Campagnolo has unveiled its latest group sets, called X, for Gravel and All-Road, featuring a 9-tooth rear sprocket. The brand ducks further under the recently rebuffed rule changes restricting final gear ratios, overthrown by competitor, SRAM, in court recently.

Campagnolo goes one tooth further than SRAM, to deliver a final drive ratio even higher than the 10 tooth SRAM uses, which courted controversy this summer, when the UCI moved to ban it.

The new X groupset is also 13 speed, a first in road when Campagnolo launched it’s Super Record 13 speed wireless groupset earlier this summer, but with others already there on its gravel groupsets, that’s less of a coup.

Whilst you’d expect to see several gear combinations, and no stone unturned in terms of matching the offering of Shimano’s GRX and SRAM’s XPLR gravel offering in terms of crank length options, gear ratios and cassette options, that’s all broadly speaking there, although a 160mm crank option is missing, so the standout feature is undoubtedly the introduction of the 9-tooth rear sprocket, allowing riders to achieve faster speeds with lower cadence.

However, the 9 tooth option invites some skepticism regarding its usability. SRAM’s Red AXS XPLR system features a 10-tooth sprocket. Shimano’s GRX system, also uses a 10 tooth set-up. Critics of ‘going smaller’ are not only at the sport’s governing body. The UCI clearly feels higher gears, mean higher race speeds. Other’s may claim Campagnolo’s 9-tooth sprocket could add resistance in the drivetrain, owing to having to drag the chain around a much smaller radius. We’ll see.

The new groupset features cranks available in lengths of 165mm up to 175mm, accommodating a range of rider preferences. Although like the Super Record 13 Wireless launch earlier this year, we are somewhat unsurprised to see Campagnolo again ignoring the fashion for a 160mm option.

The claimed weight for the entire group set is approximately 2,700 grams, which depending on how they’re weighing the groupset, puts it in between GRX and XLPR, in a competitive position. The recent Ultra upgrades offered in the road version of this groupset aren’t offered here at launch, but one wonders if similar options might become available to allow customers to hop-up their X groupset also, further saving weight, at a price of course.

The braking appears to come directly over from the Super Record 13 Wireless groupset, with 160mm rotors available here in X configuration.

The components in this range borrow much from the road version and as a result are compatible with Super Record 13 Wireless as you’d hope, with the chain length and rear mech cage in each case being critical choices for correct operation. Campagnolo says they should all play nicely with either the existing 113-link Super Record Road chain or the similar but longer 123-link version in X, provided you match it all up properly.

The Q-factor – the width between the pedals – is increased to 152mm on a 47.5mm chainline to accommodate wider stays and increased tyre clearance in gravel.

The 1x crankset is also offered in an aero set-up, and TT specific designs. The existing road crankset offers 44, 46, 48, 50, 52. This new product group expands that range to include a 1x chainset option with chainrings from 38 to 52.

The rear mech comes in two cage lengths depending on gearing choice, and both use a new nano-clutch, which Campagnolo claims is a 'miniaturised' clutch system. They also claim to have 'class leading' stiffness, and robustness. It's also UDH compatible.

The X system is paired with a new Bora, Bora X of course, which utilises a 27mm wide rim bed, made for minimum 35mm tyres, and a 50mm rim depth. That’s clearly aimed at the UCI style gravel race event market, but should make for a very exotic looking gravel race set up. Speaking of looks, the black finish from the Super Record 13 Wireless system should look pretty high end on a 9-42 cassette, and the industrial design follows that of the other Super Record family components.

As for pricing, a question we always seem to have to address with Campagnolo, it isn’t wild, although this is Super Record, so it is certainly premium, with the gravel version priced at €3,375 / 3,899 USD / £ 2,999 and the all-road version, available in 2x configurations, with the added capability of the nano-clutch rear mech for chain retention over rougher ground coming in at €4,370 / 5,065 USD/ £ 3,899.

Super Record 13 Road for comparison is €3,410/ 3,975 USD/ £ 3,050.

All versions are also available with the PWM HPPM power meter, for an additional €1,167 / $1,325 USD / £ 1,050.

The recommended retail price for the new BORA X Wheels starts at €2,290/ $2,599 USD/ £1,999. Quoted weight is 1430g.

All versions also available in a version with the PWM HPPM with a surcharge of €1,167 / 1,325 USD / £ 1,050 *

The recommended retail price for the new BORA X Wheels starts at €2,290/ 2,599 USD/ £ 1,999*

I got my hands on Campagnolo’s new Super Record 13-speed wireless groupset just ahead of the launch last week, and I’ve been riding it every day since. In all weathers too. The rolling but largely flat countryside and quiet roads around where I live are the perfect place to examine whether or not anyone needs an extra ratio out back – cadence is key round here – and whilst 13-speed is the headline at the launch of this groupset, I’m just as keen to see if Campagnolo can get itself back in the race for ‘best road groupset’.

At first glance the spec sheet is promising. With the launch of Super Record 13, the Italian brand appears to have gone back to its knitting.

It’s revised the pricing. This new pro-level groupset, whilst not cheap, is now pitched at the same pricing point as both SRAM and Shimano, depending on the spec you go for. The quoted price for a full groupset is now €4,300 / US$4,750 / £3,900, without power.

With a claimed weight of 2445g that would make it the lightest of the big three, and with pricing now competitive at the top tier, the remaining question the new Super Record has to answer, is whether or not it performs, and what is it like to live with. If it can answer those questions emphatically, without the hesitation that came with the last version, Campagnolo could be back in the race. If it can’t, it begs the question, what is Campagnolo for anymore? That for me, would be an operatic tragedy.

Buckle up, this is a long review, but it’s not an exaggeration to say this groupset is of existential importance to Campagnolo’s future, and even if it wasn’t, there’s a ton of components to get through.

Cassette and Chainset

Changes here are minimal, but subjectively, to my eye, this is the best looking chainset on the market.

The revised BB cups are called Quick Tech and I’m told there is no cross compatibility with earlier UT or Protech BB’s. The retainer clip and wavey washer are essentially the other way around, but functionality is largely the same. I suspect Campagnolo has done this to stop any mixing and matching with incorrect chain and rings, now that the chain is narrower. The bearings are still mounted on the axle. While it’s better than chancing the alignment by mounting them in the frame, it’s still a pain for your mechanic.

The hirth link remains. Ignore anyone that tells you this isn’t a stiff way to mount a crank. There’s a tube of titanium in there at a wall thickness you wouldn’t find in a roll cage on a Dakar truck. The axle is not going anywhere and you won’t bend it. In operation the cranks do the job they’re supposed to and the drivetrain runs silently and smoothly.

This is the first time I’ve ridden any Super Record product with a 32t cassette out back. That’s news, because even when Frome was killing it up and downhill in the Giro on a Shimano 32t, you still couldn’t buy a series correct 32t cassette for Super Record.

The Wireless launch in 2023 surprised everyone by lurching the other way, by not offering a full-size chainset, not even a mid-compact. Both cassette and crankset options in this new group are more varied and wider ranging than all the other top-tier groups available in the market. That’s a win for Campagnolo, tempered perhaps by the absence of a 160mm crank.

The rear derailleur

This is a big mech. While it’s smaller and better proportioned than the last one, the current Dura Ace mech still looks more compact. However, the next version of DA will need to mount batteries in the rear mech. If the XTR launch is anything to go by, Shimano won’t have the sleeker and smaller option for long, and the new Super Record mech does look very special, albeit less elegant than EPS.

If you change under load, the mech responds telepathically, moving the chain up or down the block without hesitation in what feels like half a link, or a blink, and at times, a big crack. If you’re used to sneaking around behind your mates on a stealthy Di2 shift with only a squeak from the motor to give you away, this system is not for you.

Speaking of squeaky motors, if you don’t mind an assertive click as the chain finds it’s gear, but hate the rodent-like squeak and groan of the motor in some electric mechs there’s way less of that here. And an immediate shift.

If you change gear the way you should – with mechanical sympathy – the shift can be as quiet as SRAM. I’m not sure it’s ever as quiet shifting as Shimano though, in any circumstances. But, as I’ve alluded to already, I find a Shimano Di2 system too quiet at times, especially in concert with their oft don’t-know-you’ve-pressed-it shifter buttons.

There is no doubt you’ve changed gear in a Super Record system, and that feeling remains. The shift feels like pulling a trigger (pressing the trigger in this case) and the response is just as instantaneous as a gun. There is no discernible moment where the shift button doesn’t feel hardwired to the mech. It’s very quick.

The chain moves through the mech in smooth, spooky silence too. The larger pulleys and ceramic bearings in the top pulley keep it all feeling very luxurious and super efficient. There’s also a fancy black-chrome-esque coating, which may be contributing to the eerily silent running.

The front derailleur

This is simply much better than previous wired versions of EPS with zero chain drag to the next ring, and a significant improvement on the outgoing model. I couldn’t make the chain drag on an up or down shift in any one position on the front or rear cassette. The chain felt under control in every shift. No delay, no snagging, no drag, just a nicely controlled, yet fast, shift, with no fuss.

The other big news on the front mech is that it’s no longer the same size as your Garmin. The battery is fixed on the front, giving more tyre clearance, they say. ‘Leg clearance’ would have been more honest given their last effort. The new design gives plenty of space now, and it’s inline with the other brand’s mechs in terms of profile.

Charging and battery life

One thing I haven’t yet mentioned is charging. Batteries can be charged on or off the bike, with a magnetic charge port on the battery itself. The engagement with the charger is via a lightly fitted magnetic connection.

Dura-Ace has a horrendous charging interface that often doesn’t stay in place. No trouble here yet with Campagnolo’s just about magnetic solution, but surely USB-C is due on the next generations of all these items?

Whilst the claimed charging rates are class leading, and it does indeed charge super fast, the rear mech seems to be thirsty on the juice. A longer term review will allow me to assess battery life more fully. I suspect it just prefers a full charge, rather than a blast of electrons here and there, when it’s near one of the few sockets that’s not already charging something else!

The shifters

I can’t talk about shifting without talking about how it’s actuated, once again thank goodness, via a Campy thumbshifter. It is back, reimagined, and very good indeed, operable from a number of useful angles.

One small gripe is that you can unintentionally shift gears when braking and shifting at the same time, such as when approaching a junction. Your hands are loaded up under braking at this point, slowing the bike, with fingers wrapped on the brake lever. There’s a lot of hand for the set up to accommodate in this moment and you can fudge a shift in the wrong direction. Bear in mind I do have size 12 hands. Once you’re aware it’s there and you’ve made provision for it, the thumb shifter never really feels in the way however.

In terms of the function when pressed, both thumb shifter and paddle have a short throw, giving no sense of latency, and at the same time requiring only a light touch. That’s quite a clever mix, especially given the haptic response of the shift button is clear and communicative, and this helps make shifting feel direct, and deliberate. This was my favourite aspect of the system, and the buttons feel great, too. Hold the button for just a while longer and you can dispatch three gears at a time or as many gears as you need without delay. All the buttons on the ergopower lever are configurable in the app, and there’s also a neat ‘one hand’ mode, so you can control both mechs from one lever if needed.

The paddle shift lever on the back of the brake lever is a wonder of ergonomics on its own. No matter where your hands are positioned on the hoods, the tip of your ring finger can find the inside edge of the relatively large real estate given to the paddle. The inside edge tells you you’re there, in a way that neither SRAM or Shimano can; the former has a larger but smooth-ish paddle, while the Di2 paddles can be fiddly to locate. Like the thumb shift haptics, you also know you’ve pressed the button, not because of an arduous click or long throw though. It all just feels efficient, and you know you’ve done it.

The mode buttons and new ‘Smart Button’ are all easy enough to operate and fall nicely. I didn’t set up the mode button up, as I didn’t have a head unit mount for the bar on my test bike, but it can theoretically control your head unit, answer a call, or shift tracks on your Spotify. Or any number of other functions. This will be handy for some and brings it into line with competitors.

The hoods and brake levers

Campagnolo knows a lot about ergonomics and the new ergopower lever in the SR13 system is its best work yet. The material used for the hoods feels delicate. It’s tactility could be a sign of weakness, but it’s absolutely not if previous versions (which use the same material) are anything to go by. It feels great, looks better than the other main players, and offers loads of grip.

The new brake lever kicks out considerably, clearing the centre line of the bar, leaving what feels like class-leading clearance for your fingers. The previous versions, and Di2 does trap fingers, way before the brake caliper is entirely on at times. With this design and the short throw on the brake lever, this is way less likely. The levers themselves look very classy, feel good, and they’re adjustable for reach.

The tip of the hood is angled in. Campagnolo says that the design is UCI legal but I could care less about that aspect – the position it affords your hands is brilliant. It leaves your wrist completely neutral, in the same position it would be if hung by your side in the breeze. Fitters rejoice. It is very comfortable indeed.

The extra gear

Ok, ok. I know, no one was asking for more gears. However, far beyond it being a marketing stunt to sell a few more groupsets and usher in another new standard, there are use cases where it is obviously really beneficial. And to try and placate the cynics, I’ll take a few moments to explain why.

Cadence is often dependent on finding the right gear. Some people don't worry about cadence and enjoy their riding no less of course, but for those that enjoy road craft, the extra ratio is helpful, especially on a 32.

