[Closed] So road boost is now a thing...

Meh, the 12x148 standard is what? At least 5 years old now.

Yep Q-Factor's for me a big deal, even off-road, and gravel's more on-road stylistically than off-road. I definitely don't see an e-bike in my near future and I've recently sold some X01 cranks and replaced with XX1 (not Eagle) for my MTB and the difference is night and day. That's a Q-Factor difference of 12mm though, i.e, dropping from 168mm to 156mm so not ~6mm like they're talking about here.

Annoying for those who want to share wheelsets between bikes.

Might be useful for those who want to share wheelsets ebtween MTBs and road/gravel bikes as well, in the longer term?

Though you'd need an adaptor or different end caps for the front axle.

Makes sense to me.

My gravel bike has old XC 29er rims. On the MTB the same model rim lasted years of abuse before being sold on the bike. On the gravel bike with more gears and narrower hubs they last a handful of rides before needing attention. The disk side spokes are basicly still slack when the drive side is over the max tension for the rim.

Swapping wheels...... mehh. I swap tyres every few months but other than that leave them be. I have summer and winter wheels on my road bike but TBH that has just lead to now owning multiple sets of obsolete wheels (10s QR rim brake) and no prospect of wearing them out. I should have just worn the nicer ones down over a winter and justified a new bike by now!

Remind me what was wrong with 12 x 142?

I'd be happy if that was the standard for everything, boost makes so little difference as to be laughable. Because, you know, all of my 135 and 142 wheels have just fallen apart.

Nothing was wrong with it, it’s just that finally the bike industry has settled an a size again, that’s 12x148. Good.

bike industry has settled an a size again

Marketing and sales department needed to drum up some sales again.

The 12mm front axle is just stupid though, but since when did the cycling industry make sense?

Marketing and sales department needed to drum up some sales again.

In the middle of a sales rush where bikes are pretty much on back order for a year in some cases? I very much doubt it. If it was purely to drum up sales then they would hold back until sales start to drop off and then release the news.

As long as there are plenty of adaptable hubs available at various price points then it's no big issue, the number of people who buy a bike and only change the wheel/s when they break is far larger than the minority who have multiple sets of wheels that they move between bikes.

So wait there are what, 3 sizes now? A couple of fronts and a rear standard. I think most folk can live with that. I’m never going to be in a position when I’d want to swap a MTB front wheel with a road bike front wheel ( although clearly some folk will). And as you can still buy 100mm and even 135mm hubs, I really can’t see this being an issue.

Is that the article that states a benefit of 12mm Vs 15mm for the front axle is the superior aero of the smaller front hub shell?

You could answer your own question by looking at it.

So is 12x148 the standard rear axle now then?

I'm still on a qr rear wheel 😂

nickc
Full Member

Nothing was wrong with it, it’s just that finally the bike industry has settled an a size again, that’s 12×148. Good.

Which is more or less what road people said last time they got hit with a new bolt-through standard. Road and mtb aren't the same, what's the benefit to a single standard? Bearing in mind that Boost didn't even bring meaningful standards to mountain bikes.

If the goal were really to have a single standard it'd have settled on 12/142 and 15/100. It's clearly not.

Road and mtb aren’t the same, what’s the benefit to a single standard?

Just a thought, but there may be a big benefit to hub manufacturers.

Boost didn’t even bring meaningful standards to mountain bikes.

Fact check - A big majority of quality MTBs now come with Boost hub spacing, and that looks unlikely to change any time soon.

There will be no superfast wheel changes from your own personal team car that we all have. 🙂

chakaping
Full Member

Fact check – A big majority of quality MTBs now come with Boost hub spacing,

True- but that doesn't mean it's a positive change, and while pretty much all quality mtbs are now boost, they still make up a minority of bikes sold, and a minority of bikes in use. It has no real advantages as the "one new standard to rule them all", in fact its only real "advantage" was that it was new and required new parts and had bad compatibility. Exact same now for road.

I don't think it's cynical to point this all out- they're literally just repeating a trick which worked very well for mountain bikes, just now with road instead.

Meanwhile, 142x12 and 100x15/110x12 still has the best backwards and forwards compatibility and interchangability, and a high level of current use in road (it was already touted as the "one standard" and a lot of people have bought into that). What it lacks, is the ability to make things obsolete, which apparently is a crippling disadvantage.

I really thought boost/not boost was going to be the dividing line between ‘road gravel’ and ‘mtb gravel’ (or cross and monstercross, gravel and drop bar mtb, whatever you want to call it) and I think it still could. It makes a lot more sense to me to match the hubs to the tyres and drivetrain you’re likely to use rather than the shape of the handlebars and I think there’s a slim chance most of the bike industry could make to at distinction sensibly.

I was a lot happier when every wheelset I owned was just an endcap away from being used on every bike I owned though.