sjanzeir

This is amazing. If anything, this indicates that you're smart - certainly way smarter than I could possibly hope to be. It also conjures up a few other choice expressions, but I've already contributed more than my fair share of bleeps in this thread, so I'll just leave it at that.

BillyD

Prj71 please leave the thread. You’re just stirring stuff repeatedly.

sjanzeir

Oh, hey, look! I just learned a whole new skill! It's called "adding awful members of the forum to the ignore List." Ans I didn't even need to Google this one! It's amazing! I love it! Now I feel really dumb because I should've learned this a long time ago!

Polaris OBark

The fact that two died within about 3 months makes it less of a random chance.

It happened. Twice. Exactly as I reported.

Therefore my post is absolutely factual, despite your baseless claim to the contrary.. Your incessant and equally baseless posts about viruses, on the other hand, are what are not factual. Clearly you have no idea what the word means.

Eric F 

Sounds to me like you just had bad luck twice. That said, it's not out of the realm of possibility that the derailleur cage is more fragile that Shimano. I spend time on a MTB-focused form, as well, and haven't noticed a trend of complaints regarding the same issue as yours. My only SRAM experience is with XX1, and I have had flawless performance in the time I've owned my bike.

SRAM disc brakes, however, are notorious for being sub-standard compared with Shimano. I was watching a tech video (GCN or GMBN, I think) this weekend, and they mentioned the same thing...repeatedly. My XX1-equipped bike is running XTR brakes.

Polaris OBark

That could very well be, which is why I started the sentence with "In my experience ..."

Or I have had exceptionally good luck with all of my 11-speed Shimano derailleurs.

It is definitely much harder to bend it back into shape (but this could well be true of any 12-speed cage). The tolerances are much less forgiving. I confess to being a bit prejudiced, due to my experiences with SRAM and Avid brakes.

Polaris OBark

I started off saying "In my experience ..." The facts are they broke. The interpretation is that they are garbage. An alternative interpretation is I (we) had exceptionally bad luck (see post above).



Denial of denial?

prj71

Just because you had 2 bad experiences with a stick in a SRAM product does not mean SRAM is garbage. That is a false statement. That would be like me saying my Shimano XT derailleur is garbage because it got wrecked by a stick and I had to buy a new one.

The facts remains that you can break any brand of derailleur that gets a stick caught in it. SRAM, Shimano, Microshift, Box...doesn't matter.

Eric F 

Polaris had a couple of incidents that raised some concerns about the quality of the rear derailleur, and drew a conclusion about it. Maybe he's on to something. Maybe it was just bad luck. For him, it was enough to not give GX a third try, which seems like a pretty rational decision to me. In those circumstances, I would probably do the same. I'm following a similar path with SRAM Dub bottom brackets on my MTB, and will use a different brand next time it needs to be replaced.

Polaris OBark

It is not a false statement. It might be an unwarranted conclusion. Do you really not see the difference?

Also, he in fact used Box 11-speed (worked ok with 12-speed) until Shimano came out with SLX. Both did not break, vs. two SRAM derailleurs whose lifetime was each several weeks. It could be my interpretation/conclusion is wrong. A better measure of its veracity would be to look at the fraction of warranty claims for each. Box has a lifetime warranty, fwiw.

Eric F 

It appears that prj71 will not be able to respond for a little while.

Koyote

I'm going for a ride.

PeteHski

All bets are off when sticks and third parties are involved. How did he break the second one? Calling something "garbage" because it broke when your kid mashed it with a stick seems a bit harsh. I have read that the lowest tier SX rear mech is delicate, but not GX.

tomato coupe

The real issue is the sticks, and how their quality is not what it used to be.

Eric F 

What are you talking about? Clearly, the stick is of higher quality than the derailleur, or it would have lost the battle. On my old MTB, the rear derailleur would break sticks everywhere it went. Sticks would jump out of the way just to save themselves from the carnage. The obvious conclusion is that new rear derailleurs are of poorer quality.

tomato coupe

Sorry, no. Sticks reached their apex in the late 70s and early 80s, both functionally and aesthetically.

