> Can you expand on your idea of why you think Shimano doesn't look relevant now? ... On road, every World Tour team, save 3 are running Shimano.
They all use electronic shifting. This is not the way to compare relevancy, given that it is a sponsorship. Next year, sram comes out with a better financial deal for the team than shimano and they go with them.
But the business of World Tour temas is also to win, as winning means being invited to the big races, which actually have coverage for the ads-on-wheels that riders are to get eyeballs on. If they can't win because of crap gear, they won't use said gear, no matter how much money given to them.
It's a fine balance, right? Some riders of high talent are also pretty controlling on the gear they use, and will bring their own bike sponsor into a team as part of the deal of transfer. Chicken and egg I guess: if the gear is irrelevant, you'll never see it on the Pro Tour.
In my experience, jockey pulleys don't add too much friction, as they're not under a great amount of force and don't fail all that often - for the same reasons. It's the derailleur arm itself that's very likely to take damage from abuse (by bending out of spec).
I would say the use of a clutch on a rear derailleur - something your SRAM 1x most certainly has, leaks more watts (tho v. v. little) - the compromise is certainly worth is, especially for the gear cluster spread you're running on the back.
This design looks just to be an improvement of some sort of clutch system, with purpose to try and move the derailleur arm out from being so low, where lovely things like rocks can hit it. That seems like a win to me, given my own assessment of how these things become worthless paperweights.
SRAM actually seems to be all-in on making rear derailleur replaceable in piecemeal, which seems to be a nice improvement over the design, in a very Right To Repair kinda way.
https://bikerumor.com/next-gen-sram-eagle-direct-mount-derai...
I'm not sure why such a design can't be run wireless if that's your preference. Looking at Shimano's offerings, even the 105 is electric these days.
But again: this is just a patent for an idea - it's not the first time Shimano has done this obviously
https://www.bike198.com/shimano-gearbox-patent/