Shimano or SRAM???

I have a SRAM on my recumbent Catrike Road.

I like it...have no comparison to the Shimano.

Catrike Road #116
"Cats just don't feel safe on a moving bicycle, no matter how much duct tape you use"--Author unknown

I have run a Shimano LX drive train for a number of years and am now building mydream bike. I am putting a SRAM X-9 rear shifter and X-0 rear deraileur A X-0 front shifter with an LX front deraileur.
I would say a X-9 SRAM drivetrain would be very comperable to an XT. The only possible downside is that it is hard to find replacement parts.

Andrew Palek
Mechanic, Abel bicycle shop
Rolla, Mo

Xfader said:

So I went to my bicycle dealer to get some pricing on XT components to upgrade my GT, when he pulled out this box with SRAM components in the same price range. He's comments were that it's as responsive, but will last longer.

Anybody here with any experience or knowledge about SRAM and how it compares to shimano (XT)?????

TNX🙂

AHAAHAHAHahahah to me thats like saying "campag or shimano", what campag is to road, SRAM is to MTB (in my opinion anyway), theyre awesome and now that theyve bought out truvativ theyre even bigger. look at the reviews around the internet, esp. www.mtbr.com i havent really looked at many. but everyone i know that has tryed sram loves it and will never go back

if you dont know already the SRAM X9 compares to shimano XT, they dont make a whole lot of front deralleurs but apparently theyre going to bring more out sometime later on. they only make 2 deralleurs, you'd want to go for the x gen. one, ive never got a shimano front deralleur working as well as my sram one works, theyre a hell of alot smoother. with the chains they make the hollow pin lightweight versions, youll probly be looking at the pc89 or pc99 chains hollow pin or not. and then yeah whatever..

abelbike said:

I have run a Shimano LX drive train for a number of years and am now building mydream bike. I am putting a SRAM X-9 rear shifter and X-0 rear deraileur A X-0 front shifter with an LX front deraileur.
I would say a X-9 SRAM drivetrain would be very comperable to an XT. The only possible downside is that it is hard to find replacement parts.

Andrew Palek
Mechanic, Abel bicycle shop
Rolla, Mo

ahh an X-0 shifter and x-9 shifter ? your getting gripshift then ? they dont make a rapidfire type shifter for the x-0 range YET.

x-9 is prettymuch compatible with XT but smoother if you have all sram or all shimano compared to having half/half sortof thing

hard to find replacement parts ? replacement parts for what ? SRAM is huge, theyre not likely to fade away anytime soon mate, oh and most shops now (around here anyway) are using all SRAM chains and cassettes cause theyre just better quality for the price

oh and another upside to the SRAM stuff is the shifters and stuff are rebuildable so you can get spare parts for them, where with a shaimano one if something in there brakes thats the end of it.

Xfader said:

So I went to my bicycle dealer to get some pricing on XT components to upgrade my GT, when he pulled out this box with SRAM components in the same price range. He's comments were that it's as responsive, but will last longer.

Anybody here with any experience or knowledge about SRAM and how it compares to shimano (XT)?????

TNX🙂

After running XT components for a number of years - I have since bought a bike running X-9 Shifters and X-9 rear derailuer. I am 'upgrading' the front derailuer from Shimano to an X Generation this weekend. I love the SRAM stuff - I find the shifting so much smoother and precise. I highly recommend it!

Just completely upgraded a K2 Zed With a full Sram Drivetrain X9 Thumb shifters X9 Rear derailer, 970 9 speed casette, X gen front derailer, Race face rings,cranks, and BB, Sram PC69 chain w/Gold link. Awesome Coundn't ask for more smooth shifting. I did however have trouble with the X-gen front derailer, as it was a top clamp bottom swing it just didn't want to index right. It turned out that a bottom clamp top swing derailer was the only kind that would index to satisfy me ( I can't stand a chain rubbing the front derailer even in extreme cross chaining conditions) So I now am running an XT Front but as soon as Sram makes a top swinger FD I'll have one on this bike. As for the one I bought my full squisher uses that type FD so I'll have a backup for it! Good luck with your project!

Actually I am going to be running a X-0 Front grip shift for the ability to easily ajust to avoid chain rub, and a X-9 trigger shifter working with the X-0 rear deraileur. its a wonderful setup.

Andrew Palek
Mechanic, Abel Bike Shop
Rolla, Mo

abelbike said:

Actually I am going to be running a X-0 Front grip shift for the ability to easily ajust to avoid chain rub, and a X-9 trigger shifter working with the X-0 rear deraileur. its a wonderful setup.

Andrew Palek
Mechanic, Abel Bike Shop
Rolla, Mo

That's custom!!!! sounds great! I see your in Rolla, I graduated Lebanon "79" WE never could beat you guys at football or track back then.

sram sram sram. They are solid, they shift better than shimano. Once you use their shifters you'll never want to take you finger off the brake to shift again. I thought it would take gettting used to, yeah like the first hill.

I've got the 7X and they handle crash after crash etc.

Aloha

Switched from XT to XO Gripshift a little while back, and I've clocked up about 500kms of racing on the new setup (ie, severe abuse in conditions from rain/mud to 35 degrees C dry and dusty):

IMHO there's no difference in the shifting performance - they both shift pretty damn well when set up properly. There are two benefits for XO/Gripshift though - being able to finetune the front derailleur position is great, and the weight is a little less than XTR (if that matters to you). Reliability, well, in 14 years of mountain biking I've never had any Shimano component break. Stuff wears out obviously, but that will happen with any components.

