Supercool! Especially the wide rims I like. I already use gravel aero rims with 25mm inner width on my road bike to match 32mm wide road tires with excellent aero transition and plush comfort. Just the gearing is too long for old, heavy, bikepackers like myself during alpencross. I would need much smaller than 38 chainring.
Speaking as someone who has recently experienced a b-limit screw falling out mid-ride on a Rival XPLR rear derailleur, then finding that no UK shops have any in stock, and won’t for another 6-9 months, the elimination of limit screws is AWESOME. SRAM were even talking about warrantying the entire derailleur because they can’t source a little screw and a bit of plastic. Madness. Managed to find one from a shop in the US.
It realistically should last longer since you'll be using more cogs. But I'll be waiting for e*thirteen to make an even lighter cassette with replaceable cluster parts
@tro7e with 1x11sp, that 2-3 cogs now could have been 1-2 cogs. The cogs are the same width as 10sp, they're just spaced closer together. That would mean a LOT less wear
In my just two years of MTBing, a self-sacrificing derailleur hanger already saved my derailleur already once. A big piece of wood had gotten kicked up and tore it off.
The durability of SRAM Transmission is mind blowing. Seriously look up reviews from MTB land a couple years ago. If you can actually managing to damage it you probably are gonna have much bigger problems.
i had an issue with my bmc xplr where the hanger broke when i went to europe and after 2 rides i was stuck because no other shops carried a spare. yes it was my fault for not carrying an extra but part of reason is it was a new bike and i actually had one on order but it never made it in time before my trip.
You must be a stickler for detail to notice the stick. I wonder if that superb stickstand is the work of a stick scavenger who got lucky or a professional Senior Stickstand Specialist.
I have bent a derailleur hanger but not broken SRAM X4 derailleur riding cross country trails on my hardtail mountain bike. The derailleur hanger was the sacrifice for the derailleur
I look forward to the new hood and brake design trickling down to force and lower tiers. Overall I would want bigger gear range than explore offers, I run GX axs with a 52T cassette so I can run a bigger 46T chainring. I don't like how so many gravel bikes come with small chainrings that you quickly out spin. I think the wide wheels are going to be awesome.
I'm a big fan of GCN and especially Si (and Oli) and their way of presenting - the innovations from SRAM are incrementally exciting but I wonder how long the traditional chain and cassette drivetrain will last. It would therefore be super cool to find out what approaches the future labs at SRAM, Shimano and the like are working on.
What's also interesting is that sram made UDH free for manufacturers to use, sneakily changing the industry standard to being compatible for transmission over years
Yes, this is a masterclass in forward thinking by a company, not only by changing the market to match what they want to do, but by doing it in a pro consumer way with a free standard.
yeah that's pretty much what Adobe did with the PDF standard. they made the Reader software free so that everybody would make documents in the PDF format. if you think about it it's the same relationship that plants have with bees. all the plant cares about is getting its pollen to other members of its species, so it gives nectar away for free and the bees bring the plants lots of money... I mean pollen
Bike manufacturers are soo good, they can't even manufacture round holes and read instructions from bearing companies. Relying on them to manufacture your frame precise enough for perfect derailleur alignment without a hanger to take up the tolerances sounds like a great idea 🤦🏻♂️
I'm a shimano groupie, and also quite conservative/skeptical about innovation. But this is clearly the 1st electronic groupset that could get me evolve from 11 speeds mechanical groupsets. Very nice piece of work, and chapeau SRAM to the will of creating new standards instead of the trend of proprietary stuffs
The 12 speed chain works on this 13 speed cassette. The 13 speed XPLR cassette fits to existing XDR hubs. Does that mean Sram is able to make a 13 speed road cassette? What is stopping the 12 speed road derailleur being converted to 13 speed? Wouldn't a firmware update do the job? I feel like this might be a hidden feature on Srams road groupset?
@@HCMORGI it's the cassette actually. because of the wide range and that big easy cog, they could dish that cassette to overhang the freehub. similar to what we see in campys 13sp ekar groupset. so you won't see the normal road derailleur work with 13 speed anytime soon, typical 10-33 even 36 tooth cassettes wouldn't have the clearance to guarantee compatibility with every wheel. fitting 13speeds on smaller range cassettes would risk the cassette hitting the spokes due to the overhang behind the freehub.
