SRAM has done pretty well gauging the off road market. It’s almost always good for business to go after the growing trends and stop throwing dumb money at the shrinking trends. SRAM might lose some customers holding onto their weight obsessions, but I bet they’ll be fine. Weight will always play a role in buying decisions, but it continues to move down the list of priorities and I don’t expect that to change as people better understand how little it matters.
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Since posted, heard that XTR Di2 has been pushed back to June. All rumors, I have no official sources.
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I agree that chasing grams isn’t worth it… but putting 4 pounds (the difference between X01 Eagle and the new mechanical transmission) definitely does. Unless you are dropping tons of money on the XX SL Transmission… the added weight and slower shifting just doesn’t do it in XC in my opinion.
As you said, I am sure SRAM will be fine. I mean e-bikes is the big seller these days. But $5000 “entry level” XC bikes are inching towards 30 pounds, and that is crazy to me. The highest spec’s Santa Cruz Blur is a claimed 25.1 pounds before bottle changes, pedals, etc. The new Blur with mechanical transmission doesn’t even list the weight. My X01 mechanical Epic Evo “7” is 23 pounds. It can handle pretty much anything except double black trails and monster drops and jumps which I am not doing anyways as my age.
I raced my bike at 30 pounds and then at 23.5 (after upgrades). Weight may be down the list of priorities but at least from my N=1 experience, it shouldn’t be dismissed.
Double post…
Not sure where you’re coming up with that difference but you’re way off… 1lb maybe… not 4lbs
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I think you have some bad data (or I do). There is no way there is a 4lb difference. Based on a quick google search, X01 is 1499g, and the new mechanical Transmission (Eagle 90) is 2085. That’s just under 1.3lbs. That’s not nothing, but you are comparing a high end X01 group with carbon cranks and the fully machined cassette, etc. to a low end group with aluminum cranks, steel chainring, and heavy cassette. All those parts could be upgraded for mechanical transmission to X01 equivalent parts. The only “low end” stuff you are stuck with on the new Eagle 90 is the shifter and RD, which don’t add much weight.
And I agree that weight still matters and a 30lb+ XC bike is getting out of hand. The tricky thing with weight is that every gram does technically matter, so it gets in people’s heads. It helps me to put it into perspective with watts. A pound is about equivalent to a watt on a fairly hilly course. 5 watts is significant just like 5 lbs is significant. I figure I’d pay about $100 per watt or per pound for the extra performance, maybe a bit more. But I’m not going to spend $4k to save 2-3 lbs on a bike (and that’s easy to do if you upgrade from mid range stuff to high end stuff).
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Oops.. My mistake, it is a 800 gram difference from X01 to Eagle 70. In my head the 4 pounds was in reference from entry level bikes at 27 pounds to 23 and got it mixed up.
I think one important aspect is also how the bike “feels.” While the difference between a 27 pound bike and 23 pound bike (that was my epic Evo Comp compared to after I upgraded components) has a completely different feel to the bike. It just feels racey now. I know it is mostly mental but if you feel fast I think it helps you to race fast as well.
Eagle 90 is supposed to be equivalent to GX and Eagle 70 to NX. A lot of the weight difference is in the crank and cassette.
Edit: The X01 cranks weigh 463 g compared to 740 g (Eagle 90) and 750 g (Eagle 70). That’s a saving of 277 g and 287 g, respectively.
The X01 eagle cassette comes in at 372 g, that’s 70 g lighter than Eagle 90 (442 g) and 193 g less (565 g) for an Eagle 70 cassette.
Comparing those two components of X01 and Eagle 70 alone, you arrive at a weight difference of 480 g, the difference to Eagle 90 is a bit less at 347 g. That’s the vast majority of the weight difference of 678 g between the two groupsets. For Eagle 90 the difference is 517 g, so about the same in absolute terms, but less in relative terms.
Basically, if you get Eagle 90 mechanical and swap the cranks and cassette for lighter options, you are pretty much there. Yes, the rear derailleur is heavier, but shifting performance seems very good, and T-type rear derailleurs seem to be very sturdy and you can replace basically every piece of it separately.
For reference, I took the weights for XO1 from this worldwidecyclery article and looked up the weights of Eagle 70 and 90 on Escape Collective.com.
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My Blur may weigh 25 lbs, but it’s not made of glass like every other ~20 lb XC bike I’ve owned. Modern XC bikes climb fast AND rip downhill now. It’s awesome.
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