Picking up a new bike that is built up with Rival. Have heard great things about the gruppo but a few people have told me there a re a few things that should be upgraded.
Brakes
Cables
Chain
Anything else? What do you guys think?
Thanks
Having owned every line up in SRAM’s road department I can tell you what my sentiments are. I cannot discern a single bit of performance difference from Red to Apex. I’m riding a hybrid mutt of Force, Rival and Apex with a 105 chain and cassette. I would be interested in hearing the reasoning behind the aforementioned ‘upgrades’ your friends suggested out of curiosity.
IMO swapping those items out is a fools errand in terms of performance, but that is just my opinion. Now if you want to do it just…to do it…not a thing wrong with that in the world. Bikes are fun to play with! I just think you will be extremely let down if you do it for performance gains.
Have fun!
i almost agree with everything you said.
i can’t tell a difference between any of the groups (from Red to Rival) except from Rival to Force.
i think this is where the biggest gap in performance is. i can especially tell this with the brakes and RD.
to the OP: if you had to i would focus on the brakes and cassette.
i ride Red on everything i have, but that’s because i’m a diva and like the bling factor.
X2 on the brakes. After having upgraded from Rival, the most noticeable difference came from the brakes. I keep telling myself the shifting is better/smoother, but I like to justify my addiction.
i was told the brakes were a little soft but i live in miami so im not too worried about brake flex on a descent. i’ve got a red cassette at home with <200miles but that thing is so damn loud.
haha.
i love the loudness!
Agreed on the brakes…but for only the reason that they don’t have a centering adjustment setscrew. Other than that, they work fine, especially if you replace the pads with KoolStop Salmons.
they finally got smart and cut out some of the material in the cassette. I believe their engineers understood that the casette was musical and intended to play through the well designed SRAM red speaker
I echo most of what is said here. Upgrading to have the latest and greatest is totally justified if you have the means and that matters to you. Upgrading to improve performance is questionable. I ride anything from a 20 year old mtn bike with Deore XT to an S2 with Rival, and as long as it is clean, properly adjusted, and not worn out, it all pretty much rides the same. I would not lose sleep over seconds lost, or enjoyment unfulfilled, because you ride rival.
Hijacking this thread…
Have full Red but it’s 53/39 and miss big time my old compact.
Would it be bad to change crankset to Rival ($150) or Force ($210) vs Red ($300)… money is tight
Having the oposite prob. New bike comes with compact and am thinking of going up to 53t. Miami is flat so need for compact gearing
Picking up a new bike that is built up with Rival. Have heard great things about the gruppo but a few people have told me there a re a few things that should be upgraded.
Brakes
Cables
Chain
Anything else? What do you guys think?
Thanks
I have red with simano chain and casette and fsa kforce crankset, I will only change brakes (red or dura ace) and chain and cassette (dura ace both)
I looked it up and its a .05 pound/22 gram difference between the Rival vs. Red brake set. The weight difference seems really minimal. Is the performance that much of a difference?
Hard to beat Rival for the price. Maybe a stiffer (Red) crank?
i almost agree with everything you said.
i can’t tell a difference between any of the groups (from Red to Rival) except from Rival to Force.
i think this is where the biggest gap in performance is. i can especially tell this with the brakes and RD.
to the OP: if you had to i would focus on the brakes and cassette.
i ride Red on everything i have, but that’s because i’m a diva and like the bling factor.
I’d love to have the bling factor of Red, but it doesn’t colour code as well with my bike as the Force…
Seriously though, I’ve used Apex and I ride Force – they’re worlds apart. Apex works well, but it’s just not as crisp and frankly it doesn’t have the same feel as the Force. Nebulous, I know, but that’s my take. So you don’t need to upgrade anything, but…
I’d definitely change the brakes. The Force brakes are awesome.
The cassette would come next on my list too.
Then the RD (as an aside: my bike guru told me that the upgrade to the Red rear derailleur was the only performance upgrade between Red and Force. The rest he said was weight and pretty-factor (with possible reduced durability). )
Then I’d do the shifters/levers and the cranks (I love those carbon cranks).
Then the FD and … oh, I think I should’ve stopped at cassette.
(Yeah, you could upgrade the whole groupset to Force, but brakes, cassette and RD will get you most bang for your buck, IMO)
Hijacking this thread…
Have full Red but it’s 53/39 and miss big time my old compact.
Would it be bad to change crankset to Rival ($150) or Force ($210) vs Red ($300)… money is tight
Why not just buy a 50T / 38Tchainring (FSA Pro Road - 130BCD 50T- $40 / 38T - $23) and install a 11-28 or 12-28 PG-1070 cassette (if you need lower gears for climbing)?
To the OP, I have Rival and Red - no difference with the exception of Red FD and Force/Rival/Apex and that is the steel cage verses Titanium. I’ve had my share of issues with the RED FD and finally installed a Force. No shifting issues anymore but as another poster mentioned, if you have the means, go for it. Nice bling (and performance to boot).
I have Red and Rival. The Rival works great. The action on the Red is lighter but that could be the Goretex cables that come with Red.
If you really want to spend money and get no performance gain get Di2!
I did notice quite a bit of difference with the brakes - not so much the weight difference, but with actual stopping power. This is rather subjective, but of all the upgrades from Rival, this is what I noticed the most. I suspect the real sweet spot in all of this is using Force.
I would vote for the shifters…mainly for the front…