Now we need to put on 40mm road tires and race it against a modern 28mm racebike and see an Allroad bike with that spec 😋 Id love to see what a top notch gravel / allroad design stands up against a normal road bike, because I think they are better for about 85% of people and give the advantage of much nicer rides.
From a money-saving, marketing-averse, Shimano-technology-using, fat-tire-bike-riding road cyclist who isn't in the market for new bikes or tech... thank you. The tech and insights in this video are fascinating. I was amazed to comprehend the concept of a derailleur without those frustrating screws to adjust. I have never really had perfect shifting. I'm interested in and excited about this new tech irrespective of whether it is relevant to me. Turns out I'm in the majority then, which goes against my desire to not follow the popular; but I still feel pretty good. Maybe somehow, somewhere, someday I will actually try or buy this tech. I probably won't but anything is possible!...
I took it to mean that he is deliberately using possibly incompatible parts to make a non-standard situation work, which would be why he never experiences smooth shifting. I could be reading too much into the beginning of the comment where he mentions using a fat tire on a road bike. if he's using a SRAM derailleur with a Shimano cassette, it's never going to shift perfect because the indexing isn't going to match up. this happened to me when I bought a cassette off of Amazon, it was supposed to be compatible according to the product description, but no matter how I adjusted it, there was always one or two cogs in the middle of the range where the chain would grind. if I adjusted that cog to run smooth, then a different cog would no longer be smooth. it turned out that was why: it wasn't actually compatible. that's what I get for trying to go off brand to save money I guess
@wtfiswiththosehandles@@better.better I'm a road cyclist who rode a road bike back in the UK, but live in another country where I ride a fat-tire bike (given to me by my previous company). A while back, the derailleur hanger on my fat-tire bike failed suddenly. I got a new hanger and upgraded from the original rough (and rusty) Tourney derailleur to the next-level-up Sora. The shifting was definitely sharper with Sora (though not perfect). Indexing soon went slightly out of alignment and also needed tensioning beyond the position to shift some gears. I got a new gear cable more recently, which also helped a little. I've spent a lot of time researching and trying gear adjustment. I have the general idea and can adjust it. Currently, I have to click up twice to go up from first to second gear. If I fix this, there is always another part of the range that can’t be fixed. Secondly, it jumps two gears near the top of the range and I have to switch back down one each time. It could be me, but I wonder if there is something about the indexing positions/range or other compatibility matters like the second comment mentioned. You can see online a lot of people battle with frustrating and even strange gear adjustment issues. The classic system can and does work for many, but could be better and easier (without being fancy or expensive).
@@mec1 bent derailleur. Since you probably don't have the alignment tool, go to any decent bike shop for service. They will have it. It's a 5 minutes job.
Except Ekar shifts super average, felt more akin to a Shimano Acera groupset. Rotor was hydraulic shifting (which is a complication people didn't feel like they wanted) but also their cassettes were rough. Both (especially for the money) weren't well refined products so people didn't jump to those 13speed options.
People might complain about udh but it's 50 years overdue. If anyone is to blame its shimano for sitting on their hands. Sram actually DID it, and it's well past time
This top-end competition is very healthy for the development and innovation overall, so it's still interesting to see even though it's way out of my price range.
I like the derailleur mount. I like the chain ring + PM set up. I think the wheels have gone too far with the lack of tire compatibility but I would love to see how they ride
I classify myself as someone who doesn't like change, but I am a really big fan of having a universal standard for rear mech hangers. Obviously I haven't yet progress to bikes modern enough to have the stress of different hangers, my rear mechs attachs directly to the frame. But as anyone can see with the nightmare of bottom brackets, standardisation is critical.
I’m wondering if SRAM is in the making of a road-specific 2x13 using the UDH standard and T-type chain?? I think that’s what all roadies are thinking right now, and for those looking to buy a new bike, making sure the frame is UDH standard is a must!
Considering I just had the hangar fail on my road bike, that caused the destruction of the derailleur AND damaged the frame, hangars ain't all that. Had to get the carbon frame repaired, and need a new Dura Ace derailleur, and hangar, and new spokes on the wheel as well. Perhaps someday we will see the UDH/Hangarless design on all bikes.
