Cheeky upgrade: SRAM AXS on road bike

Considering ‘investing’ some of the Covid financial windfall due to not spending £200+ a month on fuel for the cars and lord knows how much in not going out a couple of times every week socialising, on my road bike in an upgrade of the drivetrain to Etap AXS. Would have the additional benefit of transferring my current 105 over to another bike to upgrade that. A pointless upgrade I now but it’ll be nice.

Question is I don’t really want to replace my 105 crank as I have a 4iiii power meter on the non-drive crank arm so would be expensive to get power meter on the SRAM crank, and the bottom bracket system works well and don’t want to have to risk BB issues with SRAM DUB. Also the upgrade will be alot cheaper if it’s literally just the drivetrain.

The only question I have is will my 105 crank work with the new fancy pants AXS 12 Spd asymmetric chain and the front mech? If not are there any aftermarket chainrings that would make it all work? Any real life experiences out there?

Ta.

Not the news you want to hear but unfortunately you do have to use the chainrings. Nobody is yet offering aftermarket flat top rings at a reasonable price (see Carbon Ti) and availability is scarce even then.

I have a set of DUB AXS red cranks running through a Wheels Manufacturing BB and it is faultless. I wouldn’t let that put you off.

AXS is an amazing group set and I have it on 3 bikes. But perhaps more than any other group set it really does all work better together. Sorry!

Have a look at rotor chainrings , they have started to make AXS compatible rings

thanks – no need to be sorry. I feared this would be the case but wanted to check I wasn’t missing any little known trick or niche aftermarket product tucked in some dark corner of the inter web somewhere. I’ll check the rotor chainrings. Replacing the powermeter and crank makes it a proper pricy upgrade, but it is what it is I guess. I’ll ponder over it.

Cant believe the previous gen 11 speed stuff is going for such strong money and tricky to get hold of. They should’ve down graded it and kept it as a live product for those wanting to stick with 11 speed.

Stick with Shimano buddy.
The best advice I can give from inside the bike industry.

I just with Shimano Di was completely wireless like the Sram stuff.

Di2 is pretty good to be fair – once you’ve got through the faff of internally routing the cables / getting the right lengths / getting firmware upgraded etc. The advantage is just one battery to charge which you connect via the front junction box.

I’d like to try AXS and setup sounds amazingly easy just bolting stuff on and pretty much off you go. The app also can’t be any worse than the Shimano one which looks like something from the late 80’s / early 90’s.

I hear the ‘from within the bike industry’ comments a lot, but as a consumer with AXS on 3 road bikes and 2 mountain bikes (including Reverbs), and having had Red Etap before that, I can honestly say that it has never missed a beat.

12 speed makes sense and Shimano look some way off that on the road. Di2 is not as clean, but I do accept that it probably has a very slight edge in terms of shifting. For me the simplicity of AXS shifting is easier all year round with thicker gloves and feels better in my hands.

Each to their own. I do think flat top was a compatibility step too far, but it does all work beautifully together.

At some cost, I can confirm that the SRAM 12 speed will not work with Shimano. The chains are different roller lengths. you will need an axs compatible 12 speed chainring which are few and far between with shimano bcd’s. I ended up with a new crankset 🙁

I love the Etap, silent, never goes put of adjustment, beautiful changes especially the front.

Thanks for inputs chaps. The wife has commandeered some of my ‘slush fund’ for home improvements, but It dawned on my I can fund this upgrade via my companies bike to work scheme, which is better anyway as it will be approx 40% cheaper, so all good. I can use the remainder of my slush fund to send my non drive side crank away to 4iiii and get a pwoermeter installed onto a Force crank arm, which is a lot cheaper than the proper SRAM pwoermeter and cheaper than most pedal solutions and I know 4iiii is a good solution which works.

I did re-visit the DI2 option, but its not that much cheaper in the end and Etap really looks great with much easier installation and ongoing maintenance so will go for that I think.

The only fear I have not is going to a GXP Bottom bracket. Never had an issue with GXP BB’s on my mountain bikes (and had a few over the years), but they’ve always been threaded type. On this bike it is an 86mm press fit BB and the inter web is awash with all sorts of horror stories of this type of installation. So for those of you who have SRAM AXS already, what BB’s are you on and have you had issues?

Been watching a few YouTube vids on it. Hambini enjoys his roasts on GXP but doesn’t really offer up any solution and seems to have given up as his website sort of says he no longer offers a GXP solution…Other BB solution providers (BB Infinity, Token and others) seem to claim they solve the issue with their BB shell designs…or do I just go with the bog standard SRAM Nylon PF cup solution.

