Ah, you’re right…2011 was Ultegra Di2.
Beg to differ: 12 cogs in the rear enabled 1x. And 1x was a complete game changer in the mountain bike world, because it allowed suspension designs that plainly weren’t possible. 1x has been so successful that I literally cannot think of a single modern quality mountain bike frame that even accepts a front derailleur. (Yes, I am sure you can find one if you google long enough, but take my word for it: on the knobbly tire side with flat bars, 2x is dead.)
The 12th sprocket was crucial for the success of 1x, because you finally had enough range. With 11 cogs in the rear you are definitely missing a gear at the top or bottom end since the max native range is about 420 %. Shimano’s reaction for years seemed to have been shrugging until frames were incompatible with their 2x offerings.
1x has also become very popular in parts of the drop bar community. We can argue how big the market is or that some people will never switch. I just like SRAM’s and Campag’s approach better: if you want 2x, we have got you covered. If you prefer 1x, please walk this way and browse our 1x products. That’s how it should be.
I expect that once we get to 13 gears, a lot of people will no longer have the need for a second chain ring and a front derailleur. Because you know what shifts better than a Shimano front derailleur? No front derailleur. 
Not really. Shimano has sold wheels and hubs for decades, for example. My first mountain bike that I got something like 27 years for my 14th birthday had Shimano hubs. In fact, all of my mountain bikes so far have had Shimano hubs. None of them ever failed or required service. Shops around me sell and team mates ride Shimano wheels. I have no idea whether they are any good, I’m don’t want to judge what I don’t know, but also here, I don’t see Shimano pushing the envelope.
And with time, things like power meters have become table stakes. Power meters will soon be just a standard feature with (higher-end) drive trains. SRAM saw that coming in over 10 years ago and bought Quarq in 2011. Now they offer power meters for all configurations, but two (their 43/30 Force and Red gravel crankset).
Another big miss is software: Shimano’s evolution of Panasonic’s platform was comically bad and bricked devices in some countries.
Two things: I didn’t claim that it was only SRAM doing the innovating, but rather that Shimano is usually last to adopt something important. Rotor and Campag are ahead of SRAM as well in that they both offer 13-speed drive trains. I have heard mixed things about Rotor’s drive train, but if you like Campag’s shift logic, their Erkar groupset seems to be great. The biggest “criticism” is that it is missing a higher-end and electronic option, but IMHO that will come if demand is there.
And if SRAM made strategic purchases or investments in other companies to fill gaps in its line-up, I think that’s forward-thinking, too. Quarq was purchased about a decade before Panasonic’s power meter business.
Overall, it just seems that Shimano is left reacting to trends after watching for years rather than being ahead of the curve. Am I wrong?
Ah, Mavic introduced electronic shifting back in the 90s. First with Zap, and then Mektronic. So Shimano might have perfected electronic shifting with Di2, but they were in no way first with it by over a decade.
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I didn’t mean to bring this discussion to “Shimano doesn’t innovate” - which I never claimed.
I rather said, they have been playing it save lately, while SRAM and campa were the ones with the more decisive products recently - some of which are great, some of which are not.
My main gripe with SRAM’s latest offerings is that they went out of their way to make it difficult to mix and match between road and mountain groups by making the chains different. AXS is an ideal platform for eliminating the old incompatibilities but instead they introduced a new one.
You don’t have to be the first to market to be an innovator, you can just be the first to market with something that works and is widely accepted due to how it functions.
Apple was not the first company to produce portable music players, but they were the innovators that got the broke the market open ( largely because of iTunes).
Same with Shimano and electronic shifting….they were the ones who brought it to mass market acceptance.
What would you do if you have force on a gravel bike and a mountain derailleur? I’ve seen some folks do a GX or higher trim derailleur to run a 10-50 cassette?
I already agreed that 1x was an innovation brought to to market by others….
IMO, 12 speed is really not the game changer you seem to think it is….you could have the same range with 11 speed, but obviously with slightly adjusted gaps. To paraphrase Spinal Tap, it is just “one more, right”. 
No company is going to hit every new product first….and you have to prioritize. Further, at some point you have to accept that there simply isn’t room in the market for your company to introduce something similar. Shimano (or any company) will never be a full range supplier of all things related to bikes. They primarily focus on drivetrain stuff….things like hubs, etc are a really small part of their business (and largely legacy products from the days of buying complete grouppos). They’d be better off dumping them now, IMO…along with some other stuff.
I’d imaging in that case they’d have to run a different chainring as you can’t use a road ring with the mountain bike chain or a road chain on a mountain bike cassette.
Mike
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“Wait, y’all are testing this stuff?”
-Shimano, probably.
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I don’t want you to give away things that you don’t want to give away, but I have a particular question: do you think language barrier could be an issue here.
Background: I’m an expat living in Japan, a former team mate just took his dream job at Shimano as an engineer, and the English of even well-educated people is very, very poor. Even in a very good shop around town (former pro team mechanic who is plugged into the scene, e. g. he knows former and current Olympians) didn’t know that Shimano crank-based power meters were inaccurate, which surprised me. Perhaps the folks at Shimano genuinely don’t know and the engineers are unaware of your videos?!?
If they don’t know they are inaccurate, then in my book that is even more of a reason Shimano should get out of the power meter business.
Competitive Cyclist now has the new groupsets available. So much for “late 2022” thought
I don’t think anyone was saying there would be NONE available until late 2020, just that they would be extremely difficult to find in any kind of supply until then.
To that point, this is one size crank and CR combo. (170mm - 50/34) and they only have. 5 in stock. They’ll be gone very quickly.
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The tuning continues.
Looks better than I thought, despite this not being a „for 12s“ quarq PM.
Weight for the whole crank (175mm), functional Pm and 50/34 rings is 651g.
The native Shimano is 685g without PM, and 745g with PM.
That means you either save 34g + have dual sided power with no need of power pedals (saves me around 170g on top of the 34g) it saves you 94g compared to Shimano power, but much higher power accuracy.
The price is also pretty decent.
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What bb are you using and in which bike?
It’s a SRAM DUB for BSA by Ceramic Speed.
Bike is an Aethos.
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Nice.
I think another light combo would be Rotor ALDHU Carbon with Sigeyi PM - Should be 464g + rings/bolts. Are the new 12sp rings heavier than previous 11speed of comparable level?
It’s a shame that the dfour seems to be made a bit heavier on purpose by Quarq/SRAM