Fundamentally, the downside of running a 32t cassette is bigger jumps and that problem is better managed here with 13 ratios. In fact, it’s eliminated. For a fast TT style ride over rolling hills, or endurance work on an even smaller cassette where maintaining a consistent power output is essential, there is no downside to having the extra ratio. Especially when the shift feels this fast and addictive.

The App - My Campy 3.0

Once set up, you shouldn’t need the app too much. This is good news, because it’s not great as it is. Having experienced initial set up issues with the front mech, I went into the app to look for adjustment, status, and assess set up. I couldn’t. Clicking on the front mech icon serves up the rear mech menu. This is clearly a bug, but this is not forgivable in what is not a pre-launch version of the app.

Functionally, you can access chainline switches, and shift assist (think Syncro shift) and check your battery levels and assign buttons as you wish.

The brakes

The brakes are still brilliant. There wasn't much needed changing here, but they've found some titanium screws to drop a bit of weight (7g) and made some changes to the brake pad, whilst adding a sintered option for better performance in the winter. I rode in wet and dry on the 'standard' pads, and Campagnolo's brake system is still outstanding. Feel is great at the lever, with all the modulation and power that you need.

Verdict

Some people will never choose Campagnolo. Shimano offers a conservative, reliable choice that’s hard to ignore, that’s why it’s so dominant.

With this new groupset however, we now have not just an exotic option for your bike transmission, but a rational choice – not without fault – but an alternative that is now about subjective differences not compromise.

With this new groupset, pricing and weight is now competitive. Shifting is not as luxuriant and silent as Di2, but Super Record 13 is wickedly fast – it feels faster than anything else I’ve ridden – and shifts with an aggressive and determined movement, that is addictive and offers something undeniably competitive and high performing, but different.

Campagnolo has remembered that buying and owning Campagnolo parts is not just about performance, but about how they make you feel. Now, far from confused, as some aspects of Campagnolo design has left me feeling in the recent past, this new groupset makes you feel like you made an entirely valid choice to use an alternative transmission that’s different, not worse.

Yes, the app needs work. They can probably fix that with a firmware update. Yes, it is likely fiddlier to set up. But, the hardware and electronics in the main components are once again world class, and look at it.

The laurels of victory have been hung about the neck of Campagnolo components so much in World Tour cycling, that they featured them on their 80th anniversary logo. But just as the Italians created the tradition of awarding laurel wreaths to the victor, they also warned of the dangers of resting on them.

With Super Record 13, it’s clearly thinking straight again. If it can trickle this addictive shifting platform down, without losing the refinement or speed, Campagnolo might finally feel like it’s not just relevant again, but a rational and exciting choice for way more people.

Campagnolo has made a brilliant groupset. Now it just needs to fix the app.

About the test:

I received the full TRP Vistar groupset a month ahead of its release and took it on a cross-country gravel tour, culminating in the 200-mile Unbound Gravel race. I mounted it on my race bike, a Rodeo Adventure Labs Trail Donkey 4.0, with the goal of testing its capabilities as a serious gravel racing setup.

The test period naturally broke into a clean three-part split: a week in the wet, late-spring mud and grit of Oregon’s Coastal Range; a stretch through the bone-dry gravel and trails of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona; and a final week of pre-riding the tallgrass prairie of Kansas ahead of Unbound Gravel.

While it was just a month, that three-part breakdown gave me significant insight into the groupset’s strengths and quirks, while subjecting it to plenty of stress. After some challenging 50 hours on the system, here’s what I’ve concluded.

A Long Time Coming

TRP’s Vistar drivetrain has been a long time coming. Media were given sneak peeks at the Sea Otter and Eurobike expos in 2024, and some prototypes were ridden at Unbound in 2024 as well. The Classified hub, meanwhile, has been around for several years now. Cycling Weekly reviewed it back in 2021 and again at Unbound Gravel in 2022. I guess I was late to the game as I ‘only’ tried the Classified hub for a first time in 2024 at a media camp.

The internal hub-based shifting was spec'd on an all-road bike with a Shimano drivechain. Ultimately, I felt the shifting was cool, elegant at times, but I left the few days of riding feeling like it wasn’t quite ready to be something most consumers would consider. This was due to little things like the rear hub coming a little loose, or the sprint shifter requiring some thought to make shifts at the right time, or having to keep track of which rear “ring” I was in. These deficiencies, from my perspective, seemed to stem from the fact that the Classified system was an add-on to something that: a) wasn’t theirs; and b) was replacing a Shimano front derailleur that is already very good.

The new TRP Vistar groupset addresses these issues so well that it's now a competitive option for gravel riders seeking a highly functional, capable drivetrain at a good price.

Giving the Classified Powershift a proper home

To start, it’s imperative to discuss the central draw of the groupset before we get into specifics. Despite the groupset’s TRP branding, it is inextricably linked with the Classified Powershift system. With all due respect to TRP, which deserves a lot of credit for the quality we’ll dig into later, the Classified technology is what truly defines this drivetrain.

The Classified Powershift system is an innovative piece of technology that simulates a traditional 2x setup by altering the gear ratio inside the rear hub. The first iteration launched in 2020 as the brainchild of Belgian engineers with an automotive background.

Classified is designed to be somewhat brand-agnostic, with its shifting done via a remote button; however, those setups have always required Classified-specific cassettes. With the Vistar groupset, the cassette is co-developed by TRP and Classified, and is built specifically around the Powershift hub, which now comes standard.

The gear ratio at the wide end of the spectrum remains unchanged from previous Classified drivetrains: a 1:1 ratio when the internal gearing is locked out (the hypothetical “big ring”), and a 0.7 ratio when it’s engaged (the “little ring”). Depending on which front chainring you use—I tested 46t, 48t, and 50t setups—that range mimics the gear jumps of a Shimano 2x crankset.

The cassette I tested was an 11–40t, the widest range available. While Classified has offered this size before, the key update with Vistar is greater cassette variety. That includes three road-focused options optimised for the shorter cage TRP rear derailleur, and two gravel options paired with the longer cage variant. The gravel-specific derailleur is a TRP-exclusive design—easy to adjust, impressively precise, and reasonably quick.

Switching from Shimano's mechanical GRX to TRP’s electronic shifting took some getting used to, but that’s par for the course with any move to electronic. In fact, compared to SRAM’s electronic systems, TRP’s felt, if anything, quicker.

The Classified Powershift hub is even more responsive than the rear derailleur, shifting instantly across the cassette range, which helped smooth my adaptation to the new groupset. I found this especially useful in the desert riding I did, as the ability to shift under load was key when navigating the drops, washes, and steep pitches of blown-out desert two-track.

I used the gravel-specific derailleur to accommodate the bigger range, but I plan to swap it for the shorter cage road version to test its road performance. In theory, that setup should shift even faster. The swap should be simple, thanks to the wireless derailleur, which pairs easily to the shifters via the bar-end command unit. All hub shifting is controlled through the rear thru-axle, which also handles charging duties.

Both systems lasted about 16 hours before the bar-end command centre signalled it was time to recharge. That said, the rear derailleur did lose connection with the shifter on a few occasions. Swapping in fresh batteries usually resolved it; other times, simply lifting and dropping the rear wheel reconnected the system. It’s something I’ll be monitoring long-term. In total, there are three batteries: two in the bar end unit and one for the rear derailleur. The Classified hub is powered by it through the axle, which is charged by a protected Micro USB port.

Shifting the hub works just like shifting between chainrings. Programmed synchronised shifting behaves just as smoothly as with a 2x system. And now that controls use a standard electronic layout, gone are the days of accidentally jumping to the wrong “ring.” Most importantly, though, the simplicity and customisability of a 1x system anchors the whole experience.

TRP's impressive stopping power and elite feel

TRP is a longtime component company that has cut its teeth on the mountain bike side with a full slate of brakes and a few earnest attempts at drivetrain development. For drop bars, TRP is very popular among single-speed enthusiasts with the Hylex drop bar brakes and levers. Some of my more experienced colleagues even remember the days TRP was popular in cyclocross before the introduction of hydraulic discs.

While the Hylex does have a conversion kit to make it Shimano Di2 capable, the Vistar groupset is the first full drop-bar groupset from the brand. Even though Vistar is only the first groupset from the brand, its legacy as a top-tier brake manufacturer is evident. I may have come to this groupset to explore the Classified integration, but I stayed for the TRP core

As soon as I felt the hoods and the brakes, I knew I was at home on the groupset. Braking performance stood out from the get-go, especially in the damp conditions of the Pacific Northwest. I was riding along the Pacific Coast, mostly on old logging roads that snake through old-growth forests and brutally steep terrain. Here, the paved roads are often soaked and covered in a thin layer of muck. When the roads are gravel, they are muddy, with traction changing corner to corner depending on how the ground holds or sheds water. All of it demands precise speed control.

In those demanding conditions, TRP’s brakes delivered a level of modulation and stopping power on par with any two-piston brakes I’ve used. That braking power is paired with brake levers that are only a bit larger than an old rim brake variety. A smooth and long pull offers the ability to feather the brakes well, preventing overbraking that is easy to do when the surface is so slick. The smaller hood shape further increases this precision by allowing a better grip of the lever when braking on the hoods.

While I have never had problems with other electronic hoods being too big, the smaller hood shape was a nice addition, regardless, and I’d imagine riders with smaller hands will especially benefit from them. Control aside, the smaller hoods are also simply more comfortable, leaving me with less hand fatigue on the longer rides, which were numerous leading up to Unbound. While my Unbound race was not a success for me (a story for another time), the comfort of these hoods was a huge reason why I was committed to running the groupset at the race despite having had so little experience with the drivetrain.

Small quirks in a broader, positive picture

Big picture, there’s very little to fault in the Vistar groupset; just a few points worth flagging.

The most obvious complaint is weight, which is nothing new to Classified systems. The system is undeniably heavier than other top-tier groupsets on the market. In my case, swapping from mechanical GRX to Vistar on my Rodeo Labs Trail Donkey 4.0 increased the build weight from 19.2 to 20.8 pounds.

While that’s a sizable jump, it’s not a perfect apples-to-apples comparison. So, to use TRP’s claimed weights, the difference between Vistar and Shimano GRX Di2—its most comparable rival— is about 268 grams, using a DT Swiss 350 hub as a stand in and excluding rim weight.

Efficiency is the other touch point where some might be hesitant. With internal gear changes instead of a traditional hub, it is impossible to eliminate all the inefficiency that comes from the added resistance from internal gearing. Classified claims, through a thoroughly researched white paper, that the inefficiency equals around 1% increased drag. Classified argues that the 1% of drag is easily made up for in the aerodynamics and chainline efficiency of a 1x chainring design.

Anecdotally, I never felt a noticeable drop in power transfer. That said, there is a subtle difference in feel with the slightest bit of resistance present when the internal gear is engaged.

I should note that I opted not to use a TRP crankset. I did this because 1.) at the moment, TRP does not make a specific T47 bottom bracket; 2.) I wanted to retain the same power meter I had been using for training consistency, and 3. The teeth profile of the TRP chainring was much shallower than the Garbaruk chainrings I have been using over the last year.

Chain drop has been a challenge for me in the past, especially at Unbound, and with a larger teeth profile on a 1x that risk is greatly mitigated. I have yet to drop a chain with a Garbaruk chainring, and I have used a selection of them for over a year. The Garbaruk/TRP mashup’s only downside was a bit of drag in the larger cogs on the cassette, but that is a fair tradeoff for the security that comes from the larger teeth. The largest cogs were still effective even in adverse, gritty conditions.

Weights and Prices

Where does it fit in comparison to the mainstays of the groupset market

Overall, the cost of the Vistar groupset is around $2506.87, which includes the rear hub but no rims. For reference, a Shimano GRX Di2 groupset retails for $2,541, and SRAM Red XPLR AXS is $3,530. With the Classified system, it is hard to make a direct comparison, with most groupsets not including the cost of one hub. But with Vistar, the Classified hub is required.

Still, beyond the $899 hub, the Vistar group is competitive in its pricing with shifter/brakes running $249.99 each, a gravel cassette at $209.99, and the rear mech at $370.99. While that hub cost is a big chunk of change, as Classified has grown, so too have the number of rim options at different price points. I tested the groupset with a pair of Classified G19 rims, which are solid but not spectacular.

Classified is still a luxury good in cycling, and that doesn’t fundamentally change with the Vistar groupset. What is nice to see, however, is that TRP has furnished the Classified hub inside an impressive groupset with a great deal of customisation options – all without pushing the price threshold of other high-end groupsets.

Ultimately, I came away from this test with a great deal of affection for the groupset. I am excited to try a road configuration next, because I believe it might be an even better use case for the group. But as a gravel groupset, it has real upside that brings distinct benefits to the market in a unique way. If you are looking to shake things up, or perhaps have a bike that is not UDH compatible, I’d recommend taking a serious look at TRP Vistar.

It's been four years since the last SRAM Force AXS was last updated, when it gained wireless shifting and an extra sprocket. This latest iteration sees fewer changes, but does deliver an integrated power meter and a fresh new finish. 

We gave our initial thoughts on the second generation SRAM Force AXS groupset when it launched back in March 2023, when we were pleased to see the re-design of the previously controversial hoods.

Being designed as a 'do-it-all' groupset for both road and gravel use means an extensive line in chainset offerings, with both 1x and 2x of various sizes, as well as a patented 'wide' version, which features a wider chain-line to accommodate wider tyres.     

I received a fully dressed Liv EnviLiv Advanced Pro AXS test bike for review with the new SRAM Force AXS groupset specced, giving me a chance to also review this updated groupset. 