Well this is good news for me, because I'm about to replace my shifters and rear der with an SRAM setup. The bike has old, dead LX now (too many crashes) and it's time for an upgrade. Once I'm done, I'll be one component away from having a Shimano-free bike.

From what I have experienced and read in various reviews, I would use a combination of XT and SRAM. I have an all XT drivetrain, except I changed my rapidfire shifters to the SRAM rocket trigger shifters that are made to be compatible with Shimano derailleurs. This has been the best investment I made so far. The shifters can be purchased for about $60 and the shifting is so crisp with absolutely no gear jumping or skipping that I have always experienced with the Shimano shifters. The only difference is that the shifters are designed to be used entirely with your thumbs, which you get used to after about 1-2 rides. It also makes it easier to brake because you can keep your forefinger poised above the brake lever while you shift with your thumb.

I do know the the SRAM cassettes are not nearly as durable as the Shimanos.

milwaukeehaze said:

From what I have experienced and read in various reviews, I would use a combination of XT and SRAM. I have an all XT drivetrain, except I changed my rapidfire shifters to the SRAM rocket trigger shifters that are made to be compatible with Shimano derailleurs. This has been the best investment I made so far. The shifters can be purchased for about $60 and the shifting is so crisp with absolutely no gear jumping or skipping that I have always experienced with the Shimano shifters. The only difference is that the shifters are designed to be used entirely with your thumbs, which you get used to after about 1-2 rides. It also makes it easier to brake because you can keep your forefinger poised above the brake lever while you shift with your thumb.

I do know the the SRAM cassettes are not nearly as durable as the Shimanos.

Cambria has them on sale right now (just bought two for my new build).
cambriabike.comshopexd.aspOpen ↗
Also, one thing to note about the sram rear deraileurs is that the cable comes straight into the shifter housing w/o any loops like Shimano soes. For this reason alone we've gone (the three of us on Kauai that regularly ride) from about one deraileur every three months to none in over 1 1/2 years. That loop gets stuck on everything. I'd say if you're upgrading ffrom LX to ???, go with a SRAM X.7 setup. The SRAM shifters rock (for lack of a better word), never take your finger off the brake to shift....EVER!!!

There's not many things I rave about on my bike except my shock, shifters, and fork, and maybe....:-)

Anyway the sale's been on at Cambria for a while so I don't know how much longer it'll continue.

Aloha, happy riding.
Chris

Xfader said:

So I went to my bicycle dealer to get some pricing on XT components to upgrade my GT, when he pulled out this box with SRAM components in the same price range. He's comments were that it's as responsive, but will last longer.

Anybody here with any experience or knowledge about SRAM and how it compares to shimano (XT)?????

TNX🙂

I've gone through about 1 XT RD a year w/ my GT. And my shifters are fading. And the whole setup barely stays in tune. I've decided that the next RD that breaks, its all getting replaced w/SRAM. I just dont wanna give any more $$ to shimano to produce [censored].

ahinalu said:

Cambria has them on sale right now (just bought two for my new build).
[ The SRAM shifters rock (for lack of a better word), never take your finger off the brake to shift....EVER!!!

Chris

With the new shifters from Shimano you don't have to take your fingers off the brake either. They work similar to road bike shifting levers, I have the LX ones and they work flawlessly.

Solanog said:

With the new shifters from Shimano you don't have to take your fingers off the brake either. They work similar to road bike shifting levers, I have the LX ones and they work flawlessly.

Are they the ones w/ the integrated brake lever? I've heard hot and cold about those. The only bad I've heard it is easy to accidentally shift on rough stuff.

ahinalu said:

Are they the ones w/ the integrated brake lever? I've heard hot and cold about those. The only bad I've heard it is easy to accidentally shift on rough stuff.

I've shifted accidentally when going down on rough stuff as you said, but not always. Beside that they work great, I like them. YOu can shift while breaking, I don't use to that to often but you can.
BTW the one that "self shifted" 😄 is the left one it changed from bit chainring to the middle one, seems like for shifting from big to small chainrings is to sensitive.

Solanog said:

I've shifted accidentally when going down on rough stuff as you said, but not always. Beside that they work great, I like them. YOu can shift while breaking, I don't use to that to often but you can.
BTW the one that "self shifted" 😄 is the left one it changed from bit chainring to the middle one, seems like for shifting from big to small chainrings is to sensitive.

I prefer the Shimano stuff personally. Have never tried SRAM rocket shifters or any of their trigger style shifters. I absolutely HATED gripshift, just didn't get along with it.

Have a strange setup at the mo of STX-RC rapid fire shifters, XT FD and Tiagra RD. I broke my old alivio RD and had a Tiagra sitting in a box so I threw it on about a year ago and had no problems with it and basically forgot about it. The shifting on the front became a lot sloppier when I switched from a shimano chain to an SRAM one. Will probably switch back to shimano eventually.

Ultimately it is all about what works best for you and your particular setup. Shimano works for me so I see no reason to change.

I used to love my SRAM but, when they break getting parts can be tough. I was thinking of switching back to Shim for that reason alone.

strongermale.comstrongermale.comOpen ↗

Solanog said:

I've shifted accidentally when going down on rough stuff as you said, but not always. Beside that they work great, I like them. YOu can shift while breaking, I don't use to that to often but you can.
BTW the one that "self shifted" 😄 is the left one it changed from bit chainring to the middle one, seems like for shifting from big to small chainrings is to sensitive.

You can shift while breaking with triggers AND Gripsshifters. It doesn't matter. It just takes a little extra dexterity.