It may not happen in the next few years but eventually the Chinese will see the opportunity and flood the market with cheaper copies. I have no problem with Chinese stuff. I got a Yishun carbon HT frameset for $450 and it hasn’t missed a beat in 3 years! I’ve given it some punishment too and it just keeps going! It outlasted the Intense Spider frame I had which cost 6 times more!
If Shimano is cut off like Sram has been, I’d give the Sunrace stuff a crack! Even if you want to stick with Sramano for your shifting, it’s only 2 items. Kmc chain, hope brakes, and a dozen other players that do cranks, chainrings etc. Shimano cranks are shit anyhows!
Fuck Sramano!
This is the future. Financially punish the big players for restrictive trade practices. Maybe these guys have taken a page from Trumps book on trade.
All this will work for them short term. Long term I hope the likes of Hope, Box, Sunrace and whoever else wants to make good 11 and 12 speed parts, get a good foothold in the aftermarket and steal market share from the shaminio duopoly.
Raise your hand if you think anyone at these two give 10% of a shit about us. Don’t for a second give a shit about them in return.
They don’t want to increase supply, just margins. It’s a lazy business practice.
As someone else mentioned, the strength the online German retails were amassing probably became unmanageable from a supply channel point of view.