In the case of this review, the SRAM Force AXS version I rode was the 2x 12-speed version with Quarq D-Zero power meter 48/35T chainring, 10/28t cassette and hydraulic disc braking as standard. 

It's probably worth addressing your first two thoughts before I head off in to a deep dive review. 

1. No, I've not forgotten the 'eTap' name, 

2. Yes it is still wireless.

SRAM dropped the eTap element of the groupset name when the AXS component integration system was launched. It's a mobile app that allows you to control all AXS-enabled components, from shifting to analysing riding performance, including power zones and tyre pressure - eTap is still there, but that's merely just the shifting mechanism name.   

As mentioned above, our launch feature on the Force AXS included an in-depth look at the redesign, so it's worth checking back if you haven't already read up on the all the new groupset details. 

For ease of reference, I'll give a quick re-cap on the updates from the previous equivalent option, the SRAM Force eTap AXS groupset, and run through the construction and compatibility options for this road double chainset with Quarq D-Zero integrated power meter. 

SRAM Force AXS - Changes and updates

There are three main changes to the new Force AXS; the chainset, with integrated power meter, new hood profiles and a brand new look, including  updates to the colour and graphics. 

Much of this isn't new technology for SRAM - opting for the same one-piece construction for the double chainset that the SRAM RED eTap AXS groupset adopted way back in 2019, albeit with aluminium chainrings and carbon crankarm this time.

The take home message from SRAM is that it believes that this one-piece design creates "faster, smoother, more secure shifting”. It's also, in my personal opinion, much easier on the eye. 

It isn't, however, easier on the wallet. Once worn, you'll have to swap-out the whole chainset, power meter and all. 

It's an issue that overshadows my whole experience with the SRAM Force AXS groupset. I just can't wrap my head around the disposing of a perfectly good power meter because of worn chainrings. 

I'm assured that the same trade in deal that exists for SRAM Red AXS, and is applicable in the US and the UK, will also be also be available for this new generation Force. This allows the consumer to return the chainset to their supplier, who will then be able to exchange a new like-for-like unit at half the retail price. However, it is up to the dealer to pass that cost saving on to the customer. 

Either way, you'll want to be pretty sure of your chainset selection from the off, ensuring the correct crank arm length, which extends from 165mm up to 177.5mm, as well as chainring sizes, which are rationed to 46/33T, 48/35T, or 50/37T ratio options. 

The integrated DUB-PWR is housed in the crank spider, which measures both left and right sides of your power balance, as well as your total watts.  

Being part of the SRAM AXS system means that not only are you able to remotely control your shifting preferences, but you'll have access to battery status, power data, and even tyre pressure. Naturally you'll still want to pair it with a head unit of your choice, with compatibility across most of the popular brands, including Garmin, Wahoo and Hammerhead.    

The rest of the SRAM Force AXS groupset remains unchanged functionality wise, but does get a tickle in the aesthetics department. Losing the - in my opinion - dull agricultural looks for a sleeker and more exclusive finish . Although good luck getting that new chainring looking clean after a less than dry ride.

SRAM says that the version we tested tips the scales at 2896g. This makes it about 100g lighter than the previous version, and on a par with the equivalent 12-speed Shimano Ultegra Di2, which weighs a claimed 2736g with power meter.

SRAM Force AXS - The ride 

Full disclosure now - it's been a long time since I last used SRAM Force eTap, so a direct comparison between the old and new isn't going to be laid out on this page. 

However, I have had the perk of riding the new SRAM Force AXS in a testing window where I swapped between the Liv EnviLiv and a Wilier Filante SLR Ultegra, which as the name suggest, was equipped with the latest edition of Shimano Ultegra Di2. This is probably a better comparison as it's often the closest peer groupset and one that you will find yourself deliberating most over when it comes to making a purchase. 

I'm fortunate, or not depending on how my bike fitness is going, to live in the foothills of the Peak District National Park in the north west of the UK. It's a great testing ground for legs and lungs, the British Cycling squad is based here for a reason. It's also very good at testing out groupset functionality with the necessary multiple shift changes or braking required before I've even got to the end of my road. 

The newly designed hoods still aren't my favourite, especially when hopping between Force AXS and Ultegra Di2 set ups. They're still utilitarian in look and feel, with the Ultegra proving a much softer, more malleable fit in the hand and ultimately more comfortable hold. I highlighted this in the Liv EnviLiv review, finding the hoods on SRAM still too brutalist in appearance and feel.   

The braking on the SRAM Force AXS is as great as it ever was. Once I'd dialled in the lever position, I found I didn't struggle with reach, and the brakes' linear pull was constantly replicated. I've not once felt under powered. On some of the long descents on warm days I've never been concerned about speed modulation, even with the organic pads the brakes came fitted with.  

While we're talking about levers, it's worth interjecting here with experience of the 'eTap shift logic'. To be fair to SRAM a right tap making it 'harder', left tap 'easier' and two together to shift the front derailleur does make a lot of sense. 

In practice it takes a while to dial in to your brain, especially when hopping between groupset brands. It's a bit like going from an auto to manual car, or iOS to Android. 

Everyone will have a preference, and I found that once I'd been riding a while, fumbled a few shifts, my brain's muscle memory kicked in, and misfires were less of an occurrence.

While on the initial first ride of the Force AXS CW found the rear shifting silent, attached to the Liv EnviLiv and riding solo on an oppressively hot day in the hills I was able to hear an audible whir then clunk as it changed gear. It was also matched by a pregnant pause in action - I think I was about to almost count to two between pressing a shift button and the rear mech completing its task.

The front shift is a similar affair, without the shifting soundtrack. I feel like I'm telling the same old story for SRAM here, as there's still a requirement to ease off the pedals a touch before performing any gear change manoeuvre. Not ideal if your going toe to toe with a rider, hill or sprint, where being totally on top of the gears really matters.  

In SRAM's defence, the distinctly detectable gear change was amplified by the oversized Giant SLR 1 50 Carbon Disc Wheel System that the Liv EnviLiv rolls on.  As with any deep section rims, these will act like a generous echo chamber, and I suspect on shallower wheels the noise wouldn't be as perceptible. 

SRAM Force AXS - APP and battery run time

A big positive for me is the groupset's battery. I never got close to finding the total run time of the battery after one full charge, even after a couple of hundred hilly miles with multiple shift requirements. I'm not likely to anytime soon either according to the battery stats on the AXS app.

As for that app, it's a neat tool and does make digital bike fettling much easier - not that I felt the need to change the set up from the factory setting the groupset came with. Pairing the groupset with the app on my phone was simple enough, and I was instantly able to see statistics. 

One thing that I did miss was the ability to check on things like battery status while not with the bike. I appreciate it's a first world problem, but it would be handy to be able to view your numbers, battery life or otherwise, while pretending to work at your desk [noted, Ed]. Having to go trudging off to the garage to stand next to a bike will make work absences a little more obvious. 

Unfortunately, I don't own power pedals or hub in order to cross correlate power data from the crank based DUB-PWR power meter. Its connectivity seems stable and compatible. If you're a data user, it promises to take the stress out of the 'will it work today' power meter anxiety.  After an experience with a set of pedals made me refuse to ever rely on riding with power again, this level of reliable service could be enough to lure me back in to looking at numbers more often.   

SRAM Force AXS - Value and verdict 

The Force AXS disc-brake groupset with power meter that I tested retails for $2,640 / £2, 228.  

Trying to compare groupset prices is never an exact science as rarely do they come as whole purchases, and it's a case of totting up each element. Back of an envelope maths and looking across to it's market peer, Shimano Ultegra Di2 12-speed with power meter and you'll be looking at around a $500/ £250 price difference at initial set up, the latter setting you back around about  $3,132/ £2500.

But you will need to factor in the running cost, with Ultegra chainrings replaceable for in the region of $100/£100 while SRAM Force AXS , you'll need to factor in the whole chainset at $1000 /£770, which is pretty wild. 

There are certainly improvements with the new SRAM Force AXS. The weight clearly has dropped and it looks way better than the old version.

Despite groaning about being requested to shift under load, both derailleurs did deliver a gear shift upon every button push request, although I did wince at the impact on the chain and that oh-so-expensive chainset whilst it went about it at times.

The other big plus was I didn't suffer from dropping a chain once, which is definitely progress from the brand.   

However, when side by side testing with Shimano Ultegra Di2 it's just not as fast, smooth or comfortable and then there's that disposable chainset issue again...

As a standalone groupset, I wouldn't be in a rush to dress a frame in it, but if a bike I was coveting came wearing it, then I wouldn't turn it down or immediately think about how to swap it out - it just wouldn't be my first choice. 

Campagnolo launched this latest 12-speed edition of Chorus in 2019, offering it in both disc and rim-brake mechanical versions. It claimed that “no compromises have been made in this extension of the characteristics and main advantages of Super Record and Record 12-speed groupsets.”

>>> Road bike groupsets

Aimed at keen amateurs rather than pros, 12-speed Chorus’s Ultra-Torque crankset now comes in 48/32, 50/34 and 52/36 cranksets with a 165 mm crank length also offered. According to Campagnolo, these smaller chainring sizes (there’s no 53/39) along with a choice of 11-29,11-32 or 11-34 cassette makes Chorus the ideal groupset for those wanting a multi-purpose cycling experience – with the 48/32 clearly aimed at the burgeoning gravel market.

I tested the rim-brake version fitted to a rather gorgeous Italian-made Daccordi Noah.

Campagnolo Chorus Ergopower shifters (362g)

The mechanical rim-braking shifters are smaller than their disc-brake equivalents as they obviously don’t have to house a master cylinder, but there’s still a lot more space on the hoods than with earlier Campagnolo groupsets. The latest ergonomic shape works nicely and feels very comfortable, especially in an aero position. The hood finishes with a pronounced, slightly inward-facing hook that aligns with neutral wrists, making a flat-forearm position feel stable and efficient.

Not everyone will be a fan of the ribbed Vari-Cushion rubber, but there’s no doubting that it’s grippy even when sweaty.

The brake levers are made from aluminium rather than the carbon of Super Record and Record, but the weight difference is pretty inconsequential and the size and double curve shape are the same, which is more important.

The brake lever pivot has been moved upwards to improve braking power from the hoods, and it really works well. This, coupled with the extra length of the lever, has beefed up braking very impressively compared to older Campagnolo. With so much power at just a very light squeeze of the lever from either the drops or the hoods, you might well ask who needs disc brakes?

Incidentally, lever reach is adjustable – good news for those with smaller hands.

Campagnolo has of course continued with its trademark one-lever-one-shift combination of a button for upshifts and a paddle behind the brake lever for the downshifts. The thumb button has got a little bigger but, as before, your thumb needs to be exactly in the right place to access it satisfactorily from the drops. In addition, more force from the thumb is required to activate the gear change, and when the shift takes place it is accompanied by the loud click that has become Campagnolo’s trademark. Downshifts with the paddle are clicky too, as are front changes and even trims of the front mech.

Campagnolo appears to be using higher spring tension to eliminate dead travel in the shifters and also to make shifting faster, possibly more in line with electronic EPS. It does this successfully – gear shifts are very fast indeed – but it loses a little bit of feel and certainly a degree of smoothness. There’s no chance of quietly dropping it into the 11 ready for the town-sign sprint without your clubmates guessing what you’re up to.

Chorus can still shift up five gears at a time with a single stab of the thumb, which mechanical Shimano groupsets still can’t.

Campagnolo Chorus derailleurs (rear 220g, front 87g)

The Chorus rear derailleur, like the Ergopower shifters, swaps carbon for aluminium and technopolymer – the cage and the external plate. As with the shifters, this adds just a tiny amount of weight. Campagnolo says the rear mech’s 3D-Embrace technology enables it to engage more of the sprockets' teeth, improving both efficiency and wear rate. It also has an optimised return spring, which would account for the very fast shifts.

Shifting is very precise as well as very fast. Going into the 15 or the 14 could produce a metallic gunshot sound from the cassette whereas the larger sprockets were quieter. I’ve been told this would reduce after a bedding-in period, and to be fair I wasn’t able to spend enough miles on the groupset to find out.

The pulley wheels have 12 teeth each – one more than Shimano’s road groupsets, winning another round of one-upmanship – and transmission once in gear feels as frictionless as you’d expect.

The front derailleur also swaps carbon-fibre for metal but otherwise has the same design as Record and Super Record.

As with the rear derailleur, shifting is very fast and lever throw seems to have been reduced for the change from little to big ring. As with the rear mech, dead travel has been eliminated: basically, when the lever moves the mech moves. For me the free stroke-eliminating design works better up front. Shifting between chainrings must be positive and fast and there’s no messing about here. In keeping with the rest of the shifting, the trim function emits a loud clunk, but functionally it’s great.

Campagnolo Chorus cassette (310g)

Whatever you think of its shift feel, Campagnolo has got Chorus’s ratios spot on. All three steel cassettes feature the same one-tooth increments for the first seven sprockets from the 11 up – a time triallist’s dream ‘straight-through’ block but with bail-out gears for steep hills too.

There’s 11-29,11-32 or 11-34 to choose from. In all, the last two triplets are machined from a single piece of steel, while the rest of the sprockets are separate with machined aluminium spacers.

Super Record and Record don’t get a 11-34 option, underlining Chorus’s designation as a groupset for everyday riders.