Eric F 

You seem to be unaware that sticks these days are manufactured from crabon fiber by Big Stick.

mschwett 

you haven’t lived until you’ve paid $14k to see a big stick crabon stick assplode itself and your whole frame from getting jammed into the rd!

Polaris OBark

Technically, they are in fact garbage if they wind up in the county dump, but I actually still have them, hoping maybe they can take on a new life as organ donors. Otherwise, they are off to the dump, as anticipated.

But you are of course correct. I should have merely said they are less robust in my limited experience (N=2). I don't recall how the second one bit it, but the first one I remember, because it was one of the kid's first rides on a new bike, and there was a lot of drama. It was a small bit of redwood, and it got stuck in the cage. (This happens to me about once a month with 11-speed Di2, which I would assume is prima facia fragile, but I've never had an issue with that or any other Shimano derailleur.)

Polaris OBark

....

njkayaker

You kept this part a secret.

You would have helped the people you expected particular answers (of unspecified particularity) from if you had mentioned it.

As it was, you left people to guess what you did (and what you wanted) and then complained it was their fault they guessed incorrectly.


??? There were a few reviews right after the link to SRAM's "marketing speak".

msu2001la

I saw a reply that got deleted, but yes I do think SRAM's naming is worse than Shimano's, though neither is great.

SRAM:
XX1 Eagle AXS
XX1 Eagle
XX1
X01 Eagle AXS
X01 Eagle
X01
X01 DH
EX1
GX Eagle AXS
GX Eagle
GX
GX DH
NX Eagle
NX
SX Eagle
They also have 4 different stand-alone brake lines (Code, DB, G2 and Level) and within G2 are another 4 "levels".

Shimano:
XTR Di2
XTR
XT Di2
XT
SLX
Deore
Alivio
Acera
Tourney
Saint
Zee

One could argue the Shimano names are meaningless (what's an Alivio or an Acera anyways) but it's definitely easier to remember than all the different variants of XX that SRAM has. On the top end the difference between XT and XTR seems pretty clear - the R is for racing. I have no idea why they switched from LX to SLX. As for SRAM - and more to the point of this thread - why do they call all of their 12sp stuff "Eagle"? Why did this need a separate name?

Also on the road side, why does SRAM call it eTap AXS? eTap was the name for electronic shifting, but then AXS came out and was specific to 12 speed electronic. OK, but now we have part and AXS Eagle AXS which should mean 12sp 12sp, but really means 12sp electronic. eTap is just for road but AXS is for both - but MTB AXS uses a different chain than road AXS. Oh, and now we have XPLR eTap AXS.

sjanzeir

And I was wrong in saying and doing some of the things that I said and did. I happen to be notorious among my friends (all two of them,) family, and (remote) coworkers for my tendency to overreact. My apologies.

veganbikes

No worries, it happens it is an online forum, I find a little thicker skin sometimes helps. There are certainly some folks who are just trolls and bad people but most people are trying to help somewhat in their own weird way. I am sorry if I come across as a Richard, not my intention I assure you. I do actually want to talk SRAM Eagle.

Ratio just launched a new lightweight cage for GX AXS derailleurs so you can get the weight closer to that of X01 potentially without the price of buying X01. It has got me thinking for sure.

PeteHski

They are both a bit of a dog's dinner if we're honest, but I can easily cope with either.

Anyone running high-end XX1, X01 or XTR, XT is not likely to get confused. It's actually at the lower end where people will stuggle and that's where Shimano actually gets more confusing than SRAM. I certainly struggle to remember the order of Shimano's lower tier groups. Introduction of gravel groupsets has made it even more confusing. Saint is also a bit confusing in the mix and doesn't even sit near the bottom of the hierarchy as implied in the above list.

At least grouping all the SRAM mtb 12-speed as "Eagle" makes it clear what components are 12-speed and cross-compatible. How do you figure that out with Shimano's naming convention, since it doesn't have any reference to the number of speeds? For example, is Deore compatible with XT? I wouldn't know of the top of my head. But I know Eagle NX is compatible with Eagle X01 without having to dig any further.

I agree XPLR eTap AXS is a bit of a mouthful! But no more or less confusing to me than Shimano's gravel vs mtb groupsets. They could just drop the eTap part and often do on their website references.