SRAM Rival or Shimano Tiagra

redddraggon
redddraggon Posts: 10,862
edited February 2009 in Workshop
SRAM Rival is miles ahead of Tiagra quality wise. Rival is roughly equal to Centaur/Ultegra. If you can look past the Halfords image and can ensure the bike is set up properly, I'd go for the Boardman.
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Comments

  • The SRAM rival 2009 stuff looks really good. A lot of people say it's made SRAM Force stuff reduntant.
  • I use SRAM rival, and the only thing I don't like about it is that the lever blades have always felt too short. Hey presto, 2009 and they've made them longer. No comparison with TIagra at all.

    Basically it's the same internals as Force, but Force uses slightly better materials in places (e.g. Titanium hardware).

    I used to run Dura-Ace 9spd before the rival, and this does not feel like a step down.
  • mfin
    mfin Posts: 6,729
    I use Rival after taking off all 105 cos I was fed up with it. Went to Sram from shimano after doing the same on MTB, shimano loads of mucking about, ghost changes etc and a mate whos a bike mechanic who works all day with mtbs said to just change it and hey presto perfect shifting with great feel ever since not one duff shift in 18 months. So I was already converted to Sram but when my 105 starting playing up and getting all sensitive on me I decided I didn't want any shimano gearing on my bikes again.

    So.. from a toss up between Campag and Sram for the road I decided to give sram a go and I must say after first ride I was converted and again, not a duff shift since and a far more positive feel. Personally I find the downshifts far better cos you can still get to them in between your braking movements instead of all that yanking the brake lever about. On 105 (dunno about ultegra) the distance of movement required of the brake lever to get your 3 down shifts seems too much to me and feels flawed (perhaps it was designed by someone with massive hands, perhaps the bloke was so pleased with himself for thinking of a system where the brake lever did the downshifts that when his mates went 'but dave, its a bit s**t isn't it? It might be clever but it feels all clumsy' that he ignored them and decided to get new friends instead), with Sram the distance is more sensible and the lever follows the path back to towards the bars with you if your fingers are a bit short which seems to work just great.

    Anyway, all down to preference but I find the Sram stuff far better than Shimano and Campag stuff all seems sensible to me too.
  • mfin, I think if you try dura-ace, you'll like it, but that's kinda of my point. With Rival you get something that really feels top dollar, and all you sacrifice is a bit of weight and carbon to get the price down. Shimanos cheaper stuff is actually completely different, and generally feels it (whatever the mags say!)
  • mfin
    mfin Posts: 6,729
    Yeah, quite possibly, I'm not slating all shimano just what I've tried and compared, my Sram stuff came in so cheap too, I mixed up 2008 and 2009 and I'm sure totally undercut dura-ace pricing, well, pretty sure, £95 levers £54 chainset with bb, (thats new, delivered prices too) so its good gear for the spend. On Mtb stuff I was comparing XT with X9 too for example which is a fair equivalent. I think dura-ace has gotta be good yeah but its in another price league surely? Perhaps I've just had bad experiences with shimano but I can tell you that it was all setup perfectly, its not rocket surgery, I am happy with my gear now though so I was really more saying that I've had very positive experience of sram I suppose.
  • rocket surgery man, that surely is the peak of all complex subjects
    yep, my letter 0 key is bust
  • drewp2008 wrote:
    rocket surgery man, that surely is the peak of all complex subjects

    Brain science might pip it.