Campagnolo Chorus chainset (728g)

The chainset is the focal point of a groupset, and Campagnolo knows how to use this to its advantage. The nude carbon marbled finish is incredibly striking – and it’s not technically a finish, according to Campagnolo, it’s the result of a layup process of unidirectional carbon-fibre that is intended to protect its integrity against UV. The carbon weave with deep lacquer that Campagnolo previously made its calling card has gone.

Campagnolo has always gone its own way with its bolt circle diameters, and this time Chorus even gets a different BCD from the latest Super Record and Record. It uses 123mm (compared to the 145mm of the latter two) in order to facilitate the 48/32 option and Chorus’s little ring bolts to the big ring rather than to the spider. So chainrings are specific to Chorus and not interchangeable between groupsets.

The look is not quite as slick as the top two Campy chainsets, whose bolts are hidden, but there’s still plenty of indisputable wow factor here.

Turning on Campagnolo’s steel Ultra Torque axle, the chainset was never going to lack stiffness and I certainly didn’t feel any flex. It was more than a match for the Daccordi test bike’s monster down tube.

Chorus uses the tried-and-tested Ultra-Torque system, whereby bearings (steel for Chorus rather than the ceramic of the top two groupsets) are pressed onto the semi-axles rather than being part of the cups.

Campagnolo Chorus chain (243g)

Chorus’s 12-speed chain at 243g for 110 links weighs 20 grams or so more than Super Record’s. The top chains have in recent years used hollow pins, hence the weight saving, but you could legitimately argue that a heavier chain is better for many reasons, especially when it’s by such a small amount.

As I mentioned, I didn’t spend enough time to be able to induce any significant wear, but evidence from previous Campagnolo chains suggest high expectations are due - these components have a reputation for longevity.

Campagnolo Chorus rim brake calipers (318g)

Possibly due to the competition from disc brakes, Campagnolo has dropped single-pivot rear brake options since moving to 12 speed, amping up its rim-braking power, which is a good move. While Super Record and Record’s rim calipers have been filled in to be more aerodynamic, the latest Chorus brakes still have the earlier skeleton design.

However, their performance is mighty. I rode them with Campagnolo’s awesome new Bora WTO wheels, as used by Alexander Kristoff to win the 2020 Tour de France stage one, and although I can’t claim to have been slowing down from the same velocity as the Norwegian, the Chorus calipers with Campagnolo’s red compound carbon brake pads offer as much stopping power as anyone needs. Paired with the longer levers of the latest Chorus shifters, modulation is also excellent – there’s loads of feel.

Of course one of the reasons why there’s a trend towards disc brakes is because of the bigger tyres riders are wanting to use or being told to use, depending on your point of view. Super Record and Record’s rim calipers are said to be compatible with 28c tyres but Campagnolo doesn’t claim this for Chorus. I ran 25c Vittoria Corsas on the wide Bora rims and there was plenty of clearance even though they measured over 25mm; 28s might be a little bit tight but still possible. This may not bother traditionalists, but it is worth bearing in mind if you expect to run wider rubber.

The ride

We don't have the space for a good old Campagnolo v Shimano debate here, but for me the latest Ultegra R8000 supplies more shifting finesse than Chorus. That said, for fans of modern Campagnolo, the very fast, positive shifting with its click accompaniment is what the Italian brand’s mechanical groupsets are all about. and Campagnolo's stated aim is to offer the characteristics of Super Record and Record, not Dura-Ace and Ultegra. Press the button or nudge the paddle and ‘bang!’ it changes gear instantaneously and super precisely. And in racing, that’s what you want. This 12-speed Chorus does that, and with its sensible ratios aimed at everyday riders rather than racers it’s a premium racing groupset that cyclists of all levels can enjoy. And perhaps best of all, the rim brakes are really fantastic.

I've tried to cover the individual performances of the components under their own sections above. When they're combined, it's definitely a case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. The super fast shifting, perfectly judged ratios and powerful fingertip braking all add up to an exciting ride that's packed full of personality.

Value

Super Record is stratospherically expensive, in keeping with tradition, costing over twice the price of Chorus in its mechanical rim brake edition – but weighing about 250g less. Meanwhile, rim-braking mechanical Record costs around £650 more at its suggested retail price, and weighs around 100g less.

With its judicious use of aluminium and steel rather than carbon-fibre and titanium Chorus is priced very competitively indeed. In the performance to price ratio it scores very highly even when it's not being compared to its more expensive stablemates.

Campagnolophiles look away now: Shimano Ultegra is slightly cheaper at its RRP of £1,099.99 at 2,266g undercuts it by a couple of grams too.

Finally - do remember that if you plan to move from another groupset provider to Campagnolo, and like to work on your bike yourself, you will need to buy accompanying tools. If you're already a Campy user you'll be prepared for this.

Gravel racing has always been about bodging together parts of road bikes and mountain bikes to make them work. This is especially true with groupsets which never quite offered the range and robustness that gravel racers were looking for. For years I’ve run all kinds of converters and compromises in order to run a mountain bike rear derailleur and cassette with road shifters and crankset. After Shimano released its Di2 mountain bike gears I, and probably hundreds of others, bombarded them with requests for a two-chainring setup with an XTR rear derailleur and a road front.

>>> Best gravel bikes

We were told to wait patiently and with the release of GRX there is finally a bodge-free option that isn’t just great for gravel, it is just a wonderfully practical groupset for most cyclists most of the time.

>>> Road bike groupsets

Shimano released its GRX groupset in late 2019 and I was lucky enough to get my hands on a 2x Di2=equipped Moots Routt gravel bike 24 just days before I set off on a mixed terrain version of the Hadrian’s wall cycle route. Riding across northern England in November is always going to be a character-forming experience, but it was a great chance to test the wet-weather performance of the electronic groupset.

GRX essentially takes the best of both road and off-road groupsets and combines them. It offers a very wide range of gears (my bike has 48/31 front chainring and an 11-34 cassette but the rear mech clears an 11-42), improved braking ergonomics, a clutch on the rear derailleur to keep your chain in place, and a robust finish that promises to stand up to the sort of abuse gravel riders throw at their bikes.

First impressions

Hopping on the bike the first thing I noticed was the hoods. The shape and aggressive texture of the rubber covers really agreed with me, especially in the cold wet weather of Tyneside (Tyne and Wear, in North East England) a month before Christmas. Shimano moved the braking pivot for GRX slightly higher than it is on its road levers, which means much more power for braking from the hoods. Combined with the shape (which feels a lot like Campagnolo Super Record) and grippy texture of the hoods, it really does make a difference compared with road shifters, and I found myself tackling a lot more technical terrain in the upright position that the hoods allow rather than on the drops.

At an event like The Rift (in Iceland) or the iconic Dirty Kanza, where racing is hard and fast, aerodynamics makes a huge difference, so being able to ride in a road position is necessary. The only issue I have is that if I am tackling technical descents (like some of the wheel-eating lava fields of The Rift) then my drops are a bit too low and it is hard to pop the front wheel over obstacles. With GRX I can keep that aero position on the hoods and still be able to ride comfortably on singletrack. I am a big fan.

The brakes are essentially rebadged road brakes, but Shimano makes a great road brake and they were powerful enough to stop me even with a full bikepacking load. I would suggest that anyone going bikepacking change the stock pads for sintered ones as they last a lot longer.

Will I be undergeared?

If you’re coming from a road background, you might be accustomed to a 52 or 53 big ring and feel like a 48x11 isn’t much gear. But if you raced as a junior you will remember that gear 'roll-out' isn’t just about the gear ratio, but also the circumference of the tyre. When I took my GRX groupset to Rwanda for a 1000km bikepacking trip, I ran a 44mm tyre and the largest gear (48x11) had 9.7 meters of rollout. A 52x11 with a 25mm tyre, which is enough to win the Tour de France, had 10 meters. So you’ll have plenty of gear. With the 31x34 I can ride up almost anything, although bikepacking with a full load on the ridiculously steep dirt roads of rural Rwanda did make me wish I had availed myself of the 42 tooth cassette more than once. Thankfully the Di2 shifting is as predictable as always, so at least I could shift into my granny gear midway up a slow climb.

The other change from road cranks is a slightly wider stance width or Q factor, meaning that with the same pedals your feet will be further apart when clipped in. The difference is only 3mm per side, and most riders won’t notice. Indeed many seem to prefer the wider stance (bike fitters commonly add spacers to give the same outcome with a road crank). If the wider stance does bother you, Shimano’s XTR pedals come with a reduced width option.

Why do I need a gravel groupset?

Well you don’t, but the chances are you are reading this because you are in the market for a gravel bike, and if you are buying a bike specifically for mixed terrain riding you might as well get a groupset designed with the same thing in mind. Last year in Iceland I managed to float my bike crossing a river and the Di2 has never recovered – that was with a road groupset. By contrast I have fully submerged my GRX groupset several times (don’t do this if you can avoid it) and it is fine. I also have the gearing to ride up rocky dirt roads with gradients in excess of 20 per cent , and hoods that let me ride mountain bike trails on the way down. The clutch on the GRX derailleur has never failed me and my chain slaps far less than it does on a road groupset and I can’t remember the last time it came off. It also shifts well even when it is filthy.  I don’t need any of those things, but all of them make riding a gravel bike more fun. The shift performance is every bit as smooth at Ultegra, so you are not really giving up anything and you gain a lot.

GRX is also £450 cheaper than Ultegra (unless you can find the latter on a sale) and weighs a little under 150g more. In my opinion it is the best choice for any mixed terrain bike.

The Campagnolo Super Record groupset doesn't just occupy an alcove in the cycling hall of fame as much as have a whole antechamber named after it.

So it's no surprise that, while the EPS version on test here with its 12 gears and electronic shifting might add a modern twist on an otherwise Italian classic, it's still one of the most desired products available – and for good reason.

Campagnolo Super Record EPS 12-speed: My setup

My test groupset came equipped with a 52/36 crankset and an 11-29 cassette. It is possible to get the groupset with a 50/34 and a 54/39 crankset as well as an 11-32 cassette if you want a greater range of gears.

I also opted for disc brakes as I prefer the more powerful stoppers and have been keen to give them a proper test – which you can read further down the page. Of course, a rim brake version is also available should you prefer a more classic feel.

Putting the groupset on to my Basso Diamante test bike wasn't as easy as setting up a Shimano Dura-Ace groupset. A couple of the more fiddly bits, for example plugging the EPS cables into the hoods required a couple of extra hands and lots of grunting.

Campagnolo Super Record EPS 12-speed: Design

If Tulio Campagnolo were alive today he'd be slack-jawed at just how far Campagnolo's design expertise has come.

Campagnolo Super Record EPS groupset's crankset has a beautiful, sleek uni-directional carbon finish, the same as the mechanical 12-speed groupset. According to the Italian brand the glossy shine is laid up in the carbon fibre to protect it from UV's rays. While it might assume we're all lucky enough to ride in the sun drenched hills of Italy, there's no denying it's a beautiful design, probably my favourite of all the groupset makers and it's a great modern take on the classic Campag look.

Whereas SRAM and Shimano position its gear levers all on the side of the lever, Campag's distinctive hood design places the up shifters as thumb paddles in the inside and the down shifters on the levers on the out. It's part of a 'one button one shift philosophy' that's distinct from other major groupset makers and, in my experience, is better for when riding aggressively.

The big news is the addition of the 12th gear and Campagnolo has incorporated it in the same way that it incorporated it on to its mechanical groupset: via a slimmed down chain, cassette and derailleurs. Previous Campag wheel owners (or those that use the Campy freehub standard) can rejoice as the brand has also slimmed down the cassette to fit the existing standard.

The front derailleur carries the motor and communication system on top which adds a lot of height to the unit whereas the rear derailleur accommodates it within the derailleur for a cleaner look. Both derailleurs are in constant communication and will re-centre the chain line with a re-assuring buzz.

Watch: How much faster is a TT bike to a road bike

That's about the only time you'll hear an electronic noise with Campagnolo's EPS though, and for the best part the shifting has a very mechanical and tactile feel to it. It's different to, say, Shimano's Di2, which has very little lever movement, small clicks and more 'bzzts'.

Campagnolo Super Record EPS 12-speed: Performance

Campagnolo was the first to sound the 12-speed cannon, but compared to SRAM's slightly off the wall approach to its eTAP AXS groupset - and the subsequent re-evaluation of gear ratios - Campagnolo trod a more moderate route.

By adding the 12th gear it has created smaller jumps between the sprockets on the cassette, and it's now single tooth jumps up to the seventh sprocket. There's no denying that that's an altogether less revolutionary approach to gearing than SRAM's, but having buried some decent kilometres into the new Italian groupset I firmly believe it's better to view Campag's 12-speed groupset as the perfection of what works for the brand and that's racing.

On the road, these single tooth jumps feel brilliant. The one tooth changes are buttery smooth and it feels like you always have the right gear at hand. It's especially true on long climbs or ascents of a more gentle gradient, with the changes taking far less of a toll on the legs and never interrupting your rhythm. The harder you ride, the more you appreciate the easing on the legs of a small gear change, or the ability to lay down more power without shifting too far.

The hood design encourages riders to spend time on the drops as the down shifter is more accessible from that position.

However, I'm not the most aggressive rider, I spend most of my time on a bike riding long distances with few changes of pace. For this reason, I spend little time on the drops and more time on the tops, making a hood design like Shimano's better suited to my riding style. That said, there's no denying that the groupset feels at its best when you're hammering along hunched over.

