Just remembered the only thing that bugged me about the XO was the sound if the shifting, it was like a gun going off! In a quiet forest, you could literally startle birds into flight with it 😆

Shimano has been a reliable constant throughout my love affair with cycling. I’m a huge fan of XT for it’s reliability, build quality and performance, a brief dalliance with SRAM X9 purely out of inquisitiveness left me very disappointed indeed. Shift quality was atrocious, adjustibility was compromised by the lack of barrel adjuster on the mech and the shifters felt like they had come out of a christmas cracker.

ShimRAM 9 speed frankengears 🙂

SRAM drivetrain – prefer the shifting, and I now run X01 🙂

Shimano brakes – not found anything that does it as well as Zee or Saint.

I have the previous incarnation of 105 on my road bike and I really can’t fault it, nice shifting, good brakes good chainset – I remember the rear taking longer to set up than the front mech which was pretty much instant

9sp X5 on the mountain bike is ok, works despite my barely adequate maintenance, juicy3s are a bit shite but I can’t justify replacing them if they aren’t actually broke (pad changes are a nightmare and they have a lot of throw in the lever for not much clearance at the calliper)

would probably get 1x10sp shimano gears next time, dunno what brakes, maybe the current deores cos everyone on here rates them

I was SRAM on mtb but have gone back to Shimano lately and much prefer it.

Shimano everything over SRAM. SRAM designed for dry dusty California trails. Shimano designed in Japan with a very similar climate to ours. Mud.

The only bit I like of the SRAM house stuff is Rockshox. It used to be Fox only for me but with the delicate nature of Fox these days I prefer the more robustness of Rockshox. And the price.

+1 (apart from the dusty bit. IIRC SRAM started in Chicago and now has a base in Colorado – both get rain. Happy to be proven wrong on this.)

^ What hob nob says ^

SRAM’s cable actuation always made them better in bad conditions than Shimano IMO- even a tiny amount of sticky cable knackered Shimano shifting. But luckily Shimano blatantly copied innovatively changed theirs to be basically the same as SRAM’s.

Shimano. It’s what it came with.

Sram mechs and shifters, but to mind no one has bettered Shimano’s chainsets yet for value and ease of fitting.

Are the folks out there who don’t really care?

Gearing for me is a distant fifth or sixth behind stuff like suspension, brakes, wheels and the like. Think I even reach for my dropper these days before a gear. Really don’t give the smoothness of shifitng much thought.

Sram all round (cross, road and mtb) as it makes my kit interchangeable so if I brake a mech, no problem, just use another one from the other bike. I prefer the agricultural feel as well, shimano always felt a bit light to me.

Campy on my campus bike because its an 80’s raleigh and thats what it came with