Still happy with my BB7s after a couple of months, so can’t fault those. The elixirs the bike came with felt fantastic when new but I sold them before I had a chance to find out how they aged.

NOT impressed with price of the Cleansweep rotors. £50 each! and apparently the rotors that come stock with BB7s need to be replaced from new if you want any semblance of quiet powerful braking (I wouldn’t know, I’m using the rotors that came with the Elixirs). What pisses me off about the price of the rotors is that they’re the exact same rotors they’ve been punting for years, its not like they’ve had to redesign them or rebrand them or anything. Have steel prices really risen that much?

“Where to Avid brakes fit in this debate?”

the bin ?

avid – spares are “availible” but you actually try getting some !

my mrs runs sram X7 – the shifters are ****(bottom lever doesnt return) after less than a year , the rear mech spring is so slack it doesnt index in the bottom three gears – never had this happen on shimano

and thats with new cables …

my first Gen X9 and X7 was good though bar jockey wheels siezing when i looked at them wrong

My XTR 9 spd and my LX/Deore mix has pissed all over the Srams chips in comparison though

BB7s are excellent though – designed pre SRAM days though – and left alone thankfully

BB7s are excellent though – designed pre SRAM days though – and left alone thankfully

Haha! Very relieved to hear it, had been wondering when they were about to spring a nasty surprise on me.

alpin – Member

yeas, but so is Deore. whereas X7 is shite.

go figure.

But why buy cheap when you can buy expensive? You know the rules…

+1 for KMC chains here. They’re utterly brilliant. I used to use SRAM, then they got much more expensive, so I switched. Pay attention SRAM, there’s a pattern emerging.

Bike kit in general is getting very expensive, whether due to the plummeting pound or whatever is neither here nor there. Components are much less disposable these days, as such I’d far rather have relatively expensive and unadventurous kit that lasts than relatively expensive kit that doesn’t last but does have ten speeds.

Components are much less disposable

Well, by design I would say they’re actually much MORE disposable, although the cost would perhaps suggest otherwise.

But why buy cheap when you can buy expensive?

Buying expensive would mean putting a lot of faith in manufacturers that perhaps haven’t earned it. X9 fails incredibly quickly? Just spend 5 times as much on a much lighter X0 equivalent. Doesn’t seem like the intuitive thing to do.

i had the sticky shifter problem on my works bike. ended up putting a new shifter on it when the mechanic wasn’t in.

my friend also destroyed a wheel when the floppy mech dived into it.

Used SRAM on a number of bikes, ridden far and abused etc and rarely had a problem to be honest. Much prefer the feel. I have used Shimano twice and each time have had protracted setting up problems – just when it’s all nice, one ride and it’s jumping again. It seems incredibly sensitive.

Whatever components I’ve paid alot of money for, and are currently fitted to my bike are whats best.

At the moment its SRAM. SRAM Rival on the road bike, absolutely unbelievable. I click the shifter and the gear changes, just like it did with my shimano gears!

Who would have thought it, if you set your gears up properly, look after them and ride like a pro rather than a muppet, then shimano and sram both work really well!

Who would have thought it, if you set your gears up properly, look after them and ride like a pro rather than a muppet, then shimano and sram both work really well!

Ahh… that old argument 8) . I am a very good mechanic thanks, set up is NOT an issue with my gears, and perhaps you can explain how i should ‘look after’ my gears to prevent the derailleur spontaneously bending?

Likewise, one bust mech does not a muppet make, I’ve dragged my old LX mech through the worst (and I do mean the worst) of Scotland’s rockiest trails, and it seems to have come through fine. You suggesting ‘pros’ never break anything?

Anyway, my complaint was as much about the cost of spares as it was about delicate parts, criticism of my riding style aside, SRAM are still ripping the p1ss with their prices.

Er. I’d just like to say..Rohloff.

Not slick shifting, not light, not fashionable but still working perfectly years down the line. (usual caveats about regular complete submersion in streams etc)

I use Sram cassettes, mechs and shifters. I use Shimano cranks and rings. I have done for about 8 years. My last 9 speed set lasted 4 years, I now have an X7 10 speed setup. Yes, you can re-use the powerlinks. The chains are based on the old Sachs design, solid German engineering. I have known many snapped Shimano chains but only one ever snapped Sram chain. It was broken by a friend of mine when he fell in a 4x race (huge, unusual stresses!). It did not snap at the powerlink! Fishers replaced the chain with the top 990 model without quibble.

Only bike of mine that have gears uses Campag. Now there’s properly designed kit that lasts like bike kit should.

Used SRAM on a number of bikes, ridden far and abused etc and rarely had a problem to be honest. Much prefer the feel. I have used Shimano twice and each time have had protracted setting up problems – just when it’s all nice, one ride and it’s jumping again. It seems incredibly sensitive.

+1

absolutely.

as for sticky SRAM shifters, ever considered stripping and cleaning them up? lots of nice sticky crevices for dirt to stick to in there. but i’m sure shimano ones don’t have this problem…

I’ve got full SRAM on one bike and shimano on the other and I do prefer the feel of the SRAM stuff.