1150 (CAD) for the front 1180 for the rear . Bare bones no tires no cassette. My current Specialized Diverge E5 was 2299. For the moment, lottery win aside, I would take the full gravel bike.
With udh and electronic shifting and dropper, it only leaves the brake cables (internal) that are stopping the frame from also becoming just a component, ie to be able to quickly transfer everything across from say a road to a gravel frame in just a few minutes
Absolutely like the way hangers are moving but not the idea you need to go a specific wheel to use this groupset. I can see this as being a major issue going forward if there is a not a widely available standard. . Whats the best that Zipp has some kind of patent on what they are doing with the wheel. With any luck though, some of this tech will flow down to lower end models in time, maybe minus the 13 speed.
The new gravel-specific group set and wheel set from Sram is innovative. But there's no backward compatibility with previous bicycles and tires and there is no cross compatibility with other group set brands. The new wheels from Zipp have a new extremely wide internal rim width that is incompatible with most existing tires. The new rear derailleur is incompatible with bike frames that aren't designed for their "universal" derailleur hanger. It seems like a very aggressive ploy to impose a new standard in cycling that excludes its competition, forcing bike and tire manufacturers to design bicycles that aren't compatible with Sram's competition. Sram is a mega conglomerate that has bought out several bike brands that includes Zipp wheels, Rockshox suspension, Hammerhead navigational computers, Quark power meters, Truvativ components, and Velocio apparel.
Disagree, you can get great bikes at a good price at the moment. These are just premium bike parts similar to Lambos for cars or Rolex for watches, nobody really needs them and are for people with plenty of cash to spare. And at some point in the future, the features will hopefully come down to the midrange so other people can enjoy them.
Just focus on actual cycling and not all the marketing hype trying to convince you that you need the latest and greatest. Actually riding bikes is more fun than buying bikes.
I'm fortunate that I have been able to afford some pretty nice bikes, but I still always go for second-tier groupsets. I have force on my gravel and road bikes at present. I've been contemplating a new gravel bike, and this new Red may lead me to break my old rule for myself. I was already considering upgrading my shifters / brakes on the road bike to new Red levers (the braking performance and Shimano-like extra button have me intrigued), but this may lead me to a full Red build on a new gravel bike.
Great development and i would for sure like to test this groupset. BUT having no derailliour hanger makes me wonder where all the power of an impact goes. For MTB this design might be save as a mtb is built different but carbon gravel frames are very much mor e delicate i believe. Time will tell. The price for the whole groupset or a wear part like the casette is just insane. Thats for the pros who get all that stuff sponsored but not me as a weekend warrior. Nice but currently exclusive to the elite and sram influencer social media army.
Nice looking rear derailleur, but the pricing is nuts, the wheel dish is nuts, the chainline is nuts. I honestly want to go back to 2x9 that has great build quality at a reasonable price.
If you don't need wireless shifting, Campagnolo Ekar is 1x13 for a THIRD(!) of the price of this new SRAM. Only real upside I see is that the SRAM uses the 12-speed chain (more options with 3rd party manufacturers).
I was talking about a 1 X 11/12 upgrade for my Specialized Sirrus X3.0 today, but I think the Red would be too expensive to consider. The standard 1x9 is pants.
first off this just what would had made more sense at least for mountain bikes besides making road and mountain bike groupsets compatible with each other which is 1 other thing in mind , Sram should had made a 13 11-58 tooth cassette ... so you would have even more range for those hills (and mountains) that not even a 52 tooth could help , I personally see the short comings of a 1x drive train one of them being limited granny gears , Shimano on the other hand is always hesitant to sudden changes we can see the campy has been also slow to react other then with their ekar groupset , ( where is our mountain bike groupset Campagnolo?!) in bike equipment that would probably start a fire under their rear ends and get cooking to compete and make a close equivalent to Sram's design , yes Campagnolo still has a chance to turn things for the better , but hey we can thank Gentullio for the invention of quick releases (ahh .. history in its best ) And no wireless brakes are a horrendous thing and i get its just practically a meme or a joke but a broken collar bone or sprained elbow go figure isn't necessarily what you want if you enjoy bikes in general. long story short generally there was a potential for improvements is the narrative of what i was talking about .
