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SRAM, for example, brought CHAIN AND DRIVETRAIN know how. TRUVATIV gave SRAM a headstart on CRANKS AND BOT SR AM TOM BRACKETS. ROCKSHOX gives the company a unique inside line on SUSPENSION TECH NOLOGY, and AVID was renow ned for its DISC BRAKE savvy f D R INunder years before it woundA up the SRAM umbrella.
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The Power of 4 - The four most innovative brands in cycling have come together behind one singular goal: to craft the most advanced cross country group ever.
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The Power of 4 - XX was a project that covered two years and thousands of hours, spanning six countries on three continents. It took the product and design expertise of SRAM shifting, RockShox suspension, Avid
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braking, and Truvativ engineering working united as one to create the lightest, most technically advanced group conceivable. And we delivered. This is XX.
“They were changing everything without any of it being optimised.” Paul Kantor
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//copy// THE XX FACTOR Completely new groupsets don’t come along all that often – and ones that shake things up are even rarer. What’s more, you-know-who has dominated mountain bike transmission and brake systems for so long it’s a wonder there’s room for anyone else in the market. But SRAM’s XX groupset – which launches the concept of 2x10-speed transmission and a whole host of high-end refinements on an unsuspecting world – looks set to redefine expectations. Uncompromisingly efficient in use, light and different to look at, XX represents a radical rethink of what’s needed from a high-end, speed-orientated component group. A wide-ranging cassette paired with twin chainrings and new, patented front shifting technology delivers smooth, precise shifts at both ends, even under full power. We know because we’ve tried it. And did we mention it’s light? Although UK riders are likely to end up spending close to £1 for every gram of a complete XX groupset, there’s no doubt it is a new benchmark in lightweight performance. So how did SRAM do it? We sat down with several of the XX design team to find out.
Compared with its closest, much larger competitor, Shimano, SRAM is a relatively young company whose growth over the past decade has largely been fuelled by acquiring other component manufacturers – and the expertise that helped build them.
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So all the engineering teams for a new component group were already under the same roof, but it wasn’t until SRAM had completed development of a couple of road groupset projects that the company felt ready to tackle the complexities of a mountain bike group. Paul Kantor, product manager for brake systems, explains the background. “We were at a bit of a crossroads with X.0 [SRAM’s existing high-end 3x9-speed MTB transmission],” he tells us. “People were asking for an X.0 front derailleur and we had to take a hard look at where we wanted X.0 to go. We decided we’d get to that, but in the meantime we decided to make something more kick-ass than X.0, and make it a complete groupset.” This represented a radical shake-up of the way SRAM’s eight component design teams had worked in the past.
“They were looking to go faster, period.” Ron Ritzler “There’s tracks in the snow up to where we came from, and we just kept going forward.”
e froml, b o l g the uga s t r s o o r P c read aermany and designed p s s r en inee rnia to G e g b n e d a d es an and Califo ponents h c fi f o com its. With do, Illinois e k i b n t, ome poin Colora us mountai ndalone un y d o at s a m e d w e g uit a somethin a group s previo r less as st to make e- and it’s g d ade a in in o m t, g t a a And th o we were ch so th . s a t e u ro b ik e p t b a p r ] h a incredords, “w mo 0 [£3647 we were ed a new e for $600 ughlin’s w XX need rket that
But ot a TR is th tt McLa the ma imano] X set and n ment to h ineer Sco p te S g u [ n ta . ro e s dds. is g . n ” a th r ig s gethe h was about ing,” he a it c s to w u ra o rk p y ri o u e tr w s d n t a ou ibly we ende l parts th r cross-c ered and individua hmark fo hat it off f c w n o e e d h b n c a n u R b ght in th at X T e put it ri e looked w d W “ n a re r, e idn’t offe roject w ds Raceheasaide, the goals for thezlepr, category what hitadirs.” cross Ron Rit Logistics rding to eren’t o w c c e A W . “ g : s dauntin drivetrain to end for MTB as going w t a th p manager rou ld have, make a g . We cou ] 8 0 6 £ [ going to 00 es at $10 up on bik
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“We wanted to set a new standard for front shifting.” Scott McLaughlin
Coming up with something better than the acknowledged market – and technology – leader needed a fresh approach, so the SRAM team went back to basics. They travelled to races, talked to the riders, looked at their bikes and found out what they did and didn’t like about the existing kit. And what they found was quite surprising: many racers were hacking their sponsors’ groupsets to a surprising degree, making modifications to better suit their needs. But it wasn’t always performed elegantly. “They were changing everything without any of it being optimised,” explains Paul, with a look of horror only an engineer could muster at such a thought. “At the World Championships last year in Italy I took a bunch of photos of 2x9 bikes for the [development] team. It was pretty clear that quite a few people were just taking the granny gear off – which is great if you’re a world class athlete,” he laughs, “but… ” and he leaves that thought unfinished. “They were looking to go faster, period,” adds Ron, “at almost any cost. They were taking a compromise in gearing, a compromise in shifting, a compromise in brake performance – all to go faster.” It was clear that a new, lightweight group based on two chainrings up front and 10 sprockets at the rear was the way to go. “We didn’t just make the two chainring concept up,” states Ron.
“There’s tracks in the snow up to where we came from, and we just kept going forward. There’s the stuff that Tom Ritchey did 10 years ago. There’s Thomas Frischknecht positioning 2x9 as the right way to go. They took us to the edge – we just took that next step.”
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//boxout// A groupset with a fork? Well, almost. The new hydraulic fork lock-out shaves 60g over an equivalent cable-operated lever, so it fits well with the XX ethos, and it’ll only work with XX-compatible forks. But unlike the transmission, which is an all-or-nothing choice, you don’t have to run the lock-out with XX... or a RockShox fork.
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has been examined and sweated over for any potential weight savings. Achieving functional goals such as significantly better front shifting while simultaneously saving weight proved one of the XX project’s biggest headscratchers. “We didn’t want to achieve our weight savings by removing ergonomic adjustments or other useful features,” explains Scott, “so we weren’t going to be able to take away 20g without working at it very hard. Not only was it necessary that we kept all the features, but it also had to be strong and tough and durable. And if you’re not compromising on any of those, then you have to be very careful about every half gram on every part.” The result is undoubtedly one of the most thoroughly engineered groupsets of all time. Cheap it most certainly is not – a replacement cassette, for example, will retail at over $300 (£182). But every single component, right down to the smallest pivot and fastener, has been examined and sweated over for any potential weight savings. Fasteners are aluminium or titanium TORX T25 bolts, which are lighter and
stronger than the traditional Allen key alternative. Carbon fibre, titanium and forged magnesium abound. The new lever blades, for example, are 3g lighter per blade than the levers on which their design is based. The rear mech’s aluminium cable clamp bolt is 1.5g lighter than a steel one. Trivial weights on their own, but together they add up to a significant overall saving. Racers are likely to be very happy with the new group – it’s light, it works brilliantly and it looks great. But relatively few people are going to be able to afford it. And, in a bizarre twist, XX’s remarkable simplicity and ease of use will, it seems to us, appeal just as much to newer riders as it will to speed freaks, both on and off-road. We ask Ron whether we’re likely to see a stripped-out, cheaper version of XX for the masses. He laughs: “That’s never going to happen.” Then he pauses. “But we’re not going to not use the technologies we’ve developed,” he adds, with what looks suspiciously like a wink…
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