XO is solid group set… and probably my favorite aesthetically. I picked up the first version on sale so it was worth it (at that price) but is a bit heavy at 1900g though.
“Power under force” is nice but the X01 mechanical has been so good for me I often end up choosing the mechanical bike more than not.
I love the x01 mechanical I run. The toughest chain and cassette are so much more expensive, but I find they last so much longer than gx.
My original impression of transmission and it’s ability to pedal under load - “Meh”.
But after thousands of miles on it this summer and then going back to regular AXS (on my gravel bike), it took some adjustment to stop making bad shifts. It’s not so much that the old axs stuff doesn’t shift well under power, I just never realized that it takes some technique to do it. On old AXS (and really any groupset prior to transmission), it’s like a reflex to time the shift in the dead area of the pedal stroke and often reduce power on the pedals for a split second without even thinking about it. Transmission actually shifts better under load, so it breaks the habit of lifting up a bit during the shift. I’m not sure that makes it measurably better, but it’s definitely different. I can still crunch my old axs while transmission is pretty much crunch proof.
Similar to my experience with transmission. The first ride wasn’t that impressive but then after owning it for a bit, I realized there was a (small) significant difference there. Where I noticed it most was when I had to shift during work periods on interval workouts - transmission made those shifts seamless whereas normal AXS has the more typical derailleur requirement of soft pedaling for half a pedal. That difference certainly extrapolates to race situations.
I may be an outlier here but I never timed or gave mercy to my drivetrain, I always shift under power and yes it makes huge clunks and bangs. I have people riding with me ask me about it a lot. I imagine this may be part of the reason I dislike AXS (road/gravel) so much over mechanical ultegra or my mechanical GX, the AXS hates it, the mechanical units just do it.
The smooth upshifts for me is amazing. I poo pooed “leg shock” but now I hate it. I have a Linkglide cassette on the way for my bike path bike because I just can’t stand it anymore and I hope it’s smooth like t-type.
However….i can’t feel any difference between gx and xxsl so, for me, gx all the way. Except for the crank.
Joe
I’m pretty hard on my stuff as well and get some looks and comments when I’m crunching. It usually does work, but I’ve bent my share of cassette teeth getting a bit too rowdy on both 11 (mech) and 12 speed (eagle AXS).
I’ve only done a handful of rides on my GX Transmission, coming from mech GX before, but this has been my feeling. It shifts ok, but I get the clunks with some shifts. I know the use is different, but my road Ultegra is so much smoother, even under load. It’s not bad, and I don’t plan on changing away from AXS any time soon. Maybe it’s just the clunk noise that’s throwing me off. I love electronic shifting way more than mech, so much so that you’d have to pay me to go back to mech shifting. It might just be that I was expecting more with Transmission. I felt like I always read that it would be a game changer. It works, and like I said, it’s not bad. It’s just not like amazing or anything. Which probably just comes down to expectations.
In my experience, transmission isn’t very quiet or smooth, it just works. Even going back to 10 speed road, I’ve always liked SRAM’s “deliberate” shifting over shimano’s smoother and more quiet system. Transmission takes it to another level, seems they really prioritized function and didn’t worry much about the noise.
My first real exposure to transmission was in Park City P2P. It was a very interesting experience. At first it seemed slow, and a bit of a regression. However, 5 hours it, at 9K+ elevation, grinding up, up, up on bumpy, technical terrain, I figured something out. Transmission just let me smoothly grind away. I didn’t need to time the shift, or my pedal stroke. I just kept up my slow pedal cadence and the transmission did the rest.
It’s subtle, and frankly for anything other than a slow, high power, uphill grind, I’m not sure it’s better. For gravel, the slower shifts are probably worse. But under high power where you don’t want to, lose any momentum, it’s fantastic.
Transmission is awesome. After riding on it all summer at Sea Otter, Tahoe Trail and Leadville, I built up a new bike with my old SRAM AXS XX stuff. Night and day shifting experience IMO. Whereas the T-type will never miss a beat the old stuff definitely makes you think twice about putting power down while shifting.
Like others noted, I didn’t notice it myself at the beginning, but after likely 1000 miles I’m a believer
A quick review on Flight Attendant after installing and ~7 hours of ride time -
Bike - Epic 8 expert with 3 way twistloc and Sid Select + shock and fork (basically the OEM versions of the SID ultimate shock and fork)
Me - 55 year old mainly focused on gravel racing and marathon MTB. MTB tech skills are not my strength, but I do OK and will get on a podium every once in a while. I have always ridden XC with a manual 3 way lockout, so that definitely skews my perspective compared to someone who doesn’t use a lockout.
Install was simple. Remove old shock and remote lockout/cables and bolt in new shock. The fork requires a damper replacement, which is a simple add-on to a lower leg oil change/service. Both very easy DIY. The main control module just fastens to the top of the fork once you have the updated damper. I also added a 2 button remote, but that’s not required if you don’t want the ability to override the automatic mode.
Setup/config was a little clunky with the AXS app. The pairing of everything was easy, but the app would still say it’s not ready to ride and didn’t seem to recognize the assigned pedal sensor (my quarq power meter). I even watched their videos and followed instructions, but that app just kind of sucks in my opinion. Everything basically resolved in time, I think the biggest problem with the app is that it just doesn’t give good feedback on background processes. Logging out and logging back in and everything showed ready to go. I configured the system to never automatically lock out the fork and my override button was for full lock for both fork and shock.
