Electric groupsets are commonplace on WorldTour bikes now. Typically, groupsets will range between 165 mm and 180 mm but aftermarket creations can be made to any length. Ground clearance is also reduced, which could be problematic on tight corners or if you plan to go off-road. With up to a 32t cog at the back, Rival has standard and WiFLi rear mech options, though at this price point the largest chainring combo you're going to get is a 52/36. Electric groupsets Campagnolo Super Record was the first groupset to make the jump to a 12-speed rear cassette. The 1x setup is ideal for commuters or those into adventure and/or off-road riding like cyclocross. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. SRAM eTap was the first completely wireless groupset, which now uses a proprietary protocol called AXS. Campagnolo levers feature curved hoods to improve ergonomics and unique shifting, a single lever behind the brake lever is used to go to an easier gear, while a small thumb lever on the inside of the hood is used to go into a harder gear. So why couldn't it work for a groupset? Electronic shifting works via wires attached to the shifters and derailleurs that transfer a signal, or via wireless technology similar to Bluetooth or ANT+ devices. The only difference between Record and Super Record is that the former features slightly less titanium and carbon fibre used throughout. A longer derailleur cage is used to accommodate a 34T sprocket with the derailleur cage itself borrowing technology from the MTB world, sitting lower and more central to improve aerodynamics and reduce damage in the event of a fall. So without further ado, join us as we take an in-depth look at road bike groupsets. Dura-Ace shift levers have a shorter lever stroke and more ergonomic design to improve rider feel and comfort. Each major groupset provider offers multiple mechanical and electronic options with different names and operating procedures. You'll also find the four-arm hollow cranksets and chainrings that all utilised the same bolt circle diameter Shimano makes these in triples for a massive gear range. Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2022. You can still see all customer reviews for the product. Record: Updated for 2019 Record is a professional quality groupset despite having one groupset sitting above it and as such often compared Shimano Dura-Ace and SRAM Red. The required tolerance of 12-speed groupsets is much tighter than 8, 9, 10, or 11-speed groupsets, meaning much careful tuning and fine adjustment. A step up to Rival gives you an extra gear on the rear cassette (11), providing 22 gears in total and a huge range with up to an 11-36T cassette available. Red: Red is at the top of SRAM's tree in terms of performance, featuring on professional teams and international level triathletes. 105: Considered Shimano's first step into the performance-orientated groupset market and 105 is largely referred to as the working man's groupset and is traditionally the most popular groupset option in the lineup. You do have to get used to braking as the whole system is in the lever. The big three, Shimano, SRAM, and Campagnolo, each have a series of groupsets arranged in tiers that are roughly equivalent to each other. And still have the 28tcog when it gets really steep. The four options are cable operated rim, cable operated disc, hydraulic rim and hydraulic disc brakes. Unless you're Filipe Ganna you probably won't be needing a 60t front chainring. Chorus EPS: Chorus is the first groupset in Campagnolo's range to have the option of electronic shifting known as 'EPS' (Electronic Power Shift). Also the shifters do not come with new brake cables only new shifter cables so probably a good idea to order new brake cables ,might as well just change the cable housings too w/new ones. SRAM also produces a 1x version but it's only compatible with hydraulic disc brakes. The groupset is a lower cost version of the mid-range Potenza with the stylish looks of more fancied Campagnolo groupsets Chorus, Record and Super Record. A 10-34t cassette certainly opens up more terrain than an 11-25 ever did. bikes Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2020. The right-hand lever controls the rear derailleur and front brake (brake orientation can change based on country), while the left-hand lever controls the front derailleur and rear brake. This page works best with JavaScript. You'll still find the four-arm cranks which will accept rings ranging from 53T down to 34T and a wide range of cassettes including the turn-a-mountain-into-a-molehill 11-34T. Campagnolo and Shimano both use wires that actuate the front and rear derailleur via the trigger at the shifters. Know you want to cycle but have no idea where to start? Road bikes are built to handle either rim brakes or disc brakes, and its often not possible to swap brake types on the same frame. Again, the former two are electronic only, while the latter exists with cables too. Chorus takes another step down in Campagnolo's pricing hierarchy but it still offers 12 speeds, the thumb shifter and carbon crank arms. The cassette is made up of a number of cogs or sprockets which can be changed to make the gear ratio easier or harder. Below this the Italians cease to offer anything. Consisting of the cranks, chainrings (front cogs), chain, cassette (rear cogs), brakes, derailleurs and shifters a groupset is a closed circuit that propels your bike and brings it to a stop again. The shift levers are fibre-reinforced plastic, the brake levers are aluminium and there is no option for disc stoppers. Force AXS also uses a flat top chain which