2500 euro from Bike24 LINK

i gave you what i knew, and a third less than your usual SRAM, with complete bikes $3000 less, seems to me to have answered whether this was "'trickle that shit up' moment". i took "trickle that shit up" to mean a supposed downstreamed product that didn't really grant a meaningful savings over the halo product. please accept my apology if "trickle that shit up" means something else.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

This may have been talked about elsewhere, but I have three questions:
(1) will the old blip box work with this system (i.e., RD) or are we forced to but the new blip box if we want 12 speed?
(2) what do we have for 12 speed wheel choices right now and/or will 11 speed wheels be adaptable to 12 speed?
(3) can you shift directly from the new blip box like the old blip box or must you use clics/blips?

SRAM's commitment to the 10T cog included throwing away the current standard chainring sizes. There's no 53T chainring option, but 48-10 is roughly the same ratio as 53-11.

The name "standard" double for 53-39 is a historical artifact. 52-42 also had a long reign before gradually morphing into 53-39, and today 53-39 has become much less popular than 50-34 and 52-36. It would have been baffling if SRAM had kept 53-39 around for AXS while also not including the modern "compact" doubles.

here's more on pricing. here are aftermarket MSRPs, bearing in mind that SRAM has a min and a max. what i have with force is just one price. i'm comparing this to RED's min pricing:

2x Hydraulic Road Disc Brake: RED: $3,648: Force: $2,678. it's about 26.5 percent less if you use RED's min MSRP pricing.

2x Rim Brake $3,488 RED: Force: $2,478. here it's around 30 percent less, 29 percent less if you use the min pricing, around 30 or 31 if you use the max pricing.

these are w/o power meters. i don't know what happens to the prices when you add power meters. i know what happens to the RED prices, but not the force prices. yet.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

What's the math on the extra friction the 10T causes too?

What if you're a pro and riding huge chainrings like many do? I've seen 54s, 55s, even 56. Will it still work?

i would guess the old blip box works, but i can't swear to it. i'll find out.

your old 11sp wheels will work if they accept one of SRAM's drivers. for years zipp made its wheels with its XD driver, and for years all wheel companies save shimano made their hubs so that an XD driver could be put on there.

these AXS groupsets require an XDR driver. same thing. the wheel companies knew about this for many months, and they pretty much all should have an XDR driver they make that fits onto their wheels. if you have an older wheel, as long as it was XD driver compatible, it's XDR driver compatible, and can be used with these AXS groupsets, i.e., they'll take an AXS cassette.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Red AXS offers a 50-37 chainring combo. The 50-10 ratio is equal to 55-11.

Thanks. I edited to add a third question while you were typing a response

(3) can you shift directly from the new blip box like the old blip box or must you attach/use clics/blips?

also, RED's 50x37 will bolt onto a Force eTap crank. Force relies mostly on a 4-bolt spider system. Force chain rings => spider => crank. but, you can bypass all of that and direct mount to the crank, if you have direct mount CRs, which is what all RED CRs are.

i just don't even want to know how much money a set of RED CRs are in the aftermarket, tho.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

as i understand it, the new blip box works exactly like the old, it's just smaller. but i don't understand the question. i've never shifted directly from the blip box. i don't know how or why you'd do that. or that the old blip box allowed for that. can you give me a use case or an explanation?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Sure; I’ve gone to wireless shifting. No clics. No blips. I attached my blip box to my extensions and shift only directly from the blip box (click on + and - buttons to shift up and down). Saves me a few hundreds bucks and don’t have to deal with hiding or dangling wires. With 1x set up, it’s quite easy. I’m wondering if you can do the same from the new AXS shifter.

well heck. okay. learn something new every day. i'll find out.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Looking here at the Euro retailers all I see is an option down to 170mm cranks. Is that correct? If so hard pass.

did you see my response to lightheir? with prices? i did some more nosing around and also generated some 1x comparisons:

1x hydraulic groupsets. Force eTap AXS sells in the aftermarket for $2,328 compared to RED's $3,178, a 27 percent discount. The biggest discount i could find, RED to force, is on 1x rim brake, where Force is about 32 percent less than RED, $2000 to $3,000.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

turdburgler wrote:

Looking here at the Euro retailers all I see is an option down to 170mm cranks. Is that correct? If so hard pass.

we had this very discussion about RED. they've heard a fair bit on this topic, and i asked about this when interviewing the fellow in charge of all of this, ron ritzler. so that you don't have to read it all:

"Will you make RED cranks with Quarq PMs in lengths shorter than 170mm?"

"Yeah, I saw that question [on this very forum]. In talking to our aftermarket team, who makes those decisions, we’ve heard those requests, and will add more lengths, in RED, aftermarket, down to 165mm."

they read these threads. they read what you write. they make decisions based on what you write. and believe me, before Force eTap AXS was ever launched they knew they'd need to make some addn product, as i think you can see.

my guess: 165mm cranks; 10-42 1x eagle cassettes (now that eagle + eTap = great 1x gravel options); and a 43x30 chain ring option or, failing that, a longer cage RD paired with a 10x36 or so cassette. i doubt these guys are settling in for a long design and manufacturing vacation.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Availability is end of April, at least that's what my LBS told me when I called to order it.

Thanks.

Dear SRAM people,
I like you a lot. My cross bike has a SRAM 1x setup. Get your heads out of your butts and make shorter cranks! :)

Sent with love.

hey. one thing. about shorter cranks. and, look, you heard it hear first, and you might've heard it from me first. at least as regards tri.

the value of shorter cranks is to open up your hip angle without sacrificing aerodynamics. so... for those of you who demand 165 cranks, you're demanding a crank that grants you a head start on the downstroke but with less torque generated. this benefits you if, and only if, your aero position is at that very point of being too low, i.e., if your hip angle at TDC is very close to being too acute.

is that you? and i don't mean you, turdburgler, i mean all youse out there. the short crank thing is a solution to the tight hip angle thing. if i see your position, and your pads are up in the air, and you're asking for 165 cranks, and you're taller than 5'6", then i'm asking, why?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

How can I be an offended and triggered internet user if you keep taking away my reasons to be angry with your “facts”?!

I think there might be some confusing of Red eTap AXS vs red eTap. I think his point is that Force AXS is quite a bit more expensive than the older Red eTap despite being significantly cheaper than Red eTap AXS.

i don't recall any RED eTap bikes every selling, complete, for less than about $7,000. Force eTap AXS bikes will sell for $2k to $3k less than that. usually eTap bikes were more money than dura ace di2 bikes.

mostly, you guys aren't going to buy this group aftermarket. mostly it'll be OE. what will overwhelmingly impact you is what the OE prices of this group will be and how that will be expressed in the prices of the bikes you buy. if you're able to buy AXS electronically shifted tri bikes for $4,000 or even anything under $5,000, that's a slice of the market SRAM was shut out of, new eTap or old. shimano barely played in that price range.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

~180 cm here and my stack is insanely high. After a fit at CycloLogic, I got custom 13cm risers made for my Shiv TT. I like running 165's as it helps keep my quads out of my lower ribs (the bottom couple flare out), but my body is very odd when it comes to this so I already know that I'm an outlier that SRAM won't worry about.

The new Force AXS cranksets are offered in 165mm, 167.5mm, 170mm, 172.5mm, 175mm, 177.5mm. It's right there on the SRAM website.

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the world's still turning? >>>>>>> the world's still turning