Sram Transmission
Where do you even start with this? Do you start by talking about the radically new and different transmission system Sram has just come out with? Do you start with just how much of an all-star crew we had for the trip? Do we start with the epic riding that Queenstown proved? Or do we just talk about how good the food was at Atlas? Well, I guess I’ll cover it all below.
I’m a bit of a super tech bike nerd. I love trolling through the Vital Mtb forms, looking at all the new and interesting stuff people seem to dig up and find out there on the World Wide Web. How they find the stuff they do I will never know. They manage to find stuff that is meant to be hidden from the public months before it’s meant to be released. It must be a nightmare for brands trying to keep things hush-hush, but also it builds a mystery and lush for the things we can’t have yet. One of these very things I saw on this form was Sram's new axs drive chains. They weren’t really hiding it from the public though. It was on a few of the pro's bikes in the latter half of the Ews and xc season last year. The derailleur, cassette and chain were different. Instead of being mounted to a hanger, the derailleur is mounted directly to the frame. I saw it and thought to myself “that really cool, I like what they are doing there.” then sort of left it there. Didn’t really think about it all that much. I’m sure it is just going to be the good as any other axs derailleur when it comes out. Boy was I wrong.
When Liam gave me the call about this trip I was flipping stoked. Not only because we would get to ride the new product but mostly because Chris Mandel from Sram was coming over as well to talk us through the product and ride with us. I originally meet Chris in Whistler way back in the day when I lived there. I got to do a few laps of the bike park with him and boy oh boy can he ride a bike well. I think I first read about Chris in Dirt magazine. It was a short piece about him, his BMX background and the Kona Entourage. Chris has done a lot things in the industry. A man that’s worn many caps, From working at Kona, designing the original process line of bikes (technical gen 2 processes) that you could argue really started the longer lower slacker trend. After that, he went on to start working at Rockshox as rear shock product manager. The lasted super deluxe air is his baby and that shock rips. Now he’s working for Sram. I’d say I’m a little bit of a Chris Mandell superfan so I was stoked to get to ride with him again and show him around Queenstown.
My original plan for the few days we had was to start with a sunrise shoot at Ben Lomond saddle. It would have been a 4 am grind up to the saddle to get the sun just poking over the Remarkable. For the last 5 weeks in Queenstown, we had really lucked out on the weather. There hadn't been a drop of rain and no clouds to be seen but the weather forecast was predicting rain for the days we wanted to ride and shoot. Typical. Liam and I caught up with Chris the night before the shoot/ride days were going to start. We headed to Atlas Beer cafe for food, beer, planning and shooting the shit. Chris was stoked on the idea of a super early start sunrise mission, we hummed and hawed about the idea. Rechecking all the weather apps suggest rain in the morning and not clearing till later in the day so the 4 am idea got sacked off. The new plan was for everyone to meet at a cafe in the morning and we would go from there and have a bit more of a leisurely time.
In the morning we met up with the rest of the crew. A bunch of heavy hitters. Low-key savages on 2 wheels, all as humble as they come. Ben Hildred, Dan Booker and Andrew Clark
Ben Hildred, the vertical meter eater. The lanky tea-drinking English man has probably climbed more meters than anyone else in New Zealand, from Eversting, Doulbe Eversting, being the first to complete the Olympus Mons challenge, doing K2 and climbing 1 million feet in 200 days. He just loves riding his bike and all things related to bikes. With a previous history in BMX, he brings that culture to his riding. Playing about with the trail. Jibing and getting creative. Even on the uphills. He treats his 29er trail bike like a bmx using his long limbs to his advantage.
Dan Booker, the Mayor of Maydena, a flat-pedal assassin that has more raw talent than many of the top pros. His bike skills and balance are incredible. Seriously, watch some of his manual videos. Silky smooth while being stupidly fast. I'd argue that he will dethrone Sam Hill soon for the title of fasted flat pedal rider. It wouldn't surprise me if you see him nearing the top step in this year's EWS season.
Last but not least Andrew Clark, hailing from Scotland but now residing in New Zealand, Andrew is the most low-key chilled chap that's as humble as they come. He's one of the best bike riders that no one knows about! He oozes style, with an ability to contort his bike and body into positions that the laws of physics shouldn't allow. Take Newton's laws of motion and throw them out the window when Andrew rides. It's mind-bending to watch. All while having a massive smile on his face. I wanted Chris to meet him and see what he can do because it really is something special to watch.