some friction testing has shown to actually be about half a watt faster than its Red-branded compatriot. Rival still features aluminium crank arms and machined alloy ring and spiders. The chainrings are available in 52/36, 50/34, or 46/36, the traditional 53/39 set up saved for Force and Red. Claris also has an option for flat bar road bikes, a purpose-built shift lever known as 'RAPIDFIRE Plus'. FSA's first groupset has been years in the making and the component brand has employed a semi-wireless system to wrangle your gears. important notice: the kit comes with a blaze on front derailleur mount if you're current set up is a clamp type you will have to order a clamp to blaze-on converter like I did (see photos). SRAM offers short cage and WiFLi versions of the derailleurs, and you won't find disc brakes here. Sure, you may have an incredible frameset with the best road bike wheels, but without a chainset, gears and brakes you've just got an expensive garage ornament. Both the mechanical and electronic shifters also feature the famous thumb shifter, and a carbon brake lever complete with reach adjustment. When he's not out riding one of his many bikes he can usually be found in the garage making his own frames and components as a part time framebuilder, restoring old mountain bikes, or walking his collie in the Lake District. Shifts just like Shimano at the fraction of the price! With the latest R3000 iteration of Sora, both 4 and 5-arm cranksets are also offered in double and triple configurations. Campagnolo is the longest standing groupset manufacturer and has been actively innovating within the cycling industry for over 80 years. Potenza features a four-arm crank and re-designed front and rear derailleur to improve shifting. It is however expensive, and reliant on batteries, so if you're on a budget or extremely forgetful then you might be better of with old fashioned cables. Road riding was his first love, before graduating to racing CX in Yorkshire. It's also said to allow easier access to shifting while in the handlebar drops and covering the brakes. The larger the difference between the smallest and largest cog on the cassette, the greater the chain has to move and the less consistent a rider's cadence becomes between gear changes. When it comes to shifting quality and speed the difference between Ultegra and Dura-Ace is negligible and the second tier group also offers Syncro and semi-Syncro shifting. Force x1: Force x1 had been predominantly used for Cyclocross at an elite level as Red is currently only available in a double crankset option. Another potential turning issue is the reduced clearance between your toe/shoe and the front wheel. With the addition of another cog out back, the shifters, derailleurs, chain, crankset and cassette have all seen a significant upgrade from their outgoing 11-speed counterparts. He's been touring on a vintage tandem all the way through to fixed gear gravel riding and MTB too. With a number of 9-speed cassettes on offer, a maximum cog size of 30T outback and refinements made to shift quality and durability, Sora represents great value. please read review for front Mech type!!! Don't be fooled into thinking you can mix between manufacturers though. Ive not put a lot of miles on it yet, but I really like it thus far!! Most of Shimano's groupsets are designed to work together (as long as they share the same number of gears), making it possible to mix componentry, although for optimal performance it's best to keep uniformity. Budget groupsets Apex is SRAM's entry-level road groupset, which offers 2x10 shifting with the brand's patented DoubleTap mechanism. Heres why you can trust us. Traditionally there will either be two or three chainrings on the front, although in recent times some road bikes, particularly gravel bikes, have followed the mountain bike trend of having a single chainring. Don't worry Campy fans, the veritable thumb shifter is still here, and so is the Ultra-Shift tech which allows for three downshifts and five upshifts with a full swing of the respective lever. Takes a little bit of time to get used to the double tap shifting. That said, there is no clutched rear derailleur or 1x solution. The groupset is also the first in the hierarchy to score in series disc brake compatibility, with both levers and callipers on offer. Shimano's 105 groupset has always been the workhorse in the range, and the latest R7000/R7020 11-speed version offers similar performance to its more expensive siblings, for considerably less outlay. The absolute top of the tree when it comes to groupsets, Super Record spares no expense or design innovation to create what Campagnolo calls the ultimate groupset.. cycling, Press J to jump to the feed. The performance and reliability of 1x make it perfectly suited to the demands of cyclocross, but it has started to be seen more on crit specific and triathlon bikes that don't require an extensive gear range. However, rim brakes haven't stopped working just because discs are on the scene, so for those with smaller budgets, retro tendencies, or for weight weenie lunacy, rim brakes still have something to offer. I suppose it might make sense for someone trying to get into racing on a tight budget. The biggest drawback here is when it does come time to upgrade, Shimano's 10-speed components aren't compatible with the 11-speed kit, so it's an all or nothing upgrade. Conversely, the downside of mechanical shifting is that is as often not as flawless as it relies on the cables to be in perfect working order. Yes, you will have to replace a gear cable or housing every so often but it will never run out of battery when you are miles from home. The groupset is now 11-speed, has a wide gear range capacity, an updated crankset, two different finishes and even wheelsets to match. Longer cranks: Longer cranks create more torque due to the increased leverage, but require greater force to turn over. Record EPS: The electronic version of the already elite Record groupset. The STI lever allows for multiple shifts and means never having to move your hand position to slow down or change gears. Installation took me 4hours including all the finishing touches like wrapping my handle bars, indexing front mech and rear mech,replacing my old cable housing w/ brand new ones from Jagwire, etc.. the shifting mechanism is very similar to Sram's mechanical double tap shifters. 