With Sea Otter coming to a close, manufacturers throughout the mountain biking industry have released some new offerings at the beginning of the season for the rest of us to drool over before they hit the shelves and retail bike lineups. The biggest news of the year is the movement towards 10 speed drivetrains on mountain bikes, and SRAM has jumped in head first by supplying a complete line of 10 speed shifting options ranging from their budget X7 groupo to their high end X0 components.
SRAM’s 1:1 actuation ratio has been a long time favorite of the crew at Bike198, so let’s take a look at each one…
SRAM X0 10 Speed Mountain Bike Components
SRAM X9 10 Speed Mountain Bike Components
SRAM X7 10 Speed Mountain Bike Components
Thoughts On The New 10 Speed Groupos From SRAM
Outside of my personal opinions about 10 speed mountain bike components, the new offerings from SRAM look incredible. Their new way of handling “families” within the different brands has a strong branding presence centered around a high contrast look that is going to really bring the brand together and look great on bikes in the future. Each component is carefully laid out and there is a wide range of options (I typically mix and match with X0 and X9) for riders in multiple budget levels. One of my main concerns with the new 10 speed component setups was price, and SRAM answered that one quickly with the X7 group.
Having been a 2×9 rider for quite sometime, I would like to see an option for bashguards on the new 2×10 cranksets. On previous 3×9 setups I have run in the past, I was not worried about ruining the outer most ring due to its low use, but with a 2×10 setup, that outer ring is a lot more crucial. Some protection with the aid of a bashguard would keep the teeth in tact for a longer period of time in my riding style.
Centering this group around the Elixir platform (see our review on the Elixir CR’s here) really strengthens this group and finally…SRAM has a complete lineup that can really compete with the SLX, XT and XTR packages from Shimano. In previous generations of SRAM components, there was the illusion that they were not completely competing with Shimano due to different branding across the lines. Now…SRAM can promote the new groupos as complete groups with “family style” branding. This is a strong, positive move on SRAM’s part in the long run.
We will have to wait and see how these new groups perform on the trail, but…so far…it looks like a very strong offering from SRAM as we get into the peak season of 2010 and beyond.
Pictures from http://sram2x10.com/