The rain was coming down a bit while we inhaled coffee at the cafe the following morning. Up the lake, you could see it starting to get brighter. We decided to make a move and go ride some bikes. We were heading to the beach forest anyway and like my mother used to say “you're not made of sugar”.
We parked up at the bottom of the Skyline access road. As we unloaded our bikes, I finally got to take a good look at the new stuff. It was quite the radical departure from your traditional mech. Mounted directly to the frame via a big clevis mount. The derailleur looked slik, futuristic looking. Almost taking some of that cyberpunk aesthetic and feel that Hyundai is using in their cars. Sharp lines throughout. Highlighted by the brushed alloy metal on the black derailleur. It’s a solid unit of a mech and looks like you could take this thing through the gates of hell and it would come out unscathed. The new cassette was a work of art as well. As you looked closer you realized that Sram have added x sync to the cassette as well. Like mind-blowing stuff. The new shifter or pods as SRAM refer to them have a more traditional ergonomic design to them compared to the previous generation. It uses a 2 button system, One placed above the other. Rubber paddles that require a push to make them feel like a shift vs a tap. The return spring built into the paddle gives you that positive almost mechanical feel to it. To me though, the pièce de résistance was the new XO cranks. They are gorgeous. A change from carbon to alloy, they are unlike anything else on the market. (Well minus 5 dev). There minimalist, cyberpunky, and abstract. You can tell they used what they learned about their AI crank program and applied it to this. There’s a hole near the crank bolt. Highlight by the brushed metal accent that gives the look of a drawing compass. The bushed meal part has been placed in the part of the crank where you’re most likely to get foot rub, thus keeping the crank looking brand new for years for us chronic shoe crank pedal rubbers. The final piece that set these off is the return of the bash guard. Why these ever feel out of fashion I don’t know but I’m so glad to see them back. They mount on the chainring and can be removed if you see fit. I’m such a fan of these
I was so distracted by the transmission that I didn't even notice the new code brakes. The silver and black theme continued to the brakes. The polished callipers are a thing of beauty, these have stayed the same as the current codes, where the changes have been made is in the lever. The levers now run parallel with the bars. When you see them you are like “why haven’t they done this before!” It makes so much sense. No more sticking out at 45 degrees. The cables run much nicer. I feel like the 45-degree brake is just a hangover from v brake levers and no one ever thought “hey we could just make them run parallel with the bar, keep it nice and tidy”. From the first couple of pulls on the levers you could tell there’s been some reworking for the internals. Lighter to pull than the previous code rsc. What I did think was weird was there wasn’t the new calliper that had been seen on some World Cup racer's bikes this last season. Maybe Sram is holding it back for another brake. I guess time will tell.
Chris explained that there are 3 tiers of these new axs groupset. X01, XX1 and XX1 SL.
We all jumped on our bikes and set off up Skyline access road in search of the trails in the beach forest just outside the bikepark. It’s a steep grind of a road, anyone that’s ridden it will know. Starting at its steepest for the first ⅓ before mellowing off a bit. The overcast clouds were spitting a light amount of rain which was a refreshing change from the previous weeks of blaring sun and no shade. You didn't feel like you were about to melt into a puddle by the 4th steep switch back. The steep fire road was the perfect place to test the gears under load. The gradient means to have to put a lot of force through the transmission and being a road it let you concentrate on what the gears were doing when you shifted. I guess I was the perfect place to shift like an idiot under load and test these new gears. Well from the first shift, you realise this is something special, it’s not just another group set, another new drive chain. It’s more than that. It's the crispest shifting I've ever experienced. It has such a positive feeling to it. There is that reassuring clunk as it moves into gear, almost mechanical but with the precision of electronics. Lightening fast, instant, precise. Even underload in the worst possible moment to shift it was still absolutely lightyears ahead of everything else. Everything you have learned about not shifting underloaded you can now throw that idea out the window. This new system does it with ease. I think a big factor of this is due to the added stiffness of the direct mount and the x sync teeth on the cassette but Sram has also done a lot of tiny tweaks that have really optimised the system. We'll get into them later.
The pace was hot, Ben leading the charge. I guess that's what happens when you are riding with a bunch of absolute savages. The relentless access road mellows slightly towards mid-way. Give me time to get my breath under control. We stopped at midway and Chris told us some stories of adventures he'd been on. After a quick 5-minute break we set off again up the second part of the road. I've ridden this road so many times over the years and it never gets any easier. If you get fitter you just end up going faster. It's surprisingly addictive to pedal up the road even though it shouldn't be. As the trees start to thin out you reach the skyline top gondola. We continued heading up via beached as and then Ben Lomond walking track to lower missing link. A favourite trail of mine. A perfect balance of flowy beach forest mixed with a little bit of tech. It is just a fantastic little bit of trail that works for all abilities and it was running great after it had been recently had maintenance work by the crew at Elevate trails.
