slx or x.7 gears

trail muncher
trail muncher Posts: 73
edited January 2010 in MTB buying advice
hi i now have the money for my gears on mt gt avalanche 3.0
i dont know weather to go for the slx or sram x.7 please could you give me advice on witch would be better thanks

Comments

  • Slamdunkin
    Slamdunkin Posts: 355
    Does the avalanche 3.0 come with Shimano?

    I'm not 100% certain but I think I read somewhere that you can't use Sram gears with Shimano shifters. I could be wrong as I'm only a noobie myself.
  • jay12
    jay12 Posts: 6,306
    if your current bike has shimano then sram is not compatible with it.
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  • Chris5.5
    Chris5.5 Posts: 154
    If you are using a SRAM rear mech, then you need to use SRAM shifters, they will not work with Shimano, however a Shimano front mech will work with SRAM shifters.

    As to which is better, its down to preference, they are both good just different.

    SRAM shifters you push with your thumb to change up and down, Shimano you tend to push to change up and use your finger to change down. Shimano may be fractionally smoother but really not much in it.

    I prefer SRAM as that is what is fitted to my bike and imo stays indexed slightly better than Shimano.



    Chris
  • richg1979
    richg1979 Posts: 1,087
    shimano slx will work the same as srams as they have a push or pull trigger.

    ive had both and prefer the shimano as they are a lot smoother and lighter to use, the srams are very direct but feel very clunky also the shifters are pretty crap quality, everyone i know with x-7/9 shifters have had at least 1 shifter fail and ive had sram rear mech snap off at the plastic nuckel where u can just bend a shimano back

    a mate of mine bought a trek ex9 with sram x-0 gears and shifters, hes still had is old gt agressor that i had put full shiano lx gearing on a few months earlyer and he wants me to put all the lx stuff on his trek as i hates the sram stuff and loves the smoothness of the shimano, i fitted the lx stuff to the gt and it has never been touched in 3 or 4 months but im always tweaking the srams he didnt realise the massive diffrence in price between a sram x-0 and shimano lx .

    but it is all down to personal preferance id go for shimano but a lot prefere sram. swings and roundabouts and horses for courses.
  • Steve_b77
    Steve_b77 Posts: 1,680
    Personally if you aren't into undertaking your own maintenance then go for SRAM they tend to require less fettling due to the 2:1 pull ratio.

    However I've just upgraded from X7 to XT and the difference is very noticeable.
  • trail muncher
    trail muncher Posts: 73
    sorry for the confusion i was going to change the shifters as well
    merlin seem to do them at a good price but my lbs said that merlin sell parts of stripped down bikes so dont know weather to ordered off merlin or not thanks
  • les001
    les001 Posts: 8
    youl defernatley need shifters and r/mech. as thay dont mix & match i've got a spare set of sram 7 and a sx5 r/mech
    i am an ex employee of a large uk manufacturer, job title was service engineer / bike macanic
  • Barrie_G
    Barrie_G Posts: 479
    trail muncher wrote:
    sorry for the confusion i was going to change the shifters as well
    merlin seem to do them at a good price but my lbs said that merlin sell parts of stripped down bikes so dont know weather to ordered off merlin or not thanks

    As far as I'm aware Merlin don't sell stuff from stripped down bikes, they build up all their bikes themselves so I fail to see where these stripped down parts are coming from.

    They do sell a lot of OEM parts, just the same as CRC and a few others, they have good delivery times and customer service and at the moment they seem to be the cheapest around by quite a bit.
  • Northwind
    Northwind Posts: 14,675
    SLX and X7 are pretty similiar in performance, you just need to decide whether you want the solid, positive SRAM feel or the smooth Shimano feel. Purely a matter of taste.
    Uncompromising extremist
  • clwydian_rider92
    clwydian_rider92 Posts: 416
    Ive got the SLX shifters, and becuase of the two way trigger the feel is pretty similar to the SRAM shifters. In the reviews that i have read, the SLX has come out on top in prettty all most every one, icluding beating the XT.
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  • trail muncher
    trail muncher Posts: 73
    i got told that merlin buy bankrupt bike stock and strip them down for parts so im not sure wearther to ordered from them not
  • jamLCFC
    jamLCFC Posts: 197
    trail muncher wrote:
    They do sell a lot of OEM parts, just the same as CRC and a few others, they have good delivery times and customer service and at the moment they seem to be the cheapest around by quite a bit.[/quote

    In praise of Merlins i ordered SLX cranks and XT Front Mech both of which were with me within 24 hours and fully packed as Aftermarket components......just me experience

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  • bails87
    bails87 Posts: 12,998
    trail muncher wrote:
    i got told that merlin buy bankrupt bike stock and strip them down for parts so im not sure wearther to ordered from them not

    And who told you this?

    The competing bike shop that wanted you to spend your money there rather than at Merlin........ :wink:

    Cynical, moi?
    MTB/CX

    "As I said last time, it won't happen again."

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