SRAM upgrades and compatability

Barrzy257

Just a quick one, currently running full SRAM Rival, 2011 stuff, considering a few upgrades, a force rear mech and a red front derailer, will these work ok with rival shifters? I'm pretty sure the red mech can't be 2013 though which is fine. Reason for upgrades is an improvement in shifting, not to worries about the weight decrease.
Also, would apex shifters work with shimano brakes?

Cheers

ugo.santalucia

There will not be improvements in shifting. Shifting accuracy and smoothness are down to the shifters and not to the derailleurs, which all have the same geometry and there is no difference between them in the way they function. Shifters can have good or mediocre gear mechanisms, have bearings or bushings, which will improve or affect the shifting.

In conclusion, save your money or upgrade the levers

ShutUpLegs

^whs

gloomyandy

ugo.santalucia wrote:

There will not be improvements in shifting. Shifting accuracy and smoothness are down to the shifters and not to the derailleurs, which all have the same geometry and there is no difference between them in the way they function. Shifters can have good or mediocre gear mechanisms, have bearings or bushings, which will improve or affect the shifting.

In conclusion, save your money or upgrade the levers

Not true if you are able to use the 2012/2013 Red yaw front mech. This works in a different way to the old Red and current Force etc. mechs in that the angle of the mech changes to keep it more in line with the chain.
For some notes on the compatibility see here:
http://velonews.competitor.com/2012/03/ ... ity_209270
Some interesting comments here:
http://forums.roadbikereview.com/compon ... 78410.html

I have the new front mech and am using it with an Sram S950 chainset and it is certainly better than the old Red. However I am using 2012/2013 shifters (they do not have the extra click for the front shift), so can't comment on how well the new mech will work with older shifters. The above article seems to say that it will work...

Barrzy257

Thanks for the heads up guys, may just forget Christmas and go the whole way and get the groupset... A used sram rival groupset for Christmas isn't a bad present for her is it? Haha

ricky1980

i thought mixing the new front mech with old chainsets offers no significant improvement in shifting and a matter of fact there will be some chain rubbing in certain extreme gearing as the front mech lack trim function.

but Gloomy is saying it works well? also the new red chainset (exogram one) has different spacing to all current and past Sram chainset. pretty sure the new front yaw mech would work medicore i.e. might as well not bother with the higher price.

old shifters can function perfectly well with the new front yaw mech + new exo chainset.

gloomyandy

Hi,
Take a look at the first link I posted. They tested pretty much every combination of new and old and concluded that all of them work well. Yes things are even better if you use the new mech with the new chain rings, but things are still very good with the new mech in pretty much every combination.

With my setup (new mech, new shifters and older s950 cranks). I get no rubbing at all on the big ring, and a small amount of rubbing if I'm crazy enough to use small/small. I suspect that if I fiddled a little more with the setup (setting up the new mech is tricky) I could probably eliminate that. The new chain rings are available for the s950 cranks and I may at some point pick up a set, but the shifting of the current setup is considerably better than on my old Sram red bike, and it has much less chain rub in both rings (even with the trim on the old setup). With the new mech you also get the built in chain catcher which is nice. The article rates old red 5/10 and a setup like mine as 8/10. I'd agree with both of those. The article also rates old shifters, new mech, old cranks as 9/10, but I haven't tried that. I have no experience of the Rival groupset so can't say how the new mech will work with that. But the new red mech is certainly better than the old one.

Oh and the trim function is a function of the old shifters not the mech. The new shifters don't have it as it is no longer needed if you use the new mech.

Andy

paul_mck

mate Ive a mint Force rear mech in the classifieds if you wanted a lower cost option. £55.

chanjy

I can confirm the yaw front mech works fine with the older style chainset (mine is Red Black 50/34).

Like velonews says, tiny bit of rub at extreme gears, excellent otherwise and perfect shifting. Integrated chain catcher a bonus too

sungod

if the current cables+outers are worn/dirty, it'll cause drag and shifting will suffer

before swapping other parts, i'd try changing cables+outers for new ones and making sure front/rear mechs are cleaned, lubed and adjusted correctly