The trail starts off out in the open and winds its way down into the beach forest. This is where it really gets good. We stopped sessioned bits on the trail while I shot photos. The first feature we stopped on was a bomb hole compression to a small jump. From the get-go, Andrew was blowing minds. He had literally just jumped on the Sram equipped megatower that morning, Not really getting anytime to get used to it, rough settings. He came over the rise into the bomb hole doing an inverted nose press over it. All tucked up in ways that shouldn’t be possible. Smooth you like. Chris’s face lit up “what the heck!!!!!”. From that point on I knew we were on for a good day.
We worked our way down the trail, sessioning different parts. Everyone was just feeding off the energy of each other. Dan would be throwing some huge shapes off the smallest mounds while also travelling at a ridiculous speed through the turns. You could feel the earth trembling as he passed. Andrew was doing Andrew things. Bending the laws of physics. Gapping into switchback turns that shouldn't be gapped into. Both Dan and Andrews styles complement each other. It was so good to watch. Chris was the hype man of the day. Just throw out hype and stoke every time something cool happened. So excited by what was going on. Throwing out ideas. It was infectious. Everyone was just going harder and harder. Chris and Ben were bringing their bmx background to the trail. Throwing down tweaks that are better than a lot of the pros. Dancing their bikes down the trail in such a beautiful manner. Smooth and light, their long limbs smoothing out the compressions. 2 great people to watch flow down a trail. Such a joy to watch. Fantastic.
After Missing Link we headed down Creaky Winders and shot some more photos. This is another absolute gem of a trail. It's snakes off of beached as. A perfect mix of tech and flow. it's niggly and tight in some spots. Weaves lift right up and down. It keeps you on your feet. Lots of little features to keep you on your toes while being surrounded in beautiful beach forest. It's tremendous. Everyone was just peaking on this trail, fizzing, just pushing each other over and over. We worked our way down the trail. Checking off features. Near the end of the trail, I could tell people were getting tired. Mistakes were happening. I called it a day on the shoot. Time to head to town and refuel.
We followed the fernhill loop back to the bike park and then down squid run in a train. Everyone might have been tired but that wasn't slowing anyone down. We weaved our way down. Trying to hold the wheel of Dan. It was another good test of the transmission. It was a lot quieter than my current gx axs. Less chain slap. The shift where more positive even on the way down. Some will say “Ah yeah. That's just because it's brand new!”. But this set I was riding wasn't. It had been used a for a few weeks. Making it even more impressive how well it worked. It was an absolute blast training down squid run at the pace we were going. Borderline dangerous with everyone feeling tired. At the bottom, we all had huge grins on our faces. What a time. All good rides finish with a beer right?
We rolled back down to the local watering hole to refuel, there was only one place to go and Atlas was that place. I've said it once and I'll say it again. It's the perfect after-ride spot, with great atmosphere, lovely staff, killer food and 22 taps of fantastic beverages to choose from. We fueled up on beer and burgers while chatting over bikes and trails. Before the inevitable food coma set in we headed out quickly for a little more time on the products. A couple of chilled laps in the fernhill/mcgnarly area. 1 lap down skyripper and a McNarly to finish the days riding. The more I rode the product the more I liked using it. It's an absolute joy to use. You just know that when you put the button to shift it will do it. Not worrying about a little under-power half pedal to help it shift. Just pedal as you would and the chain will shift on the cog. It really does improve the enjoyment of climbing. The slightly altered rations in the cassette were also a welcomed improvement. No more big jumps between the 42t to 52t. Instead you 44 -52 jump which feels a lot nicer. Doesn't sound like a lot but it makes a difference. Less of a sudden change in ratio. It's hard to put in words the feeling of the new trasmission over the previous stuff, It's just an overall feeling of a much nicer time while shifting. A good analogy would be comparing driving a car from 10 years ago to driving a brand new modern car with all the new bells and whistles. Both do the same thing. The newer car is going to be easier to drive, More relaxing, quieter, more features to assist you. It's just an overall more enjoyable experience.
