Hi

I’m considering going 1×11 on the gravel bike (from 2×11).

Currently running Rival 22. A new Rival 1 mech is double the price of an Apex 1 mech. Any reason not to go Apex?

Yes, they are made of cheese. My friends Apex mech has gone baggy in no time at all where as my old Rival was fine.

Apex is disposable tat. Save yourself the hassle and pay the extra (or preferably buy shimano!)

As above – Apex mechs seem to lose spring tension easily and stop downshifting.

Don’t even think about taking them near a muddy cross race either – they’ll be straight in your spokes, taking your mech hanger with them.

This is from 10 years racing CX on Rival mechs, with occasional sad and disappointing forays into Apex

😉

My Apex is pretty shit but, FWIW, my mates Rival behaved in an identically shit fashion when we did the Badger Divide together. Think we both finished with 2-ish fully working gears

What they said. If I could buy Shimano shifters/ lever at a decent price I’d chuck my Apex set in the bin. Mine went in the spokes after a 6 hour ride for no apparent reason.

I’m going to disagree with the above.

The 1x Apex on my old gravel bike still works fine, just over 2k miles with the majority off-piste.

My new gravel bike is 1x Force and it works better (1.5k miles), but I put that down to having a fully enclosed cable, rather than the old fashion in/out on my old bike. It does though look nicer, with carbon levers & crank – plus lighter (due to crank mainly).

But having looked at Rivel on friends bikes, it looks nearer the build/quality of Apex rather than Force – how much more is Force?

Apex x1 came on my 2020 Crux and has been a joy. Shifting has been excellent and much better than the sram red on my main race bike. That might be down to poorer routing or somethino, not sure. Both bikes are internally routed. The apex mech does look and feel flimsy but I haven’t had to touch it since building the bike out of he box and adjusting everything before its first ride 18 months ago.

I’ve been using Apex x1 for around 14 months, I’ve covered 4000+ faultless kilometers so far a mix of on road and off.

20 months out of Apex 1x on my Diverge – faultless. Maybe change it for Rival or Force if I break it, but if it ain’t broke…

Hmm… mix of opinions. My Rival 22 mech has been faultless in 4 years and nearly 20,000 kms. Happy to pay the extra for the Rival 11 if need be, but if Apex works, it’s a significant saving.

Apex 1x on my gravel bike has been faultless for over a year, loads of rough stuff and multi day rides.

Have a couple of each. All old enough to have lost the decals so I don’t know which is which. All are fine despite thousands of miles of mud and abuse. Some of the MTB stuff works well if that gives a wider choice.