So I have a bike with full 11sp Sram Force 22 mechanical groupset - 11-30 cassette and no powermeter.
I also have an unused 12sp Sram Rival AXS crankset 46/33 with powermeter. Does anyone here have experice to know if the AXS crankset will work with the Force 11 speed mechanical groupset *with sram 11speed chain? I am thinking I can pick up a DUB BB for bsa and give this a run for lower gearing and power meter. *Sram compatibiity chart gives the standard - you will explode in firey crash doing this please buy more of our $$$ 12sp stuff ans. Real World??
I asked a SRAM rep this and he said it would work but shifting may not be as crisp. I did it and it worked fine for me. I’m not sure how it would wear over time though.
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thnks. Nice to hear. Good point that chain wear may not be optimal.
It will work ok(ish) enough for most folks, until it doesn’t. It’s definitely not recommended/approved, but it seems like a fair number of people are doing it.
The 12 speed road chainrings are designed to match the larger roller diameter of the flat top chains, and - anecdotally - both chain and chaninring wear much more quickly when using an 11 speed chain. You will want to be really careful about monitoring chain wear, and it would be a good idea to use something like the new Abbey tool to do so.
Good writeup on the 11/12 speed compatibility issues from the chain side of things here.