Both laps of the Fernhill area were a blast. The party train down Mcnearly was ridiculous. Bikes were dancing left and right over the jumps. Berms were being blown up by Andrew, Dan, Ben and Chris. Dust explosions were everywhere, it was flipping awesome. To much fun, but then things started falling apart on Skyripper. The long day had taken its toll. Everyone was tired and mistakes were starting to happen. I set off first only to hear carnage behind me. Dan had blown off take on the steepest part. I think Andrew had had a wee washout. Everyone's concentration had gone. It was time to call it a day on the riding.
We rode back to town and into Vertigo bikes for Chris to give us the full tech run down on the products and how it works. The new system is designed to work on bikes that use a Sram udh hanger interface. A couple of years ago Sram brought out the udh (universe derailleur hanger). The purpose of that was to create a better derailleur hanger that bike brands could adopt. It was a standard that made sense and slowly more and more bike brands have been getting on board with the standard. It was a really good move forward for the bike industry. This new axs system builds on top of that. The hanger is replaced by a direct mount clevis system to the frame. In doing this you massively increase the stiffness and strength of the derailleur. It's not just held by on single bolt to the hanger, instead, it mounts both sides of the frame. When you induce the hub, frame and axle it creates an interface that is incredibly stiff and really strong, so much so that you can put your bike on the ground, stand on the derailleur on one foot and get back on your bike, ride away and the shifting will still be perfect. That's not possible on a normal hanger set-up. Something will bend. I did have my doubts about it until Chris showed us that. It was super impressive.
The derailleur keeps the override clutch system that lets the mech move out of the way then it's stuck but an object. It's fantastic and something that seems to get used regularly on my current Gx axs. It's saved my hanger from getting bent so many times. Never needing to straighten it like it would have with a normal cable set up. With the clevis mount combined with the override clutch, you have a system that should in theory be very hard to put out of tune. More reliable system. More pierce gear shifting, a better experience on the trail.
Sram has introduced other technology as well to these groupsets. Bring flat-top chains that come from their road bikes groupset. These increase efficiency and durable while looking flipping awesome. X sync can now be seen on the cassette, improving the shifting and chain reaction. It really lets you shift under load without the worry of skipping gears. I’d imagine it also helps the durability of the cassette. The recent Sram x dome cassettes have incredible wear life if you replaced the chain regularly. I think these new ones will blow them out of the water as long as you keep up to date on replacing the chain when it's worn.
The smart engineers at Sram German really have went to town on this. They have gone over everything with a fine toothcomb. Chris said that looked at all the warranty data they had collected over the last 10 years and tried to eliminate as many of the issues as they could. The way to do this was to redesign the whole system and imagine a new way of doing things. The clevis mount gave the ability to produce a far supplier product and gave the engineers more ability to optimism ever last bit. There are so many little things they have done that all add, that just make it a joy to use, such as the slight bent in the derailleur cage. It looked like it had been bent on the trail but in actual fact, it's ment to be like that. It helps keep the pulley chain interface better aligned when in the extreme ends of the cassette. There are 2 different modes to set the cage depending on the chainstay length. The new magic wheel jockey wheel that features on the XX1 and XX1sl models will let the jockey wheel still spin even an object gets stuck in there. There are so many other little things they have optimized that just add up to a better product.
Set up has become easier than ever before. I'm not going to go into the whole way you go about it. Sram technical manuals have that all dialled and are a great source of information. “We gave this product out of some of our racers this year on the EWS and the mechanics keep overthinking the setting up of the system”. “it can't be this easy” they keep telling Chris. Easier set-up leads to fewer problems and fewer tuning errors from the get-go.
