Where to buy SRAM groupsets
 

Now that the major UK online stores are not shipping to US?

When did ribble stop shipping to the US?

I don't know if they did or not but they have been out of stock for over 2 weeks on red and force.
But giving that SRAM was able to impose those conditions to PBK and Merli,n I would expect they would try to do the same to ribble.
I've signed up for notifications for when it gets back, let's see.

Hi HazeT,

Are you sure this is a recent thing? I've never tried to order an entire SRAM groupset from Merlin but I have ordered many SRAM parts. I'm in the U.S. and I purchased a SRAM Red chainset from Merlin on Feb 2016 with no problem. I just checked again now and it's still available for shipment to the U.S. So, it appears that only groupsets have the restriction. What about buying the parts separately---the total price might still be lower than a groupset price in the U.S.

Kind regards, RoadLight

A recent thing apparently:

http://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycli...g-sram-na.html

Buying the whole group in small pieces seems to be more expensive, what I'm doing now is trying to mix match red and force and throwing some ebay into the equation to try some cheap deals on the most expensive items.

Yeah, I think it got kinda embarrassing for SRAM to see it's groupsets, ostensibly made by a US Company, cost less from European sellers.

Merlin doesn't ship to the US anymore. unfortunate.
"This product cannot be shipped to your selected delivery country of "United States". Please remove this item."

Here you go

https://www.coloradocyclist.com/road-bike-groupsets

eBay FTW.

IMHO, this will hurt SRAM in the longer term. The end effect will be making SRAM much more expensive to the DIY crowd and to custom builders. If Shimano follows suit, then they are only helping SRAM, and leaving an opening for Microshift to come in below, and perhaps FSA with their forthcoming Electronic Groupset, or perhaps another player. Microshift is already increasingly showing up on spec sheets on the lower to midrange. So IHMO, very unlikely Shimano will follow. SRAM is shooting themselves in the foot with this policy.

Agreed. I love my sram, but at their us prices I may very well give campy chorus a try.

You are being sarcastic right?

Unless your LBS starts stocking more SRAM equiped bikes because they know they'll have a non zero chance of selling you a chain or cassette down the track...

Yeah. I got far as puttting stuff in my cart but realized I hadn't logged into my account. When I did, and my US address populated, I got that message.

And those SRAM bikes are typically more expensive than a Shimano equipped bike, again putting SRAM at a dis-advantage. Dealers will stock what sells, and most people will buy the less expensive of two similarly equipped bikes, and that's almost always going to be the Shimano equipped bike. Also the majority will buy Shimano over SRAM in the after market area if it saves them $100 more more. So unless SRAM cuts the OEM cost soooo much that Shimano decides not to go there, in which case, SRAM would likely be losing money on every OEM sale. So then long term, this is a losing choice any way you slice it. I'm certainly all for more companies and competition. A nice laptop computer is 100,000 times more complex than a $5K bike, but costs $600, a little over a tenth of the price. So those simple circuit boards and servo's in eTap and Di setups are CHEAP. Some claim it's R&D costs, but the R&D for that computer is at least thousands of times more, but cost far far less. So yeah, competition needs to happen.

Sure for some people this won't matter, just as for some people it's Campy or nothing. Those are what niche companies are built on, and not the more pervasive companies/suppliers. So again IMHO, this is a poor move by SRAM for their long term.

you caught me haha

Just to update, Merlin now stopped shipping even individual components to US :( I tried to buy the Red 22 brakeset without luck.

Yeah, I wish there were a way to email the CEO of Sram to express my displeasure. I'm part of the VW TDI settlement and I'll be getting a nice chunk of change sometime here in Nov. I'd planned on building up two bikes with Force22. I can't find anywhere in the US that sells Sram at anything close to what I could get from the UK sellers. So my choice is to either only do one bike . . . or do two bikes with Campy Chorus, since I can get Campy Chorus shipped from the UK for less than what I can buy Force22 here.


Sram basically just priced themselves out of the market in the US, which makes zero sense. I went with Sram because I can't stand Shimano's dual brake/shift lever, and much prefer Sram's dedicated brake lever. Well . . . Campy's got a dedicated brake lever too. Boneheaded move, Sram.

Same here, I'm now scourging craigslist/ebay for parts. Hopefully by the time I build the next bike this stupidity will be over.

Is it worth an off-season flight to a country they are still shipping to? Maybe Canada or Mexico. Savings can fund a vacation. Or ship to a friend or colleague in such a place and have relayed to you. Whatever you do, you want to both get a good price and avoid VAT. Of course, warranty would likely be voided.

If anything, the other brands will probably start doing the same.

On eBay, I can bring the 8-piece Force 22 set in for about $860 delivered by buying the 6-piece set that includes brakes and then the crank and BB separately. What is that? About $100 more than it was going for in the U.K.? Or is it more than that?

More like $250.

Ribble has the complete Force 22 listed for: $566.99, so ~300.