3. Its available in 1x or 2x versions and features a built-in Quarq power meter, with the extra sprocket at the rear SRAM has removed a few teeth from the front chainring; the biggest commercially available double-ring option is now a 50/37T though the pros have been riding 54/41T rings. A bike with larger front chain rings and a smaller ratio cassette on the back will be more targeted for speed, provide less range of gears and provide consistently smaller changes to a rider's cadence than a cassette with a larger ratio. It was always a matter of time until SRAM added its third-tier Rival road groupset to its wireless AXS family, which happened just a couple of months ago. I bought this group for a 10 speed "trainer bike" that I use mostly indoors. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. Basically I wanted to have all of my bikes be compatible, which I now have. The ingenious system allows the user to change gears up or down and brake with one hand. Each component uses its own battery, with the shifters powered by coin cell batteries and the derailleurs using rechargeable versions. The group is available in both rim and disc brake guises, however, the latter loses the ability to adjust the bite point though you can still tailor the lever reach. The 1x is available for drop or flat bar road bikes and features an enormous 11-42T cassette. The groupset is the heart of any bike. Crankset combinations include 53/39, 50/34, 52/36 and 46/36T, whilst in-series rim and disc brake callipers/rotors, pedals, and time trial specific shifters complete the line-up. Apex comes with an 11-32 cassette, perfect for beginners who are after easy pedalling gear ratios. Rival x1: Rival x1 is similar to Apex but extends its chainring options (38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 50T), sheds a little weight, and has an even larger rear cassette available (10-42T). It's functional but certainly not as nice to use or mechanically sophisticated as the current 11-speed components from Shimano/SRAM. Rides: Custom Zetland Audax, Bowman Palace:R, Peugeot Grand Tourisme Tandem, 1988 Specialized Rockhopper, Stooge Mk4, Falcon Explorer Tracklocross. Rival borrows heavily from Force; there are both 1x11 and 2x11 options with DoubleTap shifting and the YAW front derailleur that allows for trim-free cross chaining. Before the Campagnolo Ekar gravel groupset was introduced in 2020, Chorus was seen as the brand's off-road offering, thanks to its slightly different gearing combinations. Naturally, SRAM built the Rival eTap AXS around the same blueprint as its other AXS siblings, though the third-tier groupset uses heavier materials to cut costs and make it more affordable. but the Japanese continue to provide, with, in decreasing order of prestige, Tiagra, Sora, and Claris, effectively cornering the budget end of the market. As you work up the groupset hierarchy, materials change, components decrease in weight and often increase in price as a result. England and Wales company registration number 2008885. thoughts about sensah groupset and is it compatible with shimano sti? bikeit! Its available as an electronic groupset only and makes use of full wireless technology and hydraulic disc actuation. Visit our corporate site (opens in new tab). Mechanical groupsets Campagnolo was fashionably late to the disc brake party, but this tardiness allowed it to avoid the performance and aesthetic growing pains SRAM and Shimano experienced. Not only are the one-piece Red chainrings expensive but if you wear one out, or want to go bigger or smaller, you have to replace the integrated power meter too SRAM does have an exchange program, but it adds a few steps and doesn't reduce the cost all that much. As a 12-speed groupset, 105 features 12 cogs on the cassette, the same as its more expensive siblings, allowing riders to mix and match components between the three groupsets. The price is perfect!!! 2. Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2021. But if I was doing a low-cost non-racing build, I'd find (or piece together) a lightly used 9-speed Ultegra group and enjoy the significantly better quality. I don't know what the pull ratios are for either Shimano or Sensah, but if there are compatibility problems, they would come from using one company's brifters and another company's derailleurs/brakes. EPS allows the rider to make adjustments on the fly, the "mode" buttons allowing riders to check battery charge, make fine adjustments to the rear or front derailleur and set the zero position of the rear and front derailleur. The options for cranksets increase by one, with a 'mid-compact' 52/36 gear option available, which has proven popular in upper-tier groupsets. I didn't actually click on any links, but a quick Google search seems to indicate that Sensah at least claims their components are compatible with Shimano.