there seem to be some super Sram love among some road cyclist, but not from me. Shimano rules the road shifters.

now the mountain bike shifters, well that's another story. Sram ROCK! as long as the chain & cluster is Shimano :-/

SRAM shifters have a more positive feel when shifting. They feel really snappy.

That was my take until I switched to Di2, which takes the cake.

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Geoffrey Nenninger

I like being able to shift up or down on the same lever.

I like not having to twist the entire brake lever.

I like that they have 6 degrees that they can be adjusted with out having to buy shims.

I like that they have internal routing (under the tape) that actually works.

If I didn't already have DA on my TT bikes, I would swap them over to SRAM, because that's how much I like it. I just can't justify the cost.

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ishi no ue ni san nen | Perseverance will win in the end. | Blog | @nebmot | Strava | Instagram |

Much easier for CX as there is just one shifter, when you are wearing big gloves, that means a lot.

For downshifts, SRAM is much more positive. Upshifts, I feel are a little sketchy. Not bad, but with Shimano you know exactly how many shifts you re making. SRAM, you have to pay a little more attention. That's my take anyway

I like the snappy feel of the shifters. The hoods also seem to fit my hands a little better than Shimano.


There is nothing wrong with Shimano, its just personal preference.



But on the MTB side, I LOVE Shimano. I can't stand the double push that Sram has for their shifters.

I don't

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Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
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x2. Shimano far more crisp and true, IMHO.

About to get rid of my SRAM drivetrain on the speed concept and go Di2. Wooohooo!

the zero loss on Sram Red (just need the shifters) is amazingly quick and precise. I got tired of chain skipping all over the place on shifts when i had my ultegra 6600

Depends on road or TT. And then it would depend on R2C or regular indexed shifters.

R2C is pretty unique. And I think it shows that SRAM is committed to TT/Tri in a way that Shimano never has. Shimano's bar-end shifters aren't designed for TT/tri. They are designed for 'cross/touring and are just made to work for TT/Tri. The SRAM TT shifters were the first levers that were actually designed to fit ergonomically in your hands when put in aerobars. And R2C takes that a step further by actually putting spring loaded indexed shifting at the end of the bars, just like you'd have on your road bike.

Di2 is extraordinarily pricey, and even still, the ergonomics of the barends is not very good (IMO).

On the road bike, I think there isn't too much difference, though I find the SRAM RD is more forgiving of infrequent maintenance and tends to shift more reliably and without noise than the my Dura-Ace 7800 stuff did when I didn't have the cable tension bang on. With proper maintenance, I'd struggle to really pick out a substantive difference. SRAM feels a bit punchier and Shimano a bit more subtle, but that's not really substantive in any performance-related way. I have been more pleased with how SRAM has held up to lack of maintenance. It's much more "set it and forget it" than Shimano was.

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"Non est ad astra mollis e terris via." - Seneca | rappstar.com | FB - Rappstar Racing | IG - @jordanrapp

One nice thing about SRAM is that the mtb and road components are interchangable. We've put some super low combinations on bikes with compact chainrings, a mtb rear derailleur and an 11-32 or 34 cassette for those that really want/need the low end. Shimano brifters don't work well at all with the newer Shadow type of mtb rear derailleurs and seem to have problems going larger than a 28t cog. No, I don't ride with that type of setup but we'll do whatever a customer wants to get a lower gear.

Personally I prefer SRAM on my bikes.
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-Darrell

This. I love zero loss. I expected to also be in love with the ability to draw the shifter against the drops for gearing up while out of the saddle in a sprint, but because of the larger paddle (than DA 780) and short travel I never had problem just slapping the paddle.

Also, I love the hood shape compared to the DA 7800 I left behind. The 6700/7900 has a nice hood shape too.

really? i was told the shadow pull ratio was the same as the 5600/6600/7800 range RDs.
Hmm there goes my plan to use a shadow RD for aerodynamics out the window.

i have had it all. Dura ace is the best. the upshifts on sram where not as precise. i liked the down shifts though. it is also super noisy with their chain and cassette. we see so much of it on bikes because they sponsor so many pro teams and their oem is priced so that most bikes now come spec'd with it. It is not as good a product overall as shimano

MTB= SRAM all the way..... shimano just doesn't seem to hold up to the conditions IMHO

TT= SRAM R2C....... love 'em, the ultegra and DA just didn't seem to be as precise always needing to adjust barrel adjusters or switching to friction instead of indexed.

