Road Bike Front Mech Woes

In summary:

– New bike

– 2012 SRAM RED BLACK compact groupset (chain and cassette are 2012 force)

– Front mech is conventional parrallel movement (ie: no yaw like the other RED mechs…this threw me at first)

– I have installed and adjusted loads of front mechs, so done the usual with height/alignment/limits/cable tension.

The problem is shifting up to the big ring. After 4 hours in my work stand it went into the local shop who are SRAM dealers and even they can’t get it set up to work well. It shifts, just very poorly/laboured.

Cable routing is good and cables running smoothly (it’s new)

I know loads of people run a compact, but it’s a big jump for the chain to make between rings and there doesn’t appear to be many ramps on the big ring to assist the pick up.

Any suggestions as I’m pissed off I can’t get this top end groupset to work.

Cheers

PL

– Front mech is conventional parrallel movement (ie: no yaw like the other RED mechs…this threw me at first)

I thought the 2012 Red groupset was only available with the yaw mech? Pre 2012 red front mechs are bloody awful things only fit for the bin.

2012 Red has a yaw and the little markers on the top for aligning it.

2012 Red Black edition has no markers on the top and as i understand it, no yaw.

had similar problem using normal mech on compact and had to get ugly with a big pair of pliers to tweek the cage on the mech, pain in the bum taking it off tweeking in the vice and re-fitting to check shifting until it was good when riding. worked though, just needed tiny bend to throw chain that bit more.

As far as I know, Sram Red Black is the previous incarnation of Red, not the 2012 version which only has the vastly improved yaw mech.

OK. Here are the results of 8 hours in the garage, a trip to a SRAM dealer and extensive internet trawling.

You will be very lucky indeed to get the SRAM Red Black FD to work with a compact if the former has a Ti cage, as it’s too soft and flexy to relaibly push the chain up the big gap between rings. Most people, including the pro teams didn’t use the Ti cage and either switch to the (steel caged) Force or “ProTour cage” (ie steel) RED.

Spend a fortune on kit and by design it doesn’t work. ****ing awesome.

It’s a shame cos everything else about the groupset is spot on. Not that it’s very interesting, but I’ll report back when I’ve tried the up/down-grade.

Wow thanks for this! I bought a bike last year with SRAM Rex and struggle to get the front to shift from inner to outer. I thought I was doing something wrong. Thanks again, new mech time.

So where can you buy the steel red mech?

check the individual specs, but I believe the standard Red FD (ie: not the Red Black edition) has a steel cage and a yaw movement.

Although it doesn’t exactly match, I’ve bought a Force FD like I said on the basis that I’d rather have it work (hopefully) well than match the rest.

I emailed SRAM about this and they said I could send it to them via a dealer. They must know the score and are just hoping I’ll go away. In this case, a **** product and **** service.