Hmm . . . Any intel out there on the new shifters with small hands? I know Sram has been saying adjustable for smaller hands, but as I understand it the levers add 6mm of reach? I'm having trouble seeing that these levers are any better than last generation for small hand ergonomics? As for the video - Brilliant and hilarious, as usual.
No rear derailleur hanger is a huge advance for sure. But the problem is affordability, availability, compatibility and durability. These are things still waiting to be tested. Overall an exciting time for the cycling industry.
I realy enjoyed this presentation of the new parts. We all know it's fed as part of a SRAM launch event, but you told the story well and credibly. Thanks. I would like to see some follow up on the actual availability of repair ports. Tech channel maybe. SRAM started out with a huge goal there, but in recent years has left a lot to be desired. I'd be thrilled if they are going back to parts availability. But...
they did for a minute, JPow lives in Massachusetts, then he just quietly stopped being a GCN presenter, the only mention of it was a nod to him in a video about a race that he could be heard in the background commentating. I had asked about it once, on one of Jeremy Powers' videos, and was told that you had to be eligible to work in the UK... my thought at the time was that Jeremy was just an hour away from me so the logistics of making videos using the same crew would have been doable. of course I don't have any relevant credentials other than my desire to do it (I'm not into racing or any of that, and most of them are retired racers) so that's probably why I got a "shut down" type of reply, because obviously Jeremy was able to as a US citizen. or maybe at the time it was already not working out financially, because that would require a second set of production staff, although on the other hand that should have made it more desirable to have more than one presenter, to make it more financially justifiable
Less adjustability, no hacking, and more broken pieces in a crash. This isn't a revolution. This is SRAM making sure it creates an ecosystem where clients are captive. I'll stick to mechanical shimano drivetrains. Thanks.
Simply agree. Do no fmmt forget pogo pins failure with batteries, besides the rest of setbacks due to: UDH compromising frame lifespan, hookless compromising security if tolerances are not spot on, and so on. However, I like very much that groupset if I didn't have to worry about money.
less adjustability? more broken pieces? you sound like the typical dude that never has ridden with either of these setups and ride a 15 year old bike. cool man nothing wrong with this but don't spread misinformation. i ride with gx setup on my xc and its bulletproof. i have crashed multiple times on my derailleur took so far 4-5 nasty hits and continues with flawless shifting.
si, the braking bit was hilarious. re: the braking, on a serious note - how are the hood and lever ergonomics, and the brake modulation, compared to, say, GRX? i went from GRX 11s > SRAM Rival AXS > SRAM Force AXS > GRX 12s, as i absolutely love the GRX lever ergonomics and their frankly superior brake feel and modulation. the Rival and Force AXS brakes were a shuddering, feel-less mess, no matter what pads, rotors or wheels i used. and i just couldn't get on with those lever shapes - GRX is so much better. happy to hear about the wheels. i run a 30mm inner-width, 45mm deep, 1450g set from a competitor, with 40mm tires and they have been eye-opening for sure. the 54mm depth on the Zipps look pretty fantastic!
The UDH was a boss move, but it should have been pushed out further for longer before releasing T-Type for drop bars. Especially if Force and Rival are going to get this update in the next generation cycle, which they likely will in the next few years. The inability to upgrade older bikes brings a further level of planned obsolescence that will take perfectly good bike frames out of use and in to landfill. The product is a great innovation and is very much desirable but at what cost on top of the very expensive cassette and derailleur?
I broke the derailer hanger on my bike without breaking the derailer. I would be interested to see how this new derailer would handle the same situation
I did a little research when they first started talking about this on MTB, it's apparently not that common - while in theory it's great, the number of people that need to replace both is very high. I think by making it repairable and selling parts they actually have a better solution, and I'm very happy to see a manufacturer moving to a more repairable item rather than what has been the norm going the other way.
I like it, way too expensive for me at the moment but in 5 or 10 years time I suspect UDH (or similar, is Shimano going to follow?) will be on my must-haves for a new gravel bike. My current gravel bike has stupid sliding dropouts making carrying a spare completely impractical. A normal drop out would be an upgrade but not drop out would be event better! Also love the 32mm wide wheels, even just for the looks. Maybe Simon should go ride King Alfreds Way in a day again to see if he can beat his time with all this new, aero gravel kit?