- If you've read any Greek mythology, you know about the Trojan War. The Greeks lay siege to
Troy for about 10 years. They get nowhere. They can't get past the walls. And so, they make a peace
offering, this big wooden horse. The Trojans accept this gift graciously. They actually bring it inside
the walls of their city. But then that night, a
whole bunch of soldiers just pour out of this big wooden horse, open up the gates, and let the
entire Greek army into Troy. What does this have to do
with Eagle Transmission? (upbeat music) So first of all, Eagle Transmission is SRAM's latest mountain bike drivetrain. And it has a lot of benefits
and a lot of differences from drivetrains that came before it. First of all, it's super durable. You can stand on it and
it'll stay perfectly aligned. You'll have no shifting problems. It's only available as a wireless, battery-powered drivetrain. And it shifts better under load. And so, when you're pedaling really hard and shifting at the last second, you hear all those crunching noises. (drivetrain crunching) SRAM actually recommends
you shift while doing that. And so, this is really different. (upbeat music) And you might be thinking, that
all sounds really expensive. And you'd be right. But SRAM recently
introduced GX Transmission, which means we're gonna
start seeing this technology on bikes that mortals can afford. And so, you're probably going
to cross paths with this at some point. What does it mean? (upbeat music) Let's start with how Eagle
Transmission mounts to the bike. This is an old bike frame. It's actually part of my tall bike which is composed of early
'90s mountain bike frames. And you can see here the derailleur is attached directly to the frame on this little dangly
piece of metal over here that's commonly referred to
as the derailleur hanger. And in a crash, if the
derailleur gets impacted, the derailleur hanger bends and then your shifting is all messed up, never works the same again unless you align the derailleur hanger. Now, aligning it involves
this tool right here, a derailleur hanger alignment gauge. You basically bend the
thing back straight again. You do that enough times
and it's just weak. It's gonna snap off. And unless you're a good fabricator, this entire bike frame is trash. And so, with the proliferation
of mountain bikes, replaceable derailleur
hangers became a mainstay on any real bicycle. So thankfully, there are companies
like Wheels Manufacturing that stock thousands of
these and have a fit guide. There's basically one
for every single bike. And remember, these
are engineered to fail. And so, they do. They get bent and your
shifting gets all messed up. And most people don't own a derailleur hanger alignment gauge. In fact, according SRAM, over
half of drivetrain issues are caused by this little guy
here, the derailleur hanger. But as you saw, Eagle Transmission seems to mount directly to the bike. It doesn't use a derailleur hanger at all. Isn't that going right back to square one? Aren't we gonna start
ruining bike frames again when the derailleur gets hit? Well, no, because it's
not actually mounted to the bike frame. (upbeat music) So, yes, while this does appear to clamp around the bike frame, the
thru-axle is running through it. This is a big chunk of tubular aluminum. It's pretty strong, really,
really hard to bend, and if it does, it's replaceable. Eagle transmission
mounts to the thru-axle. And so, again, why did it
take so long to think of this? Well, thru-axles vary in diameter. Most bikes have a very different rear end. And sometimes the derailleur hanger itself is an integral part of
where the wheel mounts. And so, to make it work, we would go from needing a different
derailleur hanger for every bike to needing a different
derailleur for every bike. That's much worse. And so, SRAM played a little
trick on the bike industry. (upbeat music) Enter the UDH, the
Universal Derailleur Hanger that SRAM first hatched back in 2016. It's a universal derailleur
hanger that any bike company is welcome to use with no licensing fee. And many bike companies did welcome the Universal Derailleur
Hanger with open arms. And they unknowingly were
making their bikes compatible with a drivetrain that
wouldn't see the light of day until 2023. That's right, UDH was never
about making all bikes use the same derailleur hanger. It was about making the rear
ends of all bikes the same so that transmission would fit on it. So if you think I've
lost my mind in proposing that SRAM executed a conspiracy, well, actually, they're pretty open about that being the case. (upbeat music) So by the time SRAM released Transmission, there were hundreds of bikes using the same derailleur hanger. When you take it off, the
rear of all those bikes are exactly the same, including my Sage. Remember, this is a
completely custom-built bike, and it happens to use UDH. I had no idea we were making it compatible with Transmission. (upbeat music) (wheel clanging) (ratchet clicking) And so, because this mounts
to every single mountain bike exactly the same, SRAM
was able to make it do some pretty interesting things. For example, they were able to replace the yaw parallelogram with the inline cage to keep the lower pulley in
line with the front chain ring without compromising the
alignment of the upper pulley. I'm not gonna be talking about that. Let's just talk about
what it means to you. (upbeat music) So first of all, the
direct mount interface by definition eliminates
the derailleur hanger. And so, half the problems
you would normally have with a drivetrain vanish. It's also super strong, and so this thing can take impact after impact
and still work perfectly, just like a crankset or a pedal. That's not the end of
where it can be abused. You can also shift like
an animal with this thing. (upbeat music) SRAM actually recommends
you pedal as hard as you can as you are shifting this. That's very different
from what we're used to. Normally, if you shift at the last second and you're putting down torque, you hear all sorts of crunching noises. The chain can even get bound
up and just stop you dead. It's also how you snap chains. And somehow, transmission shifts better when you are pedaling hard. Now, I like to put it a different way. It doesn't shift well
unless you're pedaling hard. Actually, in the shop, when
I was first testing mine after I installed it, it just didn't seem to be shifting right. It wasn't shifting as
smooth as my old derailer. And I asked a technician
about it and they said, "Yeah, you can't really