As others have said, Shimano does seem a bit more sensitive, but they both work ok to be honest.

I’ve snapped a SRAM chain before, but I reckon that was probably down to poor maintenance on my part, rhather than poor quality.

Both SRAM and Shimano are expensive as hell these days though!

I’ve got X9 on my AM bike and SLX/XT on my XC bike. My X9 shifters are well into their fifth year now and I give them a thorough clean and grease each time I swap cables so they still feel nicely positive.

I hadn’t used Shimano since 2005, so I was quite shocked as to how SLX/XT have improved since…I’m seriously impressed to the point that my AM bike may well go fully XT at some point in the future.

If you want to read what I found in a bit more depth then I’ve just done a review / rant on my website.

Doug – just read your review. As someone with a 10sp X9 rear mech about to be fitted to a new bike (the rest of the drivetrain is X7 with X0 shifters), I’m slightly concerned! Did you speak to your local SRAM distributor? If so, what did they say?

Also interested to hear that you found the Shimano shifting ‘clunky’ compared to SRAM – I thought it was supposed to be the other way round? I have to say that the SLX/XT setup I’m currently running is incredibly smooth, perhaps even too smooth if there is such a thing – the lever barely even clicks when shifting and most of the time I can hardly even feel the gear change.

In the last month it has started having a few issues changing into the lowest gears, but most of the drivetrain is over two years old so I can’t complain. I think if I was buying a drivetrain separately I would go for a full SLX setup (but maybe with an XT rear mech and XTR shifters if I was feeling extravagant). Even XT is so expensive nowadays that I think I’d struggle to justify paying more.

just read doug’s post on the basque website. i LOVE this comment:

SRAM broke my beloved Charge Spoon saddle

brilliant!

that SRAM is so evil.

ashfanman, I didn’t speak to anyone about the problems I’ve had, it was bought off the web and in the past trying to get comment out of Avid before writing a review was impossible. I could just be really unlucky with the two 10-speed mechs… but I was never unlucky in the past with the 9-speed stuff I had, which seemed to last for ever. With the clunkiness, I find that the XT stuff I’m using makes a far more positive, “clicky” shift; I know that people say Shimano is clunkier but that’s just my experience based on a couple of weeks of riding.

peachos, I know… big bad evil SRAM breaking my Charge Saddle which was so cheap it couldn’t even stick up for itself 😉 I am gutted though to loose that Saddle, it had started to fray around the edges but it was the best saddle I ever bought.

I could just be really unlucky with the two 10-speed mechs

Here’s hoping! I’ll let you know how I get on with mine…

I had X7 on my bike a couple of years ago, the shifters started sticking and the rear mech went though jockey wheels for fun.

Built up a Cove Handjob with LX gear & RF Evolve XC Cranks in 2008 and it’s all still going bar the crappy SRAM chain that snapped after about 2 months of Delamere grinding paste, on went a KMC X9 and it’s been ace. The brakes were Deore – but they died in the cold winter we’ve just had, now got Elixir 5’s on there and they’re superb. Forks are Reba Teams, faultless.

My FS is built up with XT shifters & mechs, RF Deus Cranks & Elixir brakes, all brilliant. Again with a KMC X9 chain, which I bizarrely snapped the other week – must be extreme power or something as a link just opened up 😯 Forks are bombers and they’re great.

Each company has good and bad stuff, I much prefer the feel of teh Elixirs over the weird feeling shimano servowave brakes, XT shifters & mechs are great blah blah blah.

On the road bike I have full Ultegra 6600, soon to be Ultegra 6700 on my new one – can’t wait as it’s been faultless for 2 years.

That would be cool, I’d be interested to hear.

I think all this just tells us that someone, somewhere needs to companyTFU and make us all a proper gearbox. Come on, build it and we will come!

shimano for me, but they’ve stopped making 9spd rapid rise…. [/quote}

What?

Bugger – just as I’ve got all the bikes with it on because the Alfine is RR (and because the missus can’t get her head around normal rise).

cock.

you can’t beat old saint rear mechs. Sure, they weighed 250g more than the XTR of the era, but mine has taken an incredible battering (they hang on a 10mm through bolt, which I’ve bent, twice, through hits on the mech, however the mech still shifting fine) over its life and still goes fine. I was very sorry when they moved to the ‘shadow’ model for the new kit

Some of my bikes have x9, one has x0, one saint and one dura ace gears. They are all great. Only the road stuff is 10 speed. Saint is the clunkiest. And the mech wears really badly at the gold collar. Jockeys jam on the x9 sometimes but it can usually be sorted.

Chains are chains. No brand seems any better than another to me. I just buy the cheapest ones now, makes changing them less painful.

Avid/SRAM/Rockshox seem very expensive now.

Xtr on hardtail
X0 / X9 on full suss
I dont have a preference never had any problems with either and they both have plus and minus points
SRAM cassettes on price everytime though – how much is xtr compared to x0 (990)? and it comes in fancy colours
Kmc chains as well, oh and always a shimano front mech
Love to know where OP got his links from though, I’ve never paid more than 1.99 and that was at a trail centre shop in south Wales 😉