The main issue seems to be with the drive side bearing float/clearance and the wave washer which takes that out. Hambini claims the wave washer locates on the bearing seals which causes drag and premature bearing wear, but other solutions seem to do away with the wave washer altogether either using spacers or nothing instead. Probably over thinking it as local bike shops seem to glaze over when I talk to them about it…maybe they just haven’t seen any issues whatsoever and a classic case of internet reporting only on issues and not the overwhelming majority of people who have no issues.

What are your experiences? Had any issues? Any hacks on the BB install you’ve had to use?

Thanks.

Unless you use the Trek BB standard, AXS runs DUB rather than GXP.

For me personally I use Wheels Manufacturing on DUB and they are outstanding. On my 1x I use Chris King 30mm on Cane Creek EE Wings.

GXP is (like any standard) subject to manufacturing tolerance.

Di2 not difficult to install. Don’t forget AXS will need new cassette / freehub / chain / chainrings etc etc.

Hardest thing with Di2 is making sure you’ve got the right length cables when you order. You can’t connect it in the wrong order or backwards. Would suggest you order multiples of each wire length and return those you don’t use.

Id love to try sram axs but don’t trust sram to produce a quality product. There seems to be a few issues with the rear derailleur not shifting and then all of a sudden spontaneously shifting as if there was lag between lever and derailleur. Also seen quite a few fd chain drop issues. The fd can be a pain to set up and has to be mm perfect. Sram is sending out alignment tools to shops to help with this.
If you can wait a bit I believe shimano will be announcing something new this year for dura ace.

I have Red Axs and eagle Axs. On Red when I first got it I did have issues with front mech dropping chain. This was solved by firmware update! Unbelievable. I run the red fully sequential – left easier right harder :). So intuitive, so easy.. can also “dump” 2, 3 or all gears in one long press if you need. Never had any lag on shifting. Axs app warns of low battery and it also auto links into your gps (garmin etc) for gear as well as battery levels. From my understanding that’s additional with di2. I would guess that overall they are going to be much of a muchness. I only wanted to add this as the above post may have been true 8 months ago but on my bike with the firmware I am running I don’t see those points 🙂

Thanks for feedback Ionmnigel. I’ve pretty much decided on Axs especially since I’m now using C2W scheme to fund. I’m just more sold on the wireless thing (Thanks Flaperon for your input). The price difference is about £600 vs DI2 (excl. pwoermeter) but that is somewhat offset by the cost of the DI2 cables and junction boxes which surprisingly adds up, and the fact I would move the groupset in its entirety to another bike, so if I upgraded to DI2 on this bike thus retaining certain items, I would need to buy additional components for the other bike. And with C2W it’s basically 40% cheaper so the additional cost is not going to be noticeable so just as convenient to buy an entire groupset.

Solarider – Force AXS cranks at least are available in either DUB or GXP. I’m leaning to GXP due to smaller diameter axel meaning more space for larger and more robust bearings. I am a little concerned about the issues people have reported with PF GXP BB’s even though I’ve never experienced them on my MTB’s, but sounds like the experience on here so far is that there are no issues.

I thought gxp was 30mm spindle and dub 28.99mm. The whole reason of dub was to increase bearing size.

It’s also good to hear that the fd has a fix. I really want axs to be reliable as I want to put it on a bike, as the thought of bolting parts on with no messing with internal cables on a road bike, everything is now 10x more difficult to route and tight radius bends in gear cables causing poorer quality shifting on mechanical.

Also sram one up and one for down shifters makes more sense than shimano.

I thought gxp was 30mm spindle and dub 28.99mm

Nope. GXP is 24/22mm. BB30 is 30mm.

Ok good to know

Those that are saying a specific chainring is required, can I just check what you mean?
Is it to do with the use of the AXS chain, because this flat top AXS 12 speed chain has been on my cross/Audax bike for about 1000 miles so far with the 10speed narrow-wide chainring, GRX rear derailleur and SRAM xg1130 cassette and it’s peachy.

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Purists and brand evangelists look away now. #sramforce 12 speed chain, #sramxg1150 11 speed cassette, #shimanogrx812 derailleur and classic #duraace7900 10 speed crank and narrow-wide chainring. Because #gravgrav #diyfs

A post shared by Thom (@thomthebike) on Feb 7, 2020 at 8:36am PST

Is it a shifting thing when running 2x ?