Furthermore, Campagnolo's multi-shift technology - the ability to shift five gears at a time up or down the cassette - carries over to the EPS version. Because of the electronics, dunking five gears at a time doesn't quite have the same rifle fire like sound to it but it is useful following descents into sharp rises.

Campagnolo Super Record EPS 12-speed: Disc brakes

Personally, I prefer the hood size and style of Shimano's Di2 and hydraulic hoods. These are the same size as it's rim brake and Di2 equivalent and in comparison, Campagnolo's EPS hydraulic hoods are 8mm taller than its rim brake counterpart (it houses the master cylinder) and don't look as neat as Shimano's. I will admit, though, that 8mm does give a bit of extra hood room to use as an aero position.

However, where Campag challenge Shimano's disc brakes is in their performance. I think the lever feel certainly rival's Shimano's and in my experience is better than SRAM's. The double curve gives more leverage when descending on the drops and as a result, the ability to scrub speed going to corners is excellent.

The levers are also adjustable inwards and outwards with a 3mm Allen Key for a different reach and feel. It's rider preference, but the five minutes I spent getting my position just right was worth it for the extra comfort and confidence on descents.

On prolonged descents there was a juddering from the callipers but it never affected the brakes' performance. There was none of the squealing that I had experienced on previous outings in Gran Canaria (I suspect heat build played a part) or when riding with SRAM's brakes in the wet.

Campagnolo Super Record EPS 12-speed: Weights and prices

The full RRP of Campagnolo's Super Record EPS 12-speed groupset is a whopping £4,108 making it the most expensive top end groupset on the market. If that's a bit too much to stomach, then the good news is that both Campagnolo's Record and even Centaur groupsets have now been endowed with a 12th gear.

Rear derailleur 234g

Ergopower shifters 381g

Front derailleur 132g

Battery 135g

EPS external interface 33g

EPS internal interface 11g

Crankset 618g

Threaded BB cups 43g

Press-fit BB cups 40g

Cassette 266

Chain 228g

Caliper x 1 118g

Rotor x 1 99g

Total 2,505g

Launched four months after the big 12-speed update of its older sibling, Red. The Force launch was arguably the more hotly anticipated launches of the year, and it didn’t disappoint and so we had to include it in this years Editor’s Choice. Force is around £1000 and only around 300g heavier than Red. You still get 12 speeds and wireless gear changes, amazing!

Launched at the start of 2019 SRAM Red eTap AXS generated a lot of excitement with its enhanced wireless shifting, 12-speed cassettes and configurability.

So it came as a surprise that the brand followed up with its new second tier Force eTap AXS groupset only a couple of months after its flagship Red-level product. Force eTap AXS shaves around £1000 off the bill, but still offers the same functionality as Red.

>>> SRAM Red eTap AXS groupset review

That starts with the extra sprocket. But SRAM hasn’t just given you more ratios over the same range. It’s used the extra gear to extend the range while keeping the hardware to manageable proportions which fit in a conventional 11-speed frame.

It’s done that by offering cassettes which start with a 10-tooth smallest sprocket. Coupled with SRAM’s 48 tooth large chainring, that gives you a top gear ratio just smaller than a 53x11, but with a smaller, lighter front plate. At the back, there are options up to 33 teeth which, coupled to a 35 tooth inner chainring give exactly the same low ratio as a 34x32.

If you want a narrower gear spread, there are 10-26 and 10-28 cassettes available too. There’s a choice of either the 48/35 chainring tested or a 46/33, so you don’t get the 50/37 option offered by Red AXS. But you do get the same broad range of crank lengths between 165mm and 177.5mm in 2.5mm increments.

The wide range has another benefit: you can stay on the large ring over a wider range of terrain, as you’ve got a lower large ring ratio than, say, a 50x32 configuration. I certainly noticed that I was riding undulating terrain between the Chilterns and Oxford more in the large ring than I would normally. There was a tendency to push up slopes harder to stay on the big ring though – good for ride times, but not so much for fatigue levels.

The 10 tooth smallest sprocket means that SRAM AXS groupsets need a rear wheel with a SRAM XD-R cassette body. Many wheelsets can be converted without specialist tools and a few are sold with XD-R as an option. But a new XD-R cassette body often costs around £50, so it’s another cost to take into consideration if you want to upgrade a bike to a SRAM AXS groupset.

Force eTap AXS versus Red eTap AXS

The £1000 difference in price between Force eTap AXS and Red eTap AXS comes mainly as a result of less fancy materials, such as conventional rather than ceramic bearings in the rear mech’s jockey wheels, but the difference is rather less than you’d expect.

Whereas Red AXS gets a silver and black chainset with carbon arms and direct mount rings, Force eTap AXS makes do with rather less fretted chainrings with a conventional four arm spider. There’s the option to fit a Quarq DZero power meter with both groupsets.

The Force eTap AXS mechs are alloy and battleship grey, although the rear mech incorporates the same Orbit hydraulic damper mechanism as Red AXS, to help keep the chain under tension, ensure sharp shifting and avoid chainslap. Force eTap AXS uses the same rechargeable, removable batteries as Red AXS too, carried over from 11-speed Red eTap. Battery life is good and I didn’t make an appreciable dent in the charge level while testing.

Whereas the Red AXS cassette body is a single piece, milled into shape, Force eTap AXS has separate sprockets pinned together. There’s the same flat-topped design to the chain, engineered to add back the strength lost from the narrower profile.

The Force eTap AXS brake levers have the same size and shape as the Red AXS ones too. They are larger than Shimano’s, but I didn’t find them uncomfortable. There’s a wider area of soft rubber to rest your hands on when riding on the hoods and it comes with a grippy pattern on top. The brake levers themselves are also quite wide, leading to plenty of surface to grip, particularly if you’re braking from the tops.

The large single paddle on each lever is easy to operate too. Shifting is intuitive: left to change down the cassette, right to shift up, both together to change chainrings.

The swap down from Red AXS to Force eTap AXS is accompanied by a weight gain of just under 300g, from a quoted 2518g for Red AXS to 2812g for Force eTap AXS with two rings and disc brakes.

As with Red AXS, Force eTap AXS provides a choice of rim or hydraulic disc brakes and single or double ring chainsets. All use the same rear mech with a choice of mid or short cage. That provides a maximum cassette size of 33 or 36 teeth respectively, so in a single ring configuration you don’t get the range offered by SRAM’s 11-speed 10-42 cassette. If you want a wider range single ring option, Force eTap AXS is compatible with the Eagle AXS MTB rear mech, which can handle SRAM’s 10-50 12-speed cassette.

Tuneability

The AXS part of SRAM’s latest groupsets’ names refers to their Bluetooth connectivity to SRAM’s phone app. This allows you to configure the groupset, check battery status in each unit, update firmware and alter its functionality.

So, should you wish, you can swap the up and down functions of the shifters. You can also, as with Shimano’s latest Di2 groupsets, set front mech shifting to occur automatically.

>>> SRAM Red eTap AXS v Shimano Dura-Ace Di2: everything you need to know

Connecting to the Force eTap AXS groupset is a bit fiddly, requiring you to press buttons on the mechs and shifters to wake them up before pairing to the app. I updated the firmware in the two mechs and the shifters. This was easy enough, although the rear mech, which acts as the master unit for the groupset’s wireless network, went to sleep again during the downloads and needed to be reawakened.

There are two enhanced shifting modes available: sequential and compensating. These are equivalent to the enhanced shifting options in Shimano Di2.

Shifting down in sequential mode, once you’ve got to the end of the useful gear range on the large chainwheel, another downshift will swap the front rather than the rear mech, without you needing to initiate the change. At the same time, it shifts the rear up to reduce the jump in ratios. You can still hit both levers at once to make this happen manually too.

>>> Buy now: SRAM Force eTap AXS mechs, shifters and disc brake calipers from Evans Cycles for £1400

When shifting down, the chainring shift happens on the next to largest sprocket and cannot be reconfigured. By that time, there’s quite a lot of chain clatter and if you try to shift under load, you can get a bit of a jolt and crashing sounds. Upshift of the chainrings happens around the middle of the cassette, with a two sprocket compensating shift at the rear, and is a lot smoother.

In compensating mode you initiate the front shift, with the rear mech shifting up or down automatically, to maintain a comparable gear ratio. It’s slick and I did not find that it affected my rhythm or felt awkward.

You can also configure how many sprockets Force eTap AXS will upshift and downshift, with separate values for each, if you keep the shift lever held down. It’s all straightforward to configure and SRAM gives you a good level of in-app help, if you want additional guidance.

In summary

SRAM Force eTap AXS is a sophisticated groupset option, with a lot more about it than just 12-speeds instead of 11. It works really well, is easily configurable and gives you broad gear range options, all for a price just slightly more than Shimano Ultegra Di2. While the disc brake version has an SRP of £2274, rim brakes drop that to £2164. Go single ring and prices are £1924 with disc brakes and £1814 with rim brakes.

Campagnolo became the first of the big three groupset manufacturers to introduce 12-speed to the road market when it unveiled new versions of Record and Super Record last year. The Campagnolo Super Record groupset landed in an innocuous-looking box on Cycling Weekly's doorstep. It came alive when installed and tested.

>>> Road bike groupsets: 2019 hierarchies explained

Whereas the ‘11’ featured as a central part of the design of the previous groupsets, Campagnolo left ‘12’ off any of the components – perhaps to imply that there’s more to the new gruppo than just than another gear.

Both the Record and Super Record groups are new from top to bottom. It is not just the cassette and – radically different looking – rear derailleur, but a major change across all elements. Four new versions are on offer now: both the Record and Super Record offer rim and disc brake versions, with the former coming in direct mount or dual-pivot brake options.

Changes are expected to trickle down to the Chorus, Potenza and Centaur groups soon. The rear derailleur stands out with its longer body, new parallelogram geometry and longer pulley cage of 72.5mm. The jockey wheels have gone up to 12 teeth with more aggressive teeth on the top pulley to move the chain through the cassette more smoothly.

>>> Campag 12-speed spotted

There is also that extra aluminium link which can be removed if you have a direct-mount frame. The shorter connection should offer even better shifting and faster wheel changes with the mech back and clear of the axle. It would be good to try, but for this ride, I'm using a traditional frame and setup. Up front, the changes are not as noticeable but they are certainly there.

The longer front derailleur arm sits separate from the parallelogram plate. Before, it was one piece of forged material, but now it pushes on a tab when shifting. Campagnolo claims this gives a straighter chainline in any gear. The design also reduces the amount of force and lever throw required to make a shift.

The Ergopower levers, as with previous versions, offer multiple index shifting to the front derailleur to find the position that’s exactly right. The right Ergopower shifter allows you to upshift three at a time – ie select lower gears – which is very handy when you race into the base of a climb and need to change quickly – and you can dump five gears in the other direction for the descent via the time-honoured Campagnolo thumb tab. The double curves of the levers remain gentle and sexy, formed from carbon.

Campagnolo Super Record now allows you to set the levers closer to the bars for smaller hands. Also those same small hands will enjoy a redesigned thumb tab that is wider and tilted downwards, easier to reach from the drops. However, it is not as easy to reach as the lowered thumb paddle on the electric groups.

The inner shift blade also is a bit wider and easier to flick with your index finger when needed. The tilt of both Ergo levers also edges further outwards making them even easier to reach and engage. The internals and design, says Campy, reduce much of the free play and are made for more responsive shifting.

If the rear mech looks much more aggressive then the brakes and crankarms take on a sleek and aero look. I like the look of the clean brakeset against the disc setup Campy offers. These calipers, no longer skeleton, look angular and modern. Their function, too, is on a par with Dura-Ace's acclaimed modulation.

The calipers allow for 28c tyres. They also come in direct-mount options. If you are a fan of Campagnolo's crankarm redesign five years ago, you will love the even sleeker new appearance for 2018. The first big change is the lack of a centre hole on the right arm, smoothed over with carbon that runs all the way to the rings, bridging the two opposing pairs of spider arms.

The hollow carbon-fibre arms and extra carbon brace at the outer reaches is said to stiffen up the chainring when sprinting. I could not push it hard enough on the Tuscany roads, but the big professionals will appreciate this.

How does Campagnolo Super Record perform? It took a steady hand and attention to dial in the rear derailleur just right given that the extra 12th gear fits in the same space. Everything is more precise, tighter and better engineered. Consider that now the chain is now only 5.2mm wide. Once it is right, it clicks like a firearm – bang, bang, bang! The chain jumps down one gear, another and another, clicking easily with those redesigned levers. I rode some of my usual routes around Florence, which are never flat for long.

You are constantly climbing or descending. Before, with the 11-speed group, I never felt that I was lacking but now it seems as if the 12th gear is necessary. Clearly it gets one over on its competitors, but Campagnolo made the decision to deal with the widening gap between the smallest and biggest sprocket of rear cassettes.

Even with compact and semi-compact cranksets (I tested the latter), cyclists often reach for 30 or 32-tooth sprockets. Now with the 12 gears, Campy's engineers have filled in the spaces in the cassette so that to include a lower bottom gear doesn’t mean bigger gaps elsewhere. On the climb to Olmo above Florence, with it in the 36 front ring, I easily found the right ratio. Again, I never felt I was lacking before with 11 sprockets, but now every option feels available.

