A certain professional cyclist whoallegedly won the Tour de France seven timesfamously said: Its not about the bike.
And well, theyre both kind of right.
Let me explain, by means of a convoluted review.
These are the bits that makes the bike go and stop.
Alongside the frame and wheels, the groupset impacts the overall dynamic performance of how the bike rides.
For one, its wireless.
All the gear shifting components connect and pair using an encrypted protocol kind of like Bluetooth.
For two, its a 12-speed system more on that later.
In a functional sense what SRAM has produced, is just plain, simple, and good innovation.
Something thats rather lacking in the bike industry at the moment.
Look mom!
Electronic gears have been around for quite a while now.
The idea goes back even farther, though.
Known aMavic Zap, it was about 20 years ahead of its time.
Shortly after, the slightly more affordable second-tier Force version followed.
Obviously it makes shifting gears easier, but this was never particularly hard anyway.
On SRAM eTap systems, there are two buttons.
Pressing the right shifts down.
Pressing the left shifts up.
Its a neat and intuitive system that even my Dad would enjoy using.
Mechanical drivetrains are justthat goodnowadays.
Electronic gear mechs are also, generally speaking, heavier than equivalent mechanical systems.
It changes how shifts feel rather than changing how shifting actually functions.
Its about the bike, but at the same time, it isnt.
Installing the system is probably the easiest building a bike is ever going to get.
Setup is all done with button presses, rather than carefully balanced cable tension and well-tuned limit screws.
Using the accompanying SRAM AXS app, riders can customize how the bike shifts too.
you could reprogram what the buttons do and how the system shifts.
There are two enhanced modes for shifting: Compensating and sequential.
This smooths out the transition between gears.
<spa< span=>n>The sequential shifting though, is the real secret sauce.
It does away with the notion of having to shift the front mechanism at all.
Using the buttons, you tell the system whether you want an easier or harder gear.
It has everything to do with SRAMs approach to gear ratio and choice of cog sizes.
Strap in folks, cause things are about to get nerdy, like really bloody nerdy.
Good quality groupsets now have anywhere between 11 and 13 cogs at the rear.
Bikes equipped with 11-32 cassettes are very common.
In extreme cases, 11-34 cassettes arent unheard of either.
Bicycle gear cogs are named after the number of teeth they have, more teeth means a bigger cog.
Sure, the incessant cog adding has mitigated this somewhat.
Wide range cassettes are great in most parts of the world.
But I often wonder if theres a better solution.
According to SRAM, this is comparable to a fairly normal 52/36 chainset, with an 11-28 cassette.
Ordinarily, I dont think adding an extra cog at the back makes too much of a difference.
In the real world, adding an extra cog doesnt make a noticeable difference.
On one hand, I could take or leave the electronic shifting side of things.
For me, an average rider, the marginal performance gains dont justify the price.
All in, youre going to be up near $2,000.
Products that enable that are hard to find.
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Story byMatthew Beedham
Matthew is the editor of SHIFT.
He likes electric cars, and other things with wheels, wings, or hulls.
