It sounds like Shimano USA is quite a bit nicer to work with than Shimano over here in the Netherlands. I have been trying to get a regular shop account with them for 4 years, and it always stranded when they found out I didn’t have a real shop but was just working from a workshop. The Limited edition GRX didn’t change that over here, so I gave up on Shimano over here. On the other hand: We custom builders can shift much much quicker than the big brands, so for me it is not really an issue. Actually I already had a UDH compatible dropout in the works, and that matched fine with the new Transmission derailleur.
Apart from that I think we custom builders make up such a tiny part of the market that we are just not interesting enough to get us all parts or drawings. That will just increase the chance of someone blowing their carefully guarded secret…
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