The Campagnolo Super Record cassettes are offered in 11-29 or 11-32, which is the one I tested. The first seven gears on both move up in one-tooth increments. Shifting around to the extremes, I could also feel that Campagnolo improved cross-chainring riding. I put it in the 36x12: no front derailleur rub and smooth rear pulley/cassette movement. Campy says that is down to the front derailleur redesign and the new pulley and 3D Embrace Technology used in the rear mech.

Overall, everything felt precise and without any fuss finding the right ratio or being too crossed in gear selection. Braking felt perfect, too. The levers are easier to grab both from the drops and on top of a more comfortable Ergopower hood. The modulation allowed for feathering heading towards the curves or when the local Tuscan roads descended tightly, an aggressive grab felt just as smooth. Dual-pivot configurations are now used up front and behind for extra stopping power, getting rid of the single-pivot rear caliper that Campagnolo used before.

The ball bearings still are there, allowing that smooth feeling from the caliper's pivots.

Having that 12th sprocket allows you to progress through the gears smoothly but still have an expanded rear block. But the cassette does not just have an extra gear, it is completely different like the groupset. The first six sprockets are individual steel plates as before and the last six gears are divided into two sets of three. Instead of steel or titanium rings with aluminium spiders, now the two sets are each machined from a single piece of steel.

The improved engineering improves durability and keeps the cassette as light as is practically possible, but the new weight of 266g is considerably higher than the 177g of the 11-speed sprockets. The newly designed Ergopower lever makes moving across the block easy, but that is only part of the story. Campagnolo says that the ease is thanks in large to the Maximum Smoothness derailleur cables that reduce friction. The cables look the same on the outside, but the new slippery inners add to the lightness when shifting.

Super Record v Record

The Record and Super Record groups differ in materials, weight and price. The weights: 2,041g compared to 2,213g for Record. Super Record uses Campy's CULT ceramic bearings between the crankset and cups; Record relies on the USB bearings. The cranks use hollow-carbon construction and titanium shafts, where Record uses solid construction arms with a steel shaft connecting the cranks. With those touches, and the extra carbon between the spider arms, the Super Record crankset sees the most significant differences.

Campagnolo Super Record Ergopower levers feature cut-outs and its front derailleur uses an aluminium inner plate and carbon on its outer cage plate. The rear derailleur features more cut-outs and a carbon outer plate. The brake calipers look nearly the same, but Super Record’s feature titanium screws and hardware, as the Super Record groupset does throughout. Super Record definitely shifts and operates smoothly, and has earned the ‘Super’ prefix with its material and design upgrades throughout.

Weight comparison

Campagnolo Super Record 12 v Super Record 11 Campagnolo claims 2,041g for 12-speed Super Record and 2,213g for Record compared to 1,939g for 11-speed Super Record. That’s right, the new groupset is heavier. The biggest weight difference between new and old is in the cassette. The 12-speed cassette, with its thinner sprockets, is heavier, probably because Campagnolo has had to use more steel and less titanium and aluminium.

11-speed Super Record 12-speed Super Record

Rear derailleur 166g-179g (medium) 181g, Ergopower Shifters 342g - 339g (pair), Front derailleur 71g - 79g, Chainset 631g - 618g, Threaded BB cups 45g - 43g, Sprockets 177g - 266g, Chain 210g - 220g Brakes, 297g - 298g.

Complete groupset 1,939g - 2,041g

Prices

Campagnolo Super Record disc brake £2,856.99 Campagnolo Super Record rim brake: £2,614.99 Record disc brake £1,999.99 Record rim brake: £1,764.99

“Old” Shimano Tiagra 4600 was due an overhaul: it was the oldest groupset in Shimano’s stable and was beginning to show its age both in appearance and performance relative to Shimano’s higher end groupsets.

Buy now: Shimano Tiagra 4700 groupset from Chain Reaction Cycles for £259.99 

The new Shimano Tiagra 4700 looks much more like its bigger brothers - Shimano Dura-Ace, Shimano Ultegra and Shimano 105 - and its performance is much more on a par with them too, although unlike  105 which stepped up to eleven speed in its latest 5800 guise, Tiagra remains ten speed.

Although this isn’t obvious in photos, all the components are anodised a rather attractive steel blue.

Shimano Tiagra Chainset

The 4700 chainset adopts Shimano’s newer four-arm design. It’s available in double or triple with four crank lengths between 165 and 175mm.

The double is available as either 50/34 tooth compact or 52/36 semi-compact while the triple comes with 50/39/30 tooth rings.

>>> Shimano grouspsets compared

Shimano Tiagra Rear derailleur

As with Shimano’s other groupsets, there’s a long cage and a short cage version of the rear mech. The short cage mech will handle cassettes with a largest sprocket of 28 teeth.

Go for the longer cage and the range expands to 34 teeth for the double, 32 for the triple – again in line with higher end groupsets and competitors’ offerings and also offering a much more sportive-friendly lowest ratio.

All you need to know about road bike groupsets

Shimano Tiagra Front derailleur

The front mech is available for double or triple chainrings, the latter having a different cage design. The look is again much like Shimano’s higher end groupsets and the lever arm length has been increased to provide greater leverage when shifting and a lighter lever feel.

Shimano Tiagra Shifters

Aside from the chainset, the new shifters are the most visible change from the previous Tiagra groupsets. The gear indicator windows have been lost and the size and shape are much like 105.

>>> Shimano 105 groupset review

Whereas gear cables used to come out of the side of the shifter body and arc externally to the frame, the 4700 shifter cables are routed under the bar tape.

The levers’ internals are much like those in 11-speed 105: the cables come straight out of the back of the levers into the cable outers rather than following the crazy routing of the previous 10-speed 105 where the cable executed a series of 90° turns within the lever body, which impacted performance and promoted wear.

>>> Are electronic groupsets necessary?

The hoods are comfortable to perch on and the levers to use, and there’s a solid feel to the shifting and braking.

There’s also a built-in lever reach adjustment screw. A Rapidfire lever set is also available for use on flat bars; this retains the gear indicator window.

Shimano Tiagra Cassette

Shimano Tiagra 4700 offers four cassette options with ranges available from 11-25 to 11-34 teeth. In combination with the compact chainset, the latter should provide plenty of range to tackle up and downhills.

Shimano Tiagra Brakes

Again, the brakes show a family resemblance to Shimano’s higher priced groupsets and this is reflected in their performance.

The dual pivots provide light, comfortable performance and Shimano claims a significant increase in modulation.

Buy now: Shimano Tiagra 4700 groupset from Chain Reaction Cycles for £259.99 

The shoes have adjustable toe-on, although they are one piece, so you have to replace the whole unit rather than being able to swap out the pads once they’re worn.

In April, Shimano launched its Ultegra RX rear derailleur in both mechanical and Di2 formats. The Ultegra RX mech differs from a standard Ultegra mech in having a clutch mechanism housed in the pivot for the jockey wheel cage. There’s a lever on the mech that lets you engage or disengage the clutch.

When engaged, the clutch makes tension-releasing movement of the cage stiffer than tension-adding movement, so helping to keep the chain from flapping up and down and slapping the chainstay when riding over surface obstacles.

This is good for a few reasons: first the more constant chain tension reduces chain clatter, second it leads to more consistent shifting, third it lessens the chance of dropping the chain, fourth it leads to better power transfer, and fifth it reduces scratches and bashes on the chainstay and bottom bracket shell of your expensive bike frame.

>>> Do you need a clutch rear derailleur?

On the negative side, there’s a small increase in friction in the drivetrain, which is why Shimano gives you the option to disengage the clutch.

SRAM’s 1x single ring groupsets also have a clutched mech for the same reasons and their alternating wide/narrow toothed chainrings with their deep teeth are designed to help promote chain retention.

>>> Shimano 105 R7000 groupset review

Shimano is sticking with two chainring configurations on road for the moment (although some bikes like the top end version of the Cannondale SuperX have single-ring Shimano set-ups).

Riding with the Ultegra RX rear mech

I swapped out a last-generation Ultegra 6800 mechanical rear derailleur on a Cannondale CAADX cyclo-cross bike for the clutched Shimano RX800 GS mech and headed into the woods.

The effect of the swap was obvious, with much cleaner shifting and a reduction in drivetrain noise. Some of this is down to the Shadow design of the latest generation of Shimano road mechs: the derailleur is positioned ahead of the cassette rather than directly below it, so the chain wraps around more teeth of the cassette, leading to more points of engagement.

Switch the clutch off and the drivetrain still runs more quietly and shifts better than with the older Ultegra 6800 mech. But there’s another increment in shift quality and reduction in chainslap with the clutch engaged. You still get some side to side movement of the chain, but up and down movement is reduced significantly.

I was somewhat concerned about the durability of the plastic lever and housing for the clutch. But Shimano has been making clutched off-road mechs with plastic housings and levers for a few years and our colleagues at MBR tell us that they’ve never come across damage to either.

>>> Gravel bike buyer's guide

With the Shadow design, the mech is less in the firing line than with the older positioning too, and less likely to take a bash.

The RX mech is compatible with Shimano’s standard STI levers and, according to Shimano’s spec sheet, will handle a cassette from 11 to 28 to 34 teeth, with up to 16-tooth difference between chainwheel sizes. That’s a large range, helped by the long cage design.

For anyone looking to ride off-road, either racing cyclo-cross or riding gravel paths, the Shimano Ultegra RX rear mech makes a lot of sense. It’s likely to help on UK back roads and the daily commute too. Price-wise the RX rear mech is the same price as a standard R8000 rear mech at full RRP, so it’s really a no-brainer.

Time was any bike with racing pretensions was kitted out with a 53/39 tooth chainset; there's a reason it was called a "standard". That was paired up to a 9-speed 11-25 cassette to give you the ideal set-up for all your riding - assuming you were super-fit.

If you wanted lower gears you fitted a triple chainset. That gave you the lower range you craved, but at the expense of extra weight, mechanical complexity and a reputation for tricky set-up.

All that changed with the emergence of the "compact" 50/34 tooth chainset in the mid-2000s. At around the same time cassettes on top end bikes sprouted a tenth sprocket and better cassette designs like Shimano Hyperglide and SRAM and Campagnolo's equivalents, along with better derailleurs which could shift efficiently over wider ranges, made 11-28 tooth cassettes a reality, making hills something to be embraced rather than avoided and opening up road cycling to a wider audience.

Not the answer for everyone

The only problem with a compact chainset was that, with an 11-tooth smallest sprocket, faster riders and the rest of us on downhills with a tailwind were often spinning out. 

The mid-compact 52/36t chainset helped remedy that, giving a higher top gear but still providing a low enough bottom gear range to allow most riders to tackle the hills they encountered. It quickly supplanted the standard 53/39t chainset on more performance oriented road bikes, to the extent that it's rare to see the latter specced on a new bike today. The 53/39t chainset is left for the racers and even there it's a dying configuration, as we'll see.

The trend to ever-wider gearing has only accelerated with the emergence of larger and larger cassette ranges, while the concurrent increase in the number of gears up to the current 12 speeds of the best road bike groupsets has meant that jumps between gear ratios have remained narrow.

So the latest 12-speed Shimano Dura-Ace and Ultegra groupsets give you either 11-30 tooth or 11-34 tooth cassettes with single tooth jumps over seven gears for the former and five gears for the latter. Two generations ago, Dura-Ace R9000 could only handle an 11-28 tooth cassette.

The provision of even wider gear ranges is even more accentuated with the SRAM eTap AXS 12-speed groupsets, which pair smaller chainrings with cassettes that start with 10 tooth sprockets. That gives a similar highest gear ratio to a conventional chainset with an 11-tooth sprocket. But at the other end, SRAM's 12-speed cassettes, which head up to 33 teeth for Red and 36 teeth for Force and Rival give you even lower gear ratios than Shimano.

Even Campagnolo, whose cassettes once stopped at 29 teeth, now goes out to 34 teeth.

Higher ratios too

For the last few years, road bike gearing has got progressively easier. But strangely at the same time there's also a trend to higher ratios. 

With the release of 12-speed Dura-Ace R9200, alongside its 50/34t compact and 52/36t mid-compact chainsets, Shimano has released a 54/40 tooth chainset rather than the 53/39t standard chainset in the older Dura-Ace R9100.

Very much pitched at the racer, that's because Shimano says that speeds have actually increased in road races and there's a need for larger high end gears on fast courses. It also means that riders can potentially pedal one sprocket further up the cassette than with a 53/39t chainset, which leads to a straighter chainline, less articulation between chain links as they pass over the sprocket and hence less friction and improved drivetrain efficiency.

At the same time, the increased range spread of the cassette means that there's still the low gearing needed for when the race hits a climb.

Again SRAM goes even better with its 50/37t Red eTap AXS chainset paired with a 10 tooth sprocket giving you an even higher top ratio. In fact it's only Campagnolo that has a standard 53/39 tooth chainset still in its 12-speed range.

If you want a 53/39t Shimano chainset you'll have to drop to 11 speeds and opt for 105, while SRAM still offers an 11-speed Force standard 53/39t chainset. Those look like legacy configurations though and we wouldn't be surprised to see them phased out over the next few years.

Our take

There are so many groupset options out there now that there's really no reason for anyone to be riding a set of gears that doesn't give them the range they need. For the majority of road riders that means something smaller than a 53/39 tooth chainset paired with a cassette that gives them a wide enough range to meet both their fast riding and hill climbing needs.

