The inside story of Rival AXS
JP McCarthy, SRAM’s road product manager and Paul Cantor, director of road at SRAM, talk through the evolution of Rival AXS and where shifting is heading in the future
“It sets a milestone for bikes at the Rival price point; they’ll need to be electronic with hydraulic brakes and boasting this level of performance” Paul Cantor
You launched the original Red eTAP back in 2015, and then Red AXS in 2019. You seem to be pushing on quicker than ever down this electronic shifting route. Was that a conscious decision?
“As a lot of people know, we were late to the electronic party. Then we converted to being all in. I don’t know if we’ve abandoned mechanical, but we’ve seen that the benefits of electronic shifting serves the middle of the market better than they do the pros. Those motors and all the tech that’s in the system just makes it shift the same every single time with less maintenance. We were the last to embrace electronic, and now we are the first to bring it to the middle of the market. We’re proud of that.” When it comes to the electronic drivetrain, it’s always going to be served at the high-end of the market and pros first. But the original eTAP is a groupset that favours the serious cyclist but perhaps not the long-term one. Suited for someone that hasn’t got to grips with the full workings of a mechanical groupset and making tweaks and adjustments. The advantage of electronics is that it takes all of that away.
JP “SRAM Force has energised the very top of the market. Yet many of the riders who’d benefit most from the advantages of wireless shifting, lower maintenance and the intuitive eTAP shift logic haven’t experienced it yet. Rival AXS is a groupset that’ll be available to many more riders.” AXS feels like it hits the zeitgeist. And that’s all down to the connectivity. You can download SRAM’s AXS app, you can immediately connect straight up to a Garmin head unit and the bike, where you can identify every single component and have all those metrics on display. How much of a consideration was bringing this group into the digital world?
Paul “Like you said, it’s ‘now’. People are comfortable with charging things. Any convenient electronic device we have in our lives now is wireless. Or, increasingly so. And we had the right ecosystem to expand on that. The trick for the product team was deciding what to cut out of Rival so that we could hit the right price targets, and what to keep in order to maintain its personality, its SRAM-ness. We looked at what our competitors are doing with electronic components and what people wanted from connectivity, and then o ered it in these new packages. It sets a milestone for bikes at the Rival price point; they’ll need to be electronic with hydraulic brakes and boasting this level of performance.” It seems more female/juniorfriendly, because you still have the reach adjust there and smaller hoods. The Rival AXS parts are interchangeable with Force, Red or the Eagle AXS. Were you deliberately creating an AXS ecosystem?
“Absolutely. One of the most fun things about bikes, particularly drop-bar bikes, is the emergence of gravel. That’s really opened up a world of opportunity where people need cross-compatibility across components; putting Eagle on the back of the bike is a natural progression. The AXS ecosystems allows us to pair all those parts and lower the friction of making all that work. That includes our new mountain bike groupset, GX AXS.” You’ve got a power meter-equipped 2x version at just over £1500 and a 1x
“Integrated power is an entry requirement for a modern bicycle now, or it will be very soon. It’s always been our plan to make power more accessible” JP McCarthy
that’s £1300. That’s remarkable, and a price we’ve never seen before with a power meter. The fitting looks relatively simple and there’s no sending it away to have the battery replaced. It seems like the gateway into power measurement.
JP “Integrated power is an entry requirement for a modern bicycle now, or it will be very soon. It’s always been our plan to make power more accessible. If someone has a Rival-equipped bicycle from a bike brand that didn’t come with the integrated power included, the power meter upgrade path is very simple. It’s a non-driveside arm with the spindle attached.” For anyone taking their first steps into power, an axle-based system with single-sided measurement is absolutely fine. But the people out there who are used to power, say those using the Quarq DZero dual-sided measurement and all the metrics that brings, how close are the mathematical measurements the single-sided systems are making when compared to double systems?
JP “The accuracy of the single-sided measurement is on par with our spider accuracy of the power it’s actually measuring. The key is that the user will have a consistent feed of understanding where their power sits because it’s accurate. However, it’s measuring only one side, so that really depends on the rider, as you’re getting consistent feedback on your power output, but it may not be accurate overall if one leg is much stronger than another.” The new Rival shares the same motors, electronics and wireless antennas as premium groupsets. Will bringing the tech down to this price spell the end for mechanical groupsets?
“No, not any time soon. There’s a strong group of people who still have a preference for mechanical, but that’s growing ever smaller. And then there are price considerations of course. But I don’t think you’ll see people investing in new mechanical groupsets from this price up. The future is definitely electronic and hydraulic, and we’ll continue to refine that and improve on it. And that’s the same for our main competitors – the writing is on the wall there as well. The experience is just better. And we want to give that ‘better’ experience to more people. It’s not that we’re anti-mechanical, we’re just all for a better experience and we’re pro making fewer decisions when you’re out riding a bike. Everything that we’re able to put into an AXS groupset is geared towards you having a better riding experience.”