Hi guys, S Y N T A C E is another manufacturer that makes aftermarket headstems in 1 1/4 and get sold with a shim for 1 1/8th steerers. In terms of evolution, if the stiffness is increases as Giant says, without (!) weight penalty, then it totally makes sense. If the real reason is that the manufacturing cost for OverDrive2 steerers is less (has anyone noticed that tapered steerer forks cost substantially more?!) hence the forks are cheaper then there is a hidden truth ;-). A tapered steerer is deffinately more expensive from a manufacturing point of view...

Guy's that is innovation. It is not new, Chistopgh has been working on it for several years, but good for Acros for picking it up! I would love to run a set... these are the companies that keep innovation going...

The Stiffness to weight ratio of Maxle was 0.42 whereas the stiffness to weight ratio of the X-12 was 1.54, thats tripple! Now these are measured values. If you think that that can not be felt, your simply very wrong. If you want to experience the stiffness gain hands on, drop by at a bike expo such as Eurobike or Taipei and test the stiffness your self, there is a very simple display similar to the test that BIKE did where you can feel it! Come back and tell us that is not the case after you have tested it.

The mag BIKE did a very simple test where they used the same DT hub which can be used for a 10mm QR, 10mm bolt through, 12 mm Maxle or the X-12 System. They applied a dummy chain stay to both ends which resemble the interfaces used in the bikes for each system. One chain stay dummy is held fixed. A force is applied to the other, deflection measured... simple, the result gives you comparable values of the system stiffness. The 10mm QR had a stiffness of 27.3 - 38.5 (Tune, XTR and Mavic measured), 10mm bolt thru was 33.4, 12 mm Maxle was 43.2, and X-12 was 60.8 - thats 40% increase over Maxle! (Stiffness in NM per degree) and when you look at the was Maxle works, it makes total sense too. So before you reply, look at how your Maxle works!!!

6) The extra stiffness does not come from the 142mm spacing! It comes from the system. Is X-12 stiffer? I said it above, but I will explain it again here. The added stiffness comes from the axle to frame interface that by use of a conical split cone clamps in both radial and axial directions - which is for example not the case with Fox 15mm through axle or the Maxle. Have you ever looked exactly at how the previously mentioined two systems work? The X-12 split cone is also the thing that gives the X-12 a self locking mechanism (I believe Norco forgot to mention that) so the axle does not come undone (as with some DT axles and others), as the split cone locks onto the axle when done up. The flange distance is the same as a 135mm hub, in fact the hub body is the same. 135mm hub bodies can be used - many conversion kits consist only of different end caps.

Example: I have ridden following bikes: DH bike, a XC bike, a 4X/Dirt bike, All Mountain bike, Enduro bike and FR bike and all have had this new standard and it has contributed to awesome complete bike weights and really good complete bike stiffness and resulting fantastic handling. -Full 8” DH bike 16.2kg (including 1.4 Kg tyres, Fox 40’s all that gear) -4X bike 10.2Kg (or below 10kg without powder coating) -XC bike 10.1Kg (150mm travel up front, 140 on the rear) -AM bike 12.2Kg (160 / 160 mm travel) -FR bike 14.0Kg (incl. 2.5 Mudy Mary’s, 187mm Fox 36es, 8” rear travel, + potential for 13.5 kg build) These are just some examples of really awesome bikes I have ridden, and the X-12 rear end definitely contributed to the entire build being as perfect as I have experienced them. My experience. Fullstop.