reassured by that. Very unhappy with the situation.
"May mean" is a huge understatement. Many thousands have had failures and had to buy a new crank out of pocket. The old, now being broken and useless, were thrown away! Those people will get nothing! My 9000 crank failed in 2017, I replaced it with a 6800 and now it has failed. I took the 6800 into a dealer and will get a replacement but the broken 9000 crank arm is long gone and I will get nothing for it. They waited 4 years after they fixed the problem to address the issue so many cranks have been broken and thrown away and can't be replaced for free. I am not impressed with how they handled the problem.
Are the Ultegra R8100 cranks also affected. I wanted to buy a bike with that groupset