All my riding was on a course that requires frequent manipulation of the lockout, so it was a good test. For the first ride, the system doesn’t know the power profile, so it didn’t have that data to start. You can pre-load some power numbers, but that appears to disable the learning mode so I just let it do it’s thing. You can see the mode selections it’s making based on the lights on the fork, so I was watching it quite a bit. Even without power data, I was mostly happy with the selections it was making. After the first ride (a couple hours), I checked the app and it still didn’t show power zones. Again, I just had to be patient because they eventually showed up after ~5 minutes and then the lights on the fork would also reflect power zones. Another couple rides with the power data seeded and I didn’t see a huge difference in how it behaved, but it continued to make good decisions.
Overall, very pleased so far. While there are a few situations where I could have anticipated a mode change quicker, the FA system is constantly making adjustments I’d never bother to make. When I’m riding manually, I’m in pedal mode unless there is a really compelling reason to ride open or locked. With FA, it’s frequently selecting open when it senses (often when you aren’t pedaling). And the split mode where it runs a softer fork and firmer shock (typically when climbing) is probably my favorite feature you can’t really replicate with manual systems. And really the best thing about the system is that it just lets you pedal your bike without the mental distraction of constantly adjusting your lockout mode. The course I was testing on isn’t particularly technical, but has a bunch of “pay attention or wreck” sections with loose rock and other features that would prevent me from manually operating a lockout because there is too much going on. Maybe a really skilled rider could make better/faster adjustments than the FA system does, but FA is doing a much better job than I could ever hope to. Whether that translates to more speed, time will tell. It certainly makes the bike easier and more fun to ride/race for a hack like me.
In the end, FA only added 36 grams of weight to my bike, so basically nothing. Losing 2 cables off the front end is certainly going to provide more aero benefits vs. the slight weight penalty. Charging 4 AXS batteries is silly stuff, so I’m splurging another ~$100 on the 4 bank battery charger. Anyways, very happy with the performance so far and I have a couple long races in the next month where I’ll really test it. My biggest concern at this point is reliability with the newness of the system. I may keep my old shock and damper around for a bit just to make sure this system is solid.
So you had to replace the crankset and install Flight attendant?
Just curious- what was the total cost?
Yep, but not because of flight attendant. When I bought the bike, I needed a different crank size and also wanted 2 sided power, so I never even rode the bike with the original crank. Same with AXS dropper, I bought that from planet cyclery when they were going out of business (before I even took delivery of the bike).
List prices on the required bits (approx based on memory) -
shock - $850
fork damper - $200
fork control module - $450
So, about $1500 retail plus tax, but I get a decent team discount on SRAM and paid less. And I expect I’ll be able to sell the old shock and damper for around $300, so a little savings there.
If you don’t have a discount through local shop, I’d be calling online shops to get 10-20% off (most online shops will do something on a big parts order if you call and ask).
If you don’t have a quarq PM on your bike, you’d have to buy the Sram pedal sensor (~$125).
I also elected to get a 2 button controller to allow system override ($150 retail) and I also ordered the 4 battery charger ($120 retail). Neither of those are needed, just nice to have.
Completely agree. I tried most of them, the 175 gram OMM vest is my fav. 4 front pockets to organize trash from unused nutrition is clutch too.
Curious about the total weight? My Similarly spec’d Cervelo comes in at 24.8lbs.
25.51 lbs. That’s with pedals, cages, heavy-ish tires and 4-6 oz of sealant in each wheel. It was a bit under 25lbs for leadville with lighter tires, smaller chainring, and less sealant (but with a rear tire insert and wireless blips added to my bars).
Just closing the loop here. I ended buying a second bike. Rocky Mountain Element C70 SRAM build on sale. The more time I’ve spent on the epic7 on local trails, the more I appreciate how fast it is on normal green/blue trails you’d find in XC races.
However, the Element alows me to ride really technical trails in UCSC that I definitely couldn’t on the epic, while not being a full on Enduro bulldozer. Pedals like an XC bike, not unlike epic 8 to be honest, but so much more capable. I demoed an SB140 and hightower, and while a bit faster on the downhill both felt like a lot of bike, whereas the element I could ride the same trails, but It felt more efficient and something I could race at more technical race if I wanted to.
Element is a solid bike for sure. Did you really think that it descended that differently? I’ve only demoed an epic on greens, but I didn’t think that the geometry changed too much, just noticeably more rear suspension and I thought the element rear felt better.
That being said, I compared large element to XL epic, and my element has a 120 34SC, so it is more similar than a stock element.
Regardless, I think it will be a great bike. I’ve been using it for XC for two years, and I don’t regret it at all, and I don’t have wandering eyes yet. The epic 8 getting quite close to the element has me feeling pretty good actually.
Oops, misread post 
It’s an amazing bike…it’s an absolute nightmare maintenance wise. The bearings are laughably small. I had to use blind pullers to get several out and one set destroyed my seat stay (which Rocky did replace no questions asked).
It felt like I was chasing a new creak every 3 or 4 rides. That said it was probably my favorite bike I’ve ever owned when it wasn’t causing me a headache. Wildly capable, light as a feather and beautiful.
