We’ve just been sent this spy shot from one of our friends who was at the World Championships last week. You might not have noticed in all the Danny Hart frenzy, but there was a cross country race there too… and the winner of it was Specialized rider and Czech national, Jaroslav Kulhavy.
The eagle-eyed will have spotted the familiar shape of a Gripshift shifter on his bars. This is a product that quietly faded a couple of years ago when SRAM’s top groupset went to ten speed. We thought it unlikely that SRAM would retire it completely as it’s still the lightest way of shifting gears, and you know what these XC racers are like, but we were starting to have doubts about it ever making it to ten speed.
However, seeing this spy shot confirms that SRAM has at least a Blackbox version of the shifters out there and so it’s likely that we’ll see it in XX form at least some time next year. Jaroslav was running a SRAM XX rear derailleur with an 11-36 cassette and a SRAM XX front derailleur with 39-26 XX rings, so there’s no way he was running old XO.
Welcome back Gripshift. Most people don’t understand you, but there’s a small minority out there who’ve missed you.
Comments (13)
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Aceness indeed.
Hurray!
great news
Let’s twist again!
Of course, the other advantage is motorbike noises…braaaaap.
Good news. Hurry up and release it. Please. 🙂
I never understood a lot of the negative attitude of some people to Gripshifts. I bought a Cannondale in 1995 with X-rays. The only “problem” I had was on long wet rides, then I found that shifting to a larger ring at the front could be difficult if I was feeling a bit knacked. Certainly for front shifting I think paddle shifting is better but for the rear I don’t think there is much in it, and for a racer crashing through the ratios to get in a big gear for a sprint is quicker as you can go across the whole block in one action.
I dread to think how much XX versions would cost. The 8 speed X-rays I had weighed little and I’d be surprised if XX could get significantly lighter even moving up to 10 speed. I bet they find some excuse to charge 5 times as much though. Carbon fibre body, no lighter, probably more durable, in vogue, expensive – go for it.
Pah! use a real shifter boys…
I’d have one just so I wouldn’t embarrass myself like last weekend when I did the “classic” baggie-shorts-caught-on-shifter maneuver, falling off in front of someone. I also managed to undo my shorts in the crash too. Thankfully, the undershorts concealed my “junk”.
X.0s only cost £90 a pair new, so I can’t see XX being ridiculous prices.
when you say definitely xx what do you mean? i cant see xx logo anywhere?
(From the few pics I have seen of this) it looks like a 9spd shifter that has been modded. I seem to remember reading about a German guy who sold XO gripshifters modified to run 10spd so it does not seem unlikely. Far more unlikely that SRAM would actually make a proper 10spd gripshift I think based on their negativity towards the idea when asked by the media!
Would be great to see a 10 spd gripshifter though!
X.0s only cost £90 a pair new, so I can’t see XX being ridiculous prices.
£40 ish from Merlin recently, hence why I have them 🙂
Bombproof, with that SRAM/Campag type of shift, love em.
“Certainly for front shifting I think paddle shifting is better” – interesting, maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t go with my plan to have gripshift for the front to go with RF rear (I have a dodgy right wrist, dodgy left thumb!)