For the racers, the option provided by newer groupsets of an even higher top gear range and fewer lost watts along with enough lower ratios to ride the climbs means that the days of the 53/39 tooth chainset must surely be numbered.

Shimano Dura-Ace is intended to be the best groupset you can buy. Designed to meet the needs of professional racing, the Dura-Ace name carries with it a reputation as the pinnacle of cycling componentry and the latest groupset, Shimano Dura-Ace R9100, delivers.

>>> Best deals on groupsets now

It’s a well-earned reputation from the Japanese brand, which invests an impressive amount of research and development in its flagship components.

Buy now: Shimano Dura-Ace R9100 mechanical groupset from Wiggle for £1349.99

Dura-Ace typically exists within a four-year product cycle, which gives you an idea of how much engineering and testing goes into the finished product. We are periodically treated to a new updated version which culminates in a grand launch somewhere exotic. In terms of excitement and expectation, it is the cycling equivalent of Willy Wonka revealing his latest chocolate bar.

Here is our review of the mechanical version – Dura-Ace R9100. A review of the new Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 R9150 will follow once we have had the chance to properly test it.

>>> Shimano grouspsets compared

Shimano Dura-Ace R9100: What's new?

The first and most striking thing about Shimano Dura-Ace R9100 is without question the aesthetic.

Gone are the flowing shapes and the two-tone silver and black finish that adorned Shimano Dura-Ace 9000. In its place is a stealthy metallic black finish that subtly fades to grey (although having met Shimano’s engineers, I doubt this is a homage to Eighties synth pop).

The angles and edges are much sharper too, something that is particularly apparent on the rear derailleur.

Despite looking like it fell off Darth Vader’s face, the aesthetic of the rear mech has really grown on me. It all looks very smart, precise and purposeful. On the whole the looks have divided opinion, but after being unsure initially I’m a fan.

The previous short-cage rear mech was rated up to 28-tooth cassettes, but many professional riders routinely fitted larger sprockets in especially tough stages.

To this end, the new rear mech is now rated up to a 30t sprocket which, after extensive consultation, Shimano insists is what the pros want and need.

I tried fitting a 32t cassette and the system did seem to work fine, but if something goes wrong you won't be covered by Shimano’s warranty.

With regard to engineering, the new rear mech is probably best described as a short-cage version of the mountain bike-specific XTR rear derailleur, with a linkage system that connects the unit to the hanger.

This system helps provide a more consistent gap between the upper jockey wheel and cassette sprockets across the whole gear range irrespective of which front chainring is used.

One thing to point out is Shimano has changed the spacing on the R9100 chainrings, suggesting that cross compatibility with older Dura-Ace front mechs is not advised.

The new rear mech also sits slightly closer to the wheel, which is supposed to give it extra protection it in crashes. Fortunately I haven’t had any yet but, much like toast, bikes have an annoying tendency to land driveside down.

Shimano Dura-Ace R9100: How does it perform?

Set-up is significantly different from the previous version. Fortunately, Shimano has extensive and detailed service manuals available online that you can consult for free. I must stress that if you are going to adjust your new groupset or install it, follow these manuals. The limit screws and set-up may look familiar, but there are subtle, crucial differences.

The tolerances and level of precision are, like a Swiss watch, impressively high meaning that ‘winging it’ is unlikely to result in optimal performance. The front mech is a case in point, the design of which is a significant improvement over the previous 9000 component. Instead of just feeding the cable through, clamping it and cutting as per the outgoing design, the new mech is a little more complicated. The cable must now be fed back around behind the mech and positioning notch, looped through, held in place with a small plastic cap before it’s cut and hidden.

Although outwardly more complicated, this system has a number of key advantages. Firstly the front mech now dictates the cable's angle of approach, which can vary depending on your frame. Previously, the 9000 front shifting performance could be influenced by the cable entry angle from the bottom bracket. It also does away with a separate barrel adjuster as that is now built into the front mech too. You can adjust it by way of a small grub screw. When setting up there is also a useful little inbuilt guide on the adjuster that aligns when you have the perfect cable tension to achieve the trim function on both the big and little ring. Previously this required a little trial and error.

I’m a big fan of the inbuilt cable tension adjuster and revised front mech in general. I have heard some mechanics criticise the new front derailleur for being more complicated. I would argue it is just new, different and, once you get used to it, a better design.

Shimano Dura-Ace R9100 shifting

The shifting on Shimano Dura-Ace 9000 is brilliant but out on the road I feel the Shimano Dura-Ace R9100 is ever so slightly better. The level action feels slightly lighter and more positive, with a very crisp and precise click. I should stress that the improvement really is marginal, though.

The shifter hood is slightly smaller in girth and I welcome the new shape. It feels more comfortable in the hand and as a rider who prefers not to wear mitts I like the new textured surface finish.

The front shifting is particularly impressive, too. Even when under high torque loads, the chain doesn’t complain as you chuck it between the chainrings. This is partly down to the high torsional stiffness of the Shimano chainrings.

Once again, they are not the lightest available, but the performance is excellent. The new Hollowtech chainset, despite appearing substantially chunkier, is actually 7g lighter than the equivalent previous version.

There remains no multishift function though, as found on high-end Campagnolo groupsets. For those unfamiliar, this enables you to dump four gears in a single big lever push.

There is also no automatic trim function, as found on the front mech of SRAM Red 22. Although SRAM fans may miss this, the trim function on Dura-Ace works very well, ensuring you don’t get annoying chain rub.

Shimano Dura-Ace R9100 weight

As cyclists we obsess about weight but, much like computer processors increasing in power, there must come a point where bike components cease to get any lighter.

Tim Gerrits, Shimano’s head of product development, said: “At Shimano we will never compromise the performance of our driv train and shifting.”

It is important to understand that first and foremost Shimano wants Dura-Ace to be the best product and will not make a component lighter, if it results in lesser performance. A case in point in point is the brakes, which Shimano claims are 43 per cent stiffer than the previous version.

The improvement in the brakes is welcome and noticeable – the single-mount caliper now feels like a direct-mount brake, with more power and stiffness. The cam lever is also positioned out of the wind resulting in the most marginal of drag savings.

The key message here is Shimano wanted to improve the brakes and to do so the weight has increased slightly. The new brakes also offer increased clearance for 28mm tyres.

The complete groupset weight of the Shimano Dura-Ace R9100 is 2,007g without cables; 2,097g with. I make that to be 9g lighter than Dura-Ace 9000, which in turn was 71g lighter than 7900.

Interestingly Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 R9150 is a touch heavier, until you factor in the cables and housings, at which point it is ever so slightly lighter than mechanical at 2051g.

Shimano Dura-Ace R9100 value

Although a premium groupset, Dura-Ace mechanical remains substantially cheaper than Campagnolo Super Record, which has a retail price of £2,399, while it is more expensive than SRAM Red 22, which retails at £1,499.

However, having pondered the subject at length, I suggest that the Shimano Dura-Ace R9100's biggest competition is likely not to be Campagnolo or SRAM, but Shimano Ultegra Di2.

For a slight weight penalty equivalent to a larger water bottle or one less pain au chocolat, you can have electronic shifting and save yourself 100 quid. The retail price of Ultegra Di2 is £1,762.99.

Di2 has been a stratospheric leap forward in terms of bike technology and once you have used it, there is no going back. Even with the improvements made to mechanical shifting, Di2 shifting, even at Ultegra level, remains superior.

Dura-Ace is always expensive, but you have to remember this is the flagship product. The pinnacle of engineering. Even if it’s beyond your budget you reap the benefit, as the technology and research and development always trickles down into more affordable groupsets.

Pricing of the Shimano Dura-Ace R9100

Shifters:                 £449.99
Front derailleur:  £99.99
Rear derailleur:    £189.99
Cassette:                £219.99
Chain:                    £44.99
Crankset:              £529.99
BB:                         £49.99
Front brake:         £159.99
Rear brake:           £159.99

TOTAL = £1,904.91

Weights of Shimano Dura-Ace R9100 vs DA 9000 in brackets

Shifter:                     365g (363g)

Disc brake shifter: 505g

Front derailleur:    69g (67g)

Rear derailleur:     158g (160g)

Crankset:                609-621g (636g)

We commend Shimano for moving its top-end groupsets closer together because the result is a product as good as Shimano Ultegra at astonishing value.

For this reason we’re awarding Shimano Ultegra a spot on our Editor’s Choice list for the second consecutive year.

Shimano Ultegra R8000: The design

It would be almost impossible to write this review without referring to Shimano Dura-Ace, and it doesn’t take an eagle eye to realise that the two now look identical. But the question now is, do the two perform the same?

A nuanced answer would make clear the distinctions in materials between the two groupsets, and how the construction differs (don't worry, we'll get to that). But in short, the groupsets have never been closer in performance, and more importantly, Shimano doesn’t care.

It doesn't care that Shimano Ultegra R8000 might step on the toes of the higher end Shimano Dura-Ace, because it just wants to release the best platforms for the riders and consumers, and we applaud that.

Even better, the desire to cram as much tech into a lower price point is matched by a desire to make the groupset more accessible.

According to Tim Gerrits, the man in charge of Shimano's product development, there's no hard or fast definition of road cycling any more. For Shimano, this fluidity and evolution meant creating a groupset that can accommodate a 34t cassette, giving a 1:1 ratio with a compact front setup, and 28mm tyres for the added grip and resilience.

Naturally, the Shimano Ultegra R8000 had to hit its price point. That means glass fibre brackets in the hoods rather than the carbon fibre of Dura-Ace, steel bolts in the rear derailleur over alloy, steel front derailleur cages instead of aluminium and aluminium levers rather than carbon.

Importantly, the crankset is constructed differently: the Ultegra version is shaped differently and is made with a different mould.

All in all, mechanical Ultegra (R8000) is 336g heavier than Dura-Ace as a system, and – weight-weenies cover your eyes – even heavier than old Ultegra 6800 by 46g across the mechanical system.

Happily, the new Shimano Ultegra R8070 system is lighter than the old R6870 by some 197g, leaving it 250g heavier than the same Dura-Ace system.

So, while the differences do drive the weight up, Shimano also says it "drives the price down for Ultegra, and you still get the technology".

Unlike old Ultegra – and just like new Dura-Ace – the hoods now have a chamfered surface, for a bit of added stickiness, although they were still a bit slippery under sweaty hands.

At this point it should come as no surprise that the mechanical setup is now identical to the Dura-Ace equivalent, this means new cable routing into the front derailleur with a new way of indexing the gears. Equally, the hoods are slim and comfortable to rest on for long periods of time.

The brakes

If I was to pick out the real stand out piece of the Shimano Ultegra groupset puzzle it would be the rim brakes. 

The design has been updated since Shimano Ultegra 6800, and now the brakes, unsurprisingly, look a lot like Shimano Dura-Ac and feature a similar thin metal plate between the brake arms that’s said to improve efficiency.  

Having tested both the traditional and direct mount options I’ll happily say that the direct mount brakes offer the best performance. Not just the best performance of the two Shimano brakes however, but the best performance of any rim brake on the market. 

The new stoppers are improved in both power and modulation. A squeeze of the lever yields great stopping power but the lever feels good too, and it’s easy to know where you are through the stroke of the brake.   

Shifting

Shimano Ultegra also boasts the same front derailleur design and cable routing as Shimano Dura-Ace. It’s a neat looking design and it offers a light shifting action. There’s also a nifty cable tension adjustment that’ll allow you take any slack over the course of many miles of riding. 

The rear derailleur has a stark and angular design and on the rear changes were precise and met with a reassuring clunk.

A note on Shimano Di2 and hydraulic braking

First introduced for Dura-Ace, Shimano’s extensive Di2 technology has trickled its way down to Ultegra.

We’ve found that Shimano has improved its Di2 levers. Whereas once they were too close together, and shifting too ambiguous for our liking, now the spacing has been improved and shifting is met with a resounding click.

Electronic integration has been pushed further and now there’s absolutely no difference between Shimano Ultegra Di2 and Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 – the electronic motor and shift speed are exactly the same, impressively fast and crisp, shifting with a reassuring clunk.

The Shimano Ultegra R8000 options also get the same top buttons on the hoods, which can be programmed to either shift or switch your Garmin screen. Plus, there's plenty of opportunity to add additional button shifters for sprinting or just a more ergonomic ride.

Frankly, the technology on offer is staggering, and riders are completely free to customise their shifting through the eTube app which is now available on phone or tablet.

All this means a greater integration of Syncroshift into your riding, and now with three different settings it's efficient and useful, and you'll never have to cross-chain again.

The Ultegra R8070 setup, which in Shimano parlance means electronic shifting and hydraulic braking, was immediately striking in just how different it looks to the old Ultegra system– and how much it looks like Shimano Dura-Ace.

Gone are the large hoods and equally large levers. In their place sit slimmer hoods, which sat comfortably in our hands despite being chocked full with the master cylinder and electronics.

Pair this to greater reach and free-stroke adjustment and you’ve got a setup that even the smallest hands can agree with.

Hydraulic braking is powerful and the lever feel makes it easy to scrub off speed without grabbing a handful of brakes as I’ve is the case with SRAM. I have found the Shimano rotors to be prone to warping under high load, especially if not bedded in properly.

>>> See more at Freewheel.co.uk

On a technical level, Shimano Ultegra R8000 is a magnificent piece of work, it works exceptionally and is an improvement in all the right places on the previous model. But we're as equally impressed by Shimano's willingness to produce such quality at the expense of its Dura-Ace groupset, putting the rider first.

