Proven Open Standards & Non-Proprietary Components

If you listen carefully, about once a year you’ll hear it happen: mechanics and riders alike let out a collective groan.

Every year, in the name of innovation, there is a cascade of new standards and proprietary systems introduced in the bike industry. While a small minority produce justifiable improvements to cycling tech, the majority result in incompatibilities, obsolescence, and unsupported products that end up living a short life before entering the landfill. 

Major sacrifices in longevity and serviceability are made in order to hit headline weights or siphon money into marketing budgets. This causes headaches for mechanics and riders alike, who just want bikes that work well, and creates a sustainability nightmare. 

Years and years of collective experiene in the bike industry drove us to create Lōgōs, a component brand with a focus on championing proven open standards whenever possible, and designing and developing parts around the needs of people who ride. 

We believe in a first-principles approach to innovation that challenges limiting assumptions while also heeding the wisdom of the old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. In this spirit, we evaluate every design, engineering, material, spec, and manufacturing choice in terms of our core philosophical pillars of performance, versatility, reliability, and serviceability.

Here are some of the open standards and non-proprietary components we’ve chosen and why:

Star Ratchet Hubs

At the heart of every Lōgōs wheel is the arché|os hubset. Based on the star ratchet design patented by Hügi in the 90s and later popularized by DT Swiss, our hubs' “arche|os” architecture employs the proven dual-spring floating variation that established this as the “archetype” for bombproof reliability.

This legendary design achieves exceptional strength-to-weight while allowing torque to be reliably transmitted even when one or both of the ratchets are tilted, enhancing resiliency relative to pawl-based or single-sprung ratchet engagement systems. It also allows tool-free serviceability and adaptability via readily-available components.

Bladed Straight-Pull Stainless Steel Spokes

The Pillar Wing 20 spokes we use across our line utilize complex cold-forged shaping and strain relieving of Sandvik T302+ stainless steel wire from Sweden to achieve low weight, high strength, long fatigue life, and superior aerodynamics while eliminating the wind-up that often compromises lightweight round spokes during assembly and servicing. We chose the straight-pull variant for its even longer fatigue life. These spokes are easy to source and replace, including with spokes from other brands, particularly as we utilized a single length for each wheelset.

Exposed Brass Nipples

Beloved by mechanics, exposed brass nipples allow wheels to be maintained to perform at their peak for many years of riding. This is in stark contrast to aluminum nipples that tend to round-off, seize, and fail in ways that more than offset their trivial weight savings (~20g/wheel). And while hidden nipples may look sleek, the weight savings are similarly negligible, there’s zero aero benefit, and having to remove tires and valves plus replace tape and sealant just to true the wheel is an unacceptable trade-off.

Centerlock Disc Rotor Interfaces

Ease of rotor removal and reinstallation, improved self-centering, and lower system weight are all benefits of the centerlock rotor interface standard. It’s also easily and robustly adapted for 6-bolt rotors, whereas the inverse is impossible, for maximum compatibility.