SRAM Rival

neilmacd

Seen this on Ebay for £350 roughly for the full gruppo.

Has anyone used it and what's your opinions on it?

I've got a mish mash of various Campag 9 speed bits and bobs from Chorus down to Veloce on my bike and was wondering if it's worthwhile moving over to SRAM or investing in a Veloce or Centaur gruppo as an upgrade

DavidBelcher

neilmacd wrote:

Seen this on Ebay for £350 roughly for the full gruppo.

Has anyone used it and what's your opinions on it?

I've got a mish mash of various Campag 9 speed bits and bobs from Chorus down to Veloce on my bike and was wondering if it's worthwhile moving over to SRAM or investing in a Veloce or Centaur gruppo as an upgrade

If the 9sp kit is still working fine, I'd stick with it for now. The only concern would be getting hold of spare cassettes now that all Campag stuff is 10 (and coming soon, 11) speed, but original Campag 9sp ones can still be bought if you shop around, whilst BB and Miche make inexpensive Campag-compatible 9sp cassettes.

David

leonlikestrees

I've got SRAM Rival on my bike. It works really well, and in particular the brakes feel much better than my old Dura-Ace 9spd ones.

The finish isn't fantastic, and the cranks look a bit cheap, but its light and works well.
The only thing I'm not so keen on is that the brake levers seem a bit short. I often feel as though my fingers are a bit close to the bottom and might slip off. They never have though.

It should last well, assuming the SRAM stuff is well made, as it shares all the important bits with FOrce which was the top dollar at the time. The bearings, pictos, internals, cassette, chain etc are all the same, so you should get the same performance. The differences are almost entirely down to weight saving (carbon here, titanium there, etc). The only mechanical difference I think was the chainrings, which have a different coating on Force.

I would buy it again, especially at the price you can get it at (I paid about the same). I think it's nicer than ultegra but not as nice as Dura-Ace. I can't comment on Campy.

edindevon

The Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative have some SRAM Rival components on half price offer in their sale at the moment. Although they don't have the full groupset, you could buy the bits they do have and make up the rest from elsewhere and still easily beat the price on ebay. They also have really good prices on some Shimano and Campag components.

Edindevon

4kicks

New (09) SRAM Rival is coming out later this year, with Carbon shifters and the trim mechanism SRAM Red had - forget the marketing slogan...supposed to be a good improvement, especially to alieve FD rub which is reputed to be an issue on compacts. Therefore I would expect there to be a few special offers on the "old" rivals kicking around this autumn.

Sram Rival goes Carbon

Mark Sutton Aug 7 2008, 4:55pm

Rival takes the weight out of braking and shifting

The SRAM Rival road components have slimmed down for 2009, and for the first time, carbon features. The slightly longer brake levers/shifters have shed 20 grams by going carbon. The zero-loss front shifting engages and shifts immediately. Additionally, Rival moves the front trim position to the big ring and new cable routing option allow for both brake and shifter cables to run along the front of the handlebar.
SRAM’s exclusive reach adjust feature, now available on SRAM Rival shift levers, allows riders to customise their SRAM brake and shift levers for a perfect fit.

The new Rival crankset features hollow forged aluminum crankarms and has stripped 40 grams from the final weight. The crankset will come in 110and 130 BCD. Crank lengths range from 165 to 180cm.