Road= ? i've only been on shimano...... but i will say my 2008 ultegra TRUMPS 2010 DA? shifting is like butter and dead on with that ultegra bike!?! it's as close as i can get to electric shifting it's so freaking smooth and fast. the DA just needs some tinkering i think?

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Tim

Pretty much sums it up for me too as far as the road bike. I'll add the R2C on my P2 is a dream compared to the old (literally) Shimano design bar end shifters.

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Rodney
TrainingPeaks | Altra Running | RAD Roller
http://www.goinglong.ca

I've got shadow RD on 2 bikes with Shimano brifters (one 9 speed, one 10), works fine. One has regular roadbike gears, the othe has had mtb gears (11/32) put on from time to time.

Both work flawlessly.

Styrrell

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Styrrell

I like Shimano better. I think the shifting is crisper, and it doesn't seem to be quite as finicky as SRAM. That said, I have SRAM on my road bike for one reason -- the shape and size of the brifters. SRAM got that one right early -- much better for smaller hands. I haven't tried the DA 7900 (to say nothing of Di2) shifters, and I hear they're better than before, so I may go back to Shimano on the next upgrade. We'll see. Shimano all the way for my tribike and my beater commuter road bike, which has the Shimano small-hands-specific shifters.

Shimano levers gave me huge blisters on my hands and would cramp my thumbs. plus I had nowhere near the braking power with the 7800 levers. Bottom line, they jsut didn't fit my hand.

I've learned to love the SRAM double tap. I like that my hand is always in the right place to shift no matter if I'm going up or down the gears. I think it might be true that they are a bit harder to set up than the shimano, but once you get the hang of it, it's really quite easy.

I've had Red on two road bikes, and Force now on my CX. FWIW I've run DA 7800, Ult 6700, campy R10, Centaur 2009 hood shape (which may still be my fav, but I don't want to go back to thumb shifting)

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This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time. - Fight Club
Industry Brat.

Better "bang for the buck", especially weight-wise.

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

I have Ultegra on one road bike (had, I guess, since I just sold it last fall) and SRAM Red on another.

I love the Red rear shifting, seems crisper and snappier, for lack of better words. Especially downshifting to a smaller cog. Its a light tap on the lever and SNAP, the shift is done and over and crisp. The Ultegra front however felt smoother, the Red seems to clunk into the big/small ring.

Crispy, snappy, clunk...how are those for technical descriptions?

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I don't at all!

I have Record on road bike(s) and Red on TT bike. I can really say I dis-like the Red very much. Never works right. Not at all crisp.

Campy 11 TT will rock the world.

I don't.

I can run shimano, I can run campy. I would sooner use old 7-speed Dura Ace with downtube shifters than Red or any other Sram group.

Shimano shifting is smooth and precise. When you set it up well, it is very solid and doesn't require adjustment very often at all. And having separate levers for the up shift and down shift means that you don't miss-shift like happens with Sram.

I really wanted to like Sram. I just don't.

I know from experience that Shadow doesn't work with 5700/6700/7900 as we've tried it in the store. Shimano also says that there is a different cable pull ratio of the road and mtb. For the 6600 brifters we have gotten the older Deore derailleurs to work well.

Others may have had success but this is based on my experience and calls into Shimano to check compatibility.
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-Darrell

I don't.

The only thing good about SRAM is the hood shape. Hood shape was keeping me off Shimano on road bike so was having to swap cassette and feehub on PT between Di2 TT and Centaur/Record mix on road. New shimano hood shape fixes that issue. Shimano shifts better. When you're grovelling for bottom the rear mech is going the right way to start with, not doing a dinky little 1/4 shift the wrong way before you hit the bail out gear.
Campag 11 is everything 10 wasn't and is as easy as D-A to set up FWIW

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'to give anything less than the best is to sacrifice the gift'...Pre