Now I imagine that you're thinking “That's all very well a good but what happens if I crash and absolutely smash it into a rock or something and manage to bend it?”. Well yes. Shit does happen. In that case on a normal hanger mech situation, both of them would probably be a full write-off and due of the bin. In the case of this new system. Well, I'd be very surprised if you would be able to bend the clevis. It is really that strong and stiff. But the good news is that the rest of the derailleurs are rebuildable. If you do damage a part it will most probably be replaceable. You can remove the cage without using any tool. A simple little tap while unscrewing the cage will loosen it up. The tension spring and clutch are now built into the cage. Servicing and cleaning these parts becomes super easy and something that can be done in no time. The protection covers on the B-knuckle and outer link are fully replaceable, or upgradeable to the XX skid plate. Is your mech looking a bit scratched up and tired after a year of use and abuse? Simple slap some new ones on and it will look brand new. I’m really behind this, I love when brands make products rebuildable and serviceable, Products that they want to see being used for years and years. Products that you can fix rather than just replace. It is the way our industry should be heading instead of becoming a throwaway society just because one tiny part breaks or wears out that’s not replaceable… Looking at you, The Big Japanese S brand
The next day we were up and out bright and early again. Straight back up skyline access road and then straight up the Ben Lomond walking track. Now, this is a walking track but there must have been something in the crew coffee that morning because they pedalled up the whole thing. I'll say it again. Absolute savages this lot. It's pretty relentless the whole way. Just a hard-going grind but it rewards you with breathtaking views once you reach the Ben Lomond saddle. 1000m of vertical descent was now ahead of us back down to Queenstown. What a treat to be had. We hopped on to upper missing link and stopped at the rock feature near the top. I had this idea for a photo I wanted to shoot. Everyone had a run-through, wall riding on the rock and I got what I wanted. Chris pushed back up to hit it again, he's came into the rock at a weird angle so that he goes straight into the rock, next thing he extended his bike up over vertical and foot planted on the rock. Everyone was freaking out. It was so unreal. There had been a lot of bmx chat on the way up and I guess Chris was feeling inspired. I didn't think a foot plant on that rock was possible. Dan and Andrew started giving it a go. Popping so high before planting the foot. The bike basically upside down, Foot placed on top of the rock. It was mind-bending. If they got the foot placement wrong it would have been a good fall down the other side. Dan and Andrew just shut the rock down. Amazing
We continued down upper missing link, weaving and dancing our way along the Ridgeline, the small narrow singletrack snaking through the rocks and tussocks. From there we headed down what you could argue as one of the best trails in New Zealand. I'm not going to tell you where it is or what it's called. If you know you know. It's an absolute gem of a trail. A ture mix of everything. 3 trails in one. Flowing flat-out beach forest, to dark turny pines to Val de sol like rock gardens. It’s got it all. As you hammer along the beach forest section you're treated to huge compression, little gaps. Flat out straights into tight turns. Cornflakes cover the track and hide the roots below. The new brakes where really started to show their improvement over the old ones. The power seemed to have increased, the lighter lever feel was a welcomed addition heaping easing the arm pump on this long run. The classic Sram modulation was still there giving you heaps of control over the brakes.
Once you finish the beach part you hit the dark pine at about what feels like warp speed. Your eyes don’t have long to adjust to the light conditions. Turns come up fast, a couple of lefts rights before coming into a rock roll feature. From there you head through a small slither of Sycamores, lighting the place up in green haze. The dirt in the section is treacherous in the wet, almost like riding on ice. Finally, you end up with what I imagine a fresh tamed down version of Val de soul would feel like. Deep loam and lots of rocks. I was barreling through this section and smoked the derailleur into something. The sound was horrendous. In my head I was thinking “ ah fucked. Well that's fucked then”. I didn't stop though and continued on to the bottom of the trail. To my absolute amazement it was fine, sure it looked like it had been hit, there was scratches, a big chuck of material missing and rock debris showed that. But the shifting was still absolutely perfect. If this was any other system this would not been the case. Really impressive.
You know where this ends. It's the end of the ride. We are hungry and thirsty. Only one place to go then. Back to Atlas. We cheered to a fantastic weekend of riding over some cold crips pints. What a weekend. What amazing trails. What a tremendous Crew, and what a fantastic transmission!!!! The new benchmark has been set.
Sram has really knocked it out of the park on this. It's hard to think about how you can improve on what they have delivered here. It's truly fantastic. It’s robust, designed from the ground up for mountain biking, finally moving on from the hanger system that came from road bikes so many years ago. I’m a massive fan of the ability to be able to rebuild and replace parts on the derailleur. The shifting is light years ahead of the others. Will this groupset make you faster? You could argue that it will, But I don’t think that's the right question to ask. Will this groupset enhance the experience of your ride? 100% it will, It’s an absolute joy to use, It makes you want to shift more and It’s easy to set up. It’s built to last, is robust, and strong. You don’t really have to worry about it. Going off the reliability of the previous axs stuff which was in my opinion the best out there, then this should be able to last an apocalypse. I’m not normally the sort of person to fork out for an expense drivechain, Instead, I normally run the cheapest I can get away with. Gen 1 of axs changed my mind about that a bit, But this new stuff has 100% flipped my view on that. It's something that's worth saving up for and putting on your next bike. It's something worth investing in. You won’t regret it.
Hat’s off to your Sram. Well Done.
