looking at a new bike and it comes with the above . . . . i have always been a shimano girl personally so have no experience of these.

Any thoughts or preferable user opinions would be much appreciated!

cheers

Did 2 years on x9,one mech worked fine, upgraded to gx once everything bar the mech was flogged.
Cranks probably have the removable spider so great for 1x and all that.

I use both X9 and guide RSC’s fit together nice on the bars.
I moved away from the big S about 10 years ago and know only use them for hubs, pedals and chainsets.
SRAM X9 is equivalent to XT in my eyes. I can’t tell a difference between the gears, but when my mates ride my bike they moan about the fact it is push/push on the thumb shifters. where as with shimano you do have the trigger shifter.
The guides are awesome though and although a real nightmare to bleed and get brake pads for, they are just brilliant, although being sram/avid still squeal when wet, which is all the time at the moment!
You really wont notice too much difference in my opinion.

Oh and work great with the reverb, very tidy handlebars.

Argh you have just reminded me of my old squealy avid brakes – I switched to organic pads and that seemed to help and wasn’t a problem as I could get them cheaply and easily) – will have a Google on guide pads . . .