test that in the shop. You have to go out on the trail." And they were right. When you're riding the bike as intended, if shifts incredibly. And then up on the stand, when you're just kind of soft
pedaling it and testing it, it doesn't shift as smooth
as a conventional derailleur. (upbeat music) Now, I've been shifting
gears for a really long time. I'm used to doing it a certain way. And this is kind of a
learning curve for me. It's a little bit of an adjustment. But when I sit around and think about it, it's hard for it not to
just be objectively better. Consider you're a cross country racer, and you are sprinting
and need to shift gears, and you have to start soft pedaling, and you're competitor can just shift gears while pedaling as hard as they can. That's gonna put you at a
pretty big disadvantage. And as usual, just like
when the threadless headset and the suspension fork were introduced, there are no shortage of
Luddites and curmudgeons that have big problems with this. Oh, new riders that only use this, they're never gonna learn to soft pedal. They're never gonna need to soft pedal. But there are skeptics that have some legitimate concerns about this. And so, let's talk about some of the more
constructive criticisms. (upbeat music) First of all, it's not a transmission. Why are they calling it Transmission? They're actually calling
it that for a reason. There's a new chain, a new cassette, a new chainring, crankset. All this stuff works
together to make it work, and so they're calling it a Transmission. That's just the name. Another criticism is
that it's only available as a wireless drivetrain. And a lot of people don't like that. Wireless drivetrains are,
in most cases, heavier. And a lot of people
just don't like the fact that it takes batteries. You gotta keep 'em charged. There's a wireless
connection between the two. It understandably introduces
a lot of other issues, but we've already been
able to see with SRAM AXS that there are not that
many issues to speak of. It's pretty dang reliable. I actually have fewer problems with my wireless drivetrains than with my mechanical drivetrains. So why did they make it wireless only? Well, it's not the wireless
part, it's the electronic part. There's a lot of timing
going on over here. SRAM calls it shift lanes. The cassette is engineered in such a way where there are lanes. There are certain spots where
the chain's supposed to shift, and that's what makes it
possible to shift under load. That's only possible if
you make it electronic. And so, why not make it wireless? The other criticism is
everything's proprietary. There's a new chainring,
there's a new flat top chain, which is pricey. There's a new cassette. That's just the name of the game. It matters a lot now, but
it's not gonna matter much in a few years when everything
is compatible with this. Another criticism is that it's heavier. That's true, it's heavier. A lot of people would say
they'd rather trade a few grams for a derailleur that doesn't
fall outta whack all the time, a derailleur that you
can smack into a log, lay the bike down on its side. That's a good trade
off for certain people. But if you want a lighter derailleur, you can just throw a UDH on the bike. Now, the other criticism
is the learning curve on the installation. Now, I'm not gonna say this
is difficult to install because once you've run through it and you know all the steps, it's actually easier than
other derailleurs to install. But the tolerances are
really, really tight. You have to use a torque
wrench on your cassette, your thru-axle. I have never used a torque
wrench to install a derailleur. And a lot of home mechanics
don't even own one. And that stuff is essential. You have to get that all right
for this to work properly. And so, it's a valid criticism. But like I said, once it's set up, you're not supposed to really
have to do anything to it. You're kind of trading the
derailleur hanger alignment gauge for the torque wrench. (upbeat music) Another common criticism, it shifts slow. And it's true. If you dump, like, five
gears at the same time, it waits for the cassette
to be in the right spot before it shifts each gear. And so, you have to choose
between soft pedaling and shifting really fast
or laying down the power and shifting a little slower. And so, what do I think of it? What has my experience been? Well, I've tried this on
two different bikes so far, and when you're just
pedaling around on the trail, it doesn't feel any different
from any other drivetrain that's come before it. What feels different is when
you're shifting under load. You can do the most heinous shifts, just doing things that
would absolutely massacre any other derailleur, and it just does it. And sometimes I forget I can do that and I catch myself soft pedaling. And I'm wondering what it's gonna be like when I'm truly used to it, when I've been using it for a year, and I jump back onto another bike with an old style derailleur. Am I gonna just crunch up the gears? (chain snapping) And so, to recap, SRAM long
played the entire bike industry with the UDH to make all the
rear ends exactly the same so they could make a new derailleur that works completely differently
than anything before it. What is this gonna mean
for the bike industry? What's a big drivetrain
manufacturer like Shimano gonna do? How are they gonna react to this? SRAM definitely has some
patents going on here, but can you just make a
direct mount interface that works the same way? I have no idea. And so, I'm really glad
that's not my problem. I just get to enjoy a
really reliable drivetrain that shifts under load. And so, this is one of the
biggest changes in drivetrains that has occurred in my entire lifetime. Very few of us can remember a day where derailleur hangers didn't exist, and now we're moving towards
a future where they don't. And if history repeats
itself, this technology is gonna continue to
become more affordable and more accessible. And so, this video was not meant to be an exhaustive technical breakdown of SRAM Transmission. It was meant to be just an explanation of why it's such a big deal. And I hope I have explained that to the non-technical
members of the audience. I hope the rest of you
learned something today or at least found this interesting. And if you didn't, I hope you at least found it entertaining. Thanks for riding with me today. And I'll see you next time. Your pup here at Berm Peak. And pups, they have to put in work. It's not gonna be no free ride. Okay, there we go. - [Speaker] Oscar, Oscar. (Seth laughing)
