If I’m reading the media right, there are 3 new Apex rds.
1 - Apex XPLR AXS wireless. Works with flat-top chain and XPLR cassettes (cross compatible with other road XPLR parts).
2 - AXS XPLR mechanical. Same as above, but cable instead of wireless.
3 - Apex Eagle mechanical Different pulleys for use with Eagle chain and mountain cassettes.
Additionally, the Apex XPLR AXS shifter can control Eagle AXS rd for mullet config (Eagle chain, mountain cassette).
The Apex mechanical lever will shift an Eagle mountain rd (GX, etc) just fine, but you won’t have a barrel adjuster (could use inline, but easier to use the Apex Eagle rd).
Actually according to James Huang’s writeup on Escape, there are two mechanical AND two AXS RDs. The AXS RDs are basically versions of either Rival or Eagle, for road or MTB cassettes respectively. The two different mechanical RDs are nearly identical, with only very subtle changes to pulley wheels. This is presumably to accommodate (or not) the Flattop chain.
For complete builds with mullet gearing, I guess? I assume most of the market for this stuff is going to be OEM, and several brands already spec a 1x Eagle cassette on gravel builds. This way they can have an all-Apex spec, I guess? Maybe easier inventory management to do it that way?
I love this! Innovation isn’t sometimes new tech, but cheaper pricing. Especially with electronic shifters, shifter design plays less of a role. (E. g. I do feel the difference between a Deore and an XT trigger shifter.)
That is huge in my opinion and makes Shimano’s 105 Di2 pricing seem outright silly. Can’t wait for your review. BTW, is that your first drivetrain review?
If I had to guess (I haven’t read any of the reviews yet), then at least for the electronic rear derailleur the internals are likely identical to its bigger siblings. So that’d make sense.
Apex should be a tier lower than GX. How do the rear derailleurs compare price-wise?
Apex is a lot cheaper actually: $275 vs. $390. I guess at a minimum this might be a new cheapest route to wireless MTB shifting, thought I wonder if the clutch and other aspects of the Apex build are less robust than GX.
I don’t know, but the price alone would indicate to me that the Apex RD isn’t a rebadged GX rear derailleur. And yeah, SRAM just made electronic shifting cheaper also for mountain bikes.
SRAM was already so far out in front of Shimano on 1x and electronic, this feels like they are piling on. From my perspective, really smart move by SRAM with the growth right now in gravel and MTB where 1x is dominating. SRAM now has 4 different group set levels of 12speed wireless electronic shifting. I think you can say electronic has finally trickled down.
I can’t help but feel like sram is trolling the shit outa shimano, and I love it. “Oh that’s cute, you have your little entry level electronic shifting that’s still way more than anyone wants to spend on 105, hold my beer…”
I’m quite keen to see what the new grx di2 lineup looks like. If it’s only high end, I feel like this is a dagger in the heart for shimano
I have only heard of a single Di2 GRX groupset, so I would assume that Shimano merely keeps its current line-up, it just adds a 12-speed mechanical groupset. To me the only other time when Shimano felt this far behind was when it insisted on selling 2x11 MTB groupsets when the market had already decided to go 1x12 (1x11 in a pinch). On a recent Escape Collective podcast, the hosts talked about how upset Shimano would get if during the review reviewers would convert their 2x drivetrain to a 1x drivetrain.
It seems Shimano is similarly behind on 1x groupsets and power meters. E. g. I haven’t heard any rumors of a Shimano GRX power meter. SRAM shows how it is done here, too. 1x groupsets for drop bar bikes still seem an afterthought or something you ought not do. Just give riders a choice. To be clear, don’t force 1x down the throat of customers either, but I think SRAM shows how it is done, I think SRAM gives athletes a fair choice between two good options.
Rotor makes two 12-speed road cassettes that are compatible, 11-36 and 11-39. Rotor also makes a 12-speed 11–46 gravel cassette and a 11–52 mountain bike cassette.
Yeah, and as far as I can tell, SRAM did not artificially gimp Apex. It really seems to be a case of SRAM e. g. replacing forged with stamped parts and such, which are heavier but functionally identical.
The only semi-weird thing is that they didn’t unify the naming schemes or call it NX AXS or something. But honestly, if that’s all you can complain about, it’s a pretty good product.
Yeah, there was definitely some questions from media in the room about the naming schemes. And they (SRAM) also talked about how they didn’t rename stuff for the sake of renaming when it came to Eagle for example, they just left those parts and names as-is. So I think they’re on the right track.
Of course, I think at some point one questions if there’s really all that much of a reason to have a separate APEX vs RIVAL lineup. Perhaps the OEM prices are rather different. But I think we get to the point where manufacturing and technology has consolidated and price-reduced so much that these product lines that have existed for decades in some cases, may not really have a reason to exist, except to introduce confusion.
This was my first thought. And given the functionality sounds pretty much the same I’m given the option why anybody wouldn’t just choose Apex if it was cheaper.
Because some people are particular about image/perception and the fit/finish of the components. You can’t be running apex on your s-works frame, you’d be shamed at the coffee ride. For me, bikes are tools and I generally don’t care what they look like.
I tend to spend the extra on carbon cranks (ie force) and full PM spider, but apex will likely be my 1x choice going forward for everything else assuming it has same functionality. On the MTB side, I think there were some differences in the clutch on the RD between top end eagle and GX (which I assume is same as apex). I’d still probably call it good enough and save the $.
