Upgrading gravel bike to AXS ‘lecky gears – worth it?

i’ve never bothered with AXS on my mtb, friends all run it and rate it, i break a derailleur at least every 18 months.

i had to replace my sonder camino, and had the opportunity to use c2w so got the AXS version , the shifting is incredible.

that reminds me i must recharge the battery, haven’t recharged in about 5 weeks, ridden maybe 150km on it.

I’m told as long as you ride the bike a few times a week the battery doesnt discharge too badly, if you dont ride for a month then it may need recharging

Have people tried both GRX Di2 and AXS? Rocketdog – you suggest you’d go for AXS over Di2 and interested why this may be. Am looking at potentially upgrading my old Ultegra 6800 and am drawn to 2x GRX Di2, particularly given better battery life over AXS.

AXS the battery clips onto the derailleur, shimano ones go in the frame i believe  , which seems kind of pointless

SRAM hold a patent on using interchangeable batteries in front and rear derailleurs. That may have slowed Shimano going full wireless. Or perhaps they like the single battery and wired connection robustness. It looks rubbish on steel or titanium frames with external wiring though – hence my SRAM red upgrade. Mavic Zapp electronic was launched in 192 and fully wireless In 1999.

I can’t comment on whether its worth upgrading an existing bike but, FWIW, I’ve just bought a bike with SRAM Apex AXS and I’ve ridden it a few times this week, for a total of about 45 miles and here are my observations:

1. I felt the shifters were the wrong way round, so I swapped them. This involved an App for my phone and the inevitable firmware upgrade. Its worked, which is nice, but I think after the apocalypse I’ll probably stick with a mechanical bike.

2. There’s no haptic feedback. If you are slowing for an obstacle (hill, bend, whatever) and changing down in preparation, its impossible to tell that anything has happened. I’m sure I’ll get used to this, but it feels weird at the moment.

3. On the whole it feels nice, but probably any bike still would. I’m looking forward to never having to re-index the gears (because I suck at it).

LR