The Shimano Claris groupset is one of the lower-priced gearing options in the brand's hierarchy, and you'll often find new road bikes around the £500 mark come with drivetrain components from this range.

There are lower priced options in the Shimano family, including Shimano Tourney - but this system is not often seen on built bikes.

The main reason for choosing Shimano Claris over Tourney is the shifter design. While Tourney uses a thumb lever on the inside of the hood to shift up and a second lever just behind the brake lever to shift down, Claris uses the same Shimano Dual Control integrated brake and gear lever system that is used on the higher rungs of the Shimano groupset tree, including Ultegra and Dura-Ace.

Watch: buyer's guide to road bike groupsets

This means that the brake lever also becomes a shift lever. When you want to shift up a gear at the back you push the lever behind the right brake lever inwards, and when you want to shift down a gear you push both levers inwards. It is the other way round to shift the front derailleuer, so you push both levers inwards to move into the big ring, and just the one lever to move into the small ring.

The other big difference compared to Tourney is the fact that Shimano Claris comes as a complete groupset, comprising of brake levers, brake callipers, chainset, cassette, and front and rear derailleurs. In contrast Tourney only covers the shifting, and doesn't come with its own brakes.

Shimano Claris put to the test

In use, Shimano Claris is a surprisingly adept performer. As you would expect considering the price, gear changes aren’t quite as smooth and refined as Shimano’s ‘posher’ options, but once set-up correctly, it all works very impressively.

>>> Best cheap road bikes: ridden and rated

The rear shifting is probably the highlight. Particularly when moving down the cassette into harder gears, the shifting is precise and relatively sharp, and even works fairly well when performing under load (i.e. when you are tackling a steep climb or sprinting against your mates). This is all the more impressive when you consider what the rear derailleur is up against.

Because Shimano Claris is an eight-speed system (i.e. there are eight sprockets on the cassette) there are always going to be bigger jumps between gears, compared to the nine-speed Shimano Sora, 10-speed Shimano Tiagra, and 11-speed 105, Ultegra, and Dura-Ace groupsets. This potential problem is compounded by the fact that Claris comes as standard with a medium cage derailleur, which means that you can fit a 32-tooth rear sprocket, spreading the gear range wider.

>>> Buyer's guide to road bike groupsets (video)

That means that the jump between sprockets is always by at least two teeth (so you never move from a 15-tooth sprocket into a 14-tooth sprocket, for example) and is sometimes as big as four teeth. All that puts considerable strain on the rear derailleur, which makes the generally smooth shifting all the more impressive.

It's also worth going back to that 32-tooth rear sprocket and medium cage rear derailleur. This is a vital feature for an entry-level groupset, and the 32 sprocket combined with a 34-tooth small chainring (or even 30-tooth if you're using a triple chainset) will provide more than an easy enough gear to help the newest riders up the steepest climbs.

Compared to the rear derailleur, the Shimano Claris front derailleur isn't quite as good, but still performs reasonably well.

Shifting from the big ring to the small ring is nice and easy, with the lever basically just releasing the gear cable to let the chain shift down a chainring. However, going the other way is a bit more of an effort. The front derailleur pull-arm is significantly shorter than those on Shimano's pricier groupsets, meaning that there is not as much leverage to move the cage. This means that moving from the small ring to the big ring requires a strong and sustained prod of the shifters, something that is not always easy if your hands are cold and you're tired at the end of a long ride. Those with weaker fingers might struggle.

>>> Six reasons why mechanical groupsets are better than electronic

Even if the shifting doesn't come about as easily as you'd like, it is at least nice and precise, and I never had any problems with the chain dropping off the chainrings, even when riding on rougher terrain without a chain guard.

A small point, but one worth saying, is that the Claris chainset uses Shimano’s Octalink bottom bracket system, which is a little more refined than the old-fashioned square-taper bottom brackets you may find on other entry-level bikes. That chainset is also astonishingly pretty considering its place in the Shimano hierarchy.

>>> Is it the end for the 34t chainring?

Shimano Claris chainsets are available in three different setups. There are a couple of two-ring chainset options, 50/34t and 46/34t (both of which will work with the same front derailluer, meaning that you could buy the latter before switching the big chainring when you get stronger), and also a 50/39/30t triple chainset, which could be a good option for touring bikes although is also a fiver more expensive (£74.99 compared to £69.99).

The final components to talk about are the Shimano Claris brakes. Aesthetically at least these are very similar to the Shimano 105 calipers of old, back when the Japanese company's third tier groupset was 10-speed before moving up to 11-speed a couple of years ago.

And the performance isn't too far off this either with decent power and modulation. However, power under heavy braking could be a bit better (something that can be a bit alarming if you're a bike tester used to Shimano's 11-speed groupsets). Thankfully fitting a decent set of after-market brake pads from the likes of Swissstop or Kool Stop (which shouldn't set you back more than a tenner) improves this no end.

Finally, there’s no getting away from the fact that the lower down Shimano’s order you go, the heavier the groupset becomes. However, in action we doubt any rider would notice any weight difference between this and, say, Shimano Sora or Tiagra, especially when you consider that Claris is mostly going to be attached to bikes that hit the scales the wrong side of 10kg.

Shimano Claris vs Sora

Shimano Sora, the next step up in the Shimano hierarchy, has just received a makeover that will aesthetically bring it more in line with the rest of Shimano's road groupsets. However, this isn't available to buy just yet, so for the time being we'll have to compare Claris with the current Sora model.

Looking at the RRPs of the two groupsets, Sora is £50 more expensive (give or take a few quid depending on individual component choices). This extra outlay gives you a bit better performance across the board, particularly with the front derailleur.

The biggest difference, however, is that Shimano Sora is nine-speed rather than the eight-speed offered by Claris, meaning that you have an extra gear to call on, reducing the jumps between cassette sprockets. This means slightly sharper rear derailleur shifting, and if you think you might fancy dipping your toe into a bit of racing further down the line, then Sora is much the better option.

Of course, whether you end up riding Shimano Claris or Sora depends a lot on what bike the groupset is attached to. Around the £500 mark there are plenty of bikes with both groupsets, and in general you often have to choose between having a bike from a fashionable brand with Claris, or one with a less well-recognised name with Sora.

Our pick of the best bikes with Shimano Claris

Verenti Technique

Score: 8

Price: £399.99

Astonishingly, Wiggle in-house brand Verenti has managed to create a sub-£400 bike that is attractive, an absolute blast to ride, and even comes with a carbon fork to stop the ride being too harsh.

Aside from the Claris groupset, the bike comes with unbranded wheels which stand up well the battering of British roads and a comfortable 4ZA saddle. The main issue is that there is no space for a bottle cage on the seat tube - potentially an issue on longer rides.

Read our full review of the Verenti Technique here

Buy now from Wiggle

Merlin Performance PR7

Score: 9

Price: £349.99

Creating a complete road bike for 350 quid is no mean feat, but Merlin has managed it with PR7, an aluminium framed bike with a full Shimano Claris groupset and a carbon bladed fork

At 10.6kg its no lightweight, but that's actually not too bad for a bike of this price point, and it also comes with all the eyelets you need to fit mudguards and pannier rack if you want to use this for your daily commute all year round.

Buy now from Merlin Cycles

Lapierre Audacio 200

Score: 8

Price: £679.99

The price is a bit steep for a Claris-equipped road bike (although big discounts are available online), but Lapierre has made up for that with the excellent Audacio frame, which is really comfortable and does a great job absorbing bumps and vibrations.

Wheels are often under-specced at this price-point, but the CFX rims matched with Claris hubs and topped with Michelin Dynamic Sport tyres do a great job even at speed.

Read our full review of the Lapierre Audacio 200 here

Buy now from Chain Reaction Cycles

Merida Ride 90

Score: 8

Price: £599.99

For a bike of this price to come in below 10kg is impressive, and the Merida Ride 90 is surprisingly adept when you take to the hills, with the 32t sprocket being a nice touch when the road really ramps up.

This is a nice and comfy bike too, with the seatstays dropped further down the down tube to improve the compliance of the rear end. The FSA chainset is a nice upgrade on the standard Claris option too.

Read our full review of the Merida Ride 90 here

More Shimano groupset reviews

Shimano Sora

Score: 8

Price: from £403.91 (RRP)

Shimano Sora shares many similarities with Claris, but for your extra 50 quid you get a ninth sprocket at the back, meaning smaller jumps between sprockets helping you to keep your rhythm and cadence even as the road rolls up and down.

Although the current Sora groupset functions really well, you might want to wait until the new version arrives on road bikes later this year, which might not see a huge jump in terms of performance, but certainly looks a lot better than the current model.

Read our full review of Shimano Sora here

Buy now: Shimano Sora at Ribble Cycles from £187.95

Shimano Tiagra

Score: 9

Price: from £448.91 (RRP)

It used to be said that Shimano 105 was the lowest groupset in the Shimano hierarchy that was acceptable for "serious" road riders, but with the update that Shimano Tiagra received last year, it is now very much a serious road groupset.

Although it is still 10-speed, Tiagra now has the very similar aesthetics as 105 with very sharp shifting and a rear derailleur that can cope with anything up to a 34t sprocket.

Read our full review of Shimano Tiagra here

Buy now: Shimano Tiagra groupset at Chain Reaction Cycles from £249.99

Shimano 105

Score: 10

Price: from £517.91 (RRP)

The only real problem with the old Shimano 105 was that the front shifting wasn't as easy as it could be. However, now that Shimano has fixed this, the performance is excellent across the board.

In fact, we'd go as far as saying that the performance isn't a million miles off mechanical Dura-Ace, with excellent front and rear shifting and braking, and the only penalty being the extra weight.

Read our full review of Shimano 105 here

Buy now: Shimano 105 groupset at Wiggle from £284.99

When the SRAM Apex groupset appeared on the scene in late 2010 it heralded the start of a gearing revolution. By using all its experience creating mountain bike gearsets, with Apex SRAM was able to fit — for the first time on a road bike — cassettes with up to 32 teeth on the biggest sprocket. ‘What’s a few more teeth?’ old-school racing cyclists might ask. But for the then-burgeoning sportive market, where non-racers were enjoying road bikes on challenging routes, the bigger sprocket offered a chance to spin up hills more easily. In fact, teamed with a compact chainset, Apex’s set-up offered a wider range of gears than would normally be possible with a triple chainset, yet without the extra weight.

>>> SRAM groupset hierarchy explained 

Shimano has since caught up in the sprocket size tech war, but SRAM couldn’t have come at a better time. And while Apex might have lost its USP, it hasn’t lost its charm. Indeed, we’ve tested some bikes with the short cage Apex rear derailleur with its 10-speed, 11-28t cassette compatibility, and in pure functionality terms, it’s impressively smooth.

>>> SRAM Red AXS 12 speed groupset launched 

But seeing as the initial big selling point of Apex is its ability to work with rear sprockets up to 32t, it’s the mid-cage model — with what SRAM calls WiFLi (Wider, Faster, Lighter) technology — that interests us most.

Tip-top tapping

Before getting as far as making a judgment about rear derailleur performance, you have to get round the small matter of SRAM’s DoubleTap shifters. They’re an acquired taste, and potentially difficult to come to terms with if you’re used to the established Shimano or Campagnolo gear change systems.

Unlike its rivals, with DoubleTap the brake lever doesn’t pivot sideways: gear selection is controlled using solely the paddle positioned behind it. The rider clicks the paddle a short amount laterally to drop the chain down, or pushes the paddle through a wider lateral sweeping motion to push the chain up. It’s actually a fine system once you get used to it, and in the hand everything from the paddle sweep to the feel of the brake hoods is very assured.

There is one quite glaring drawback, though. Should you be on a steep climb, almost at the end of your endurance and desperate to find one last, easier gear, you might be tempted to push the paddle one more time. If you’re already in the biggest sprocket on the rear cassette, there’s nowhere for the chain to go, so it can’t move any further up the cassette. But the initial click will be registered and the chain will drop down into a harder gear — just when that’s the last thing you need.

Swift and smooth

How do those derailleurs actually perform on the bike? Even with this wider ranging rear mech, it’s still very refined. Like Shimano Sora, there is a slightly utilitarian feel about the groupset, but that’s partly inspired by the types of bikes it appears on — everything from sportive specials, to cross bikes, to tourers. In terms of actual performance we’d place it only a little below Shimano 105, and ahead of Tiagra.

The front derailleur is a very reliable piece of kit, too, offering quick, accurate shifts. Meanwhile, the Apex chainset only comes in one flavour: compact, with chainrings of 50 and 34 teeth. But that’s a perfect fit for its market. The overall gloss black finish — we’ve seen a white finish as well — is not quite as attractive as SRAM’s higher-class options, but it doesn’t look cheap.

One less sprocket

There are some downsides, though. For example, while its SRAM groupset stablemates and Shimano 105 — its nearest competitor — now offer cassettes with 11 sprockets, Apex is only 10-speed. Also, all the other SRAM groupsets now have the option of hydraulic brakes, but Apex’s are still resolutely mechanical (although SRAM does have the after-market 10-speed-compatible S-700 Hydro hydraulic brake system).

In any case, we wouldn’t worry too much about that. Apex’s stock mechanical rim brakes are actually superb. They’re also reasonably long drop, so you might be able to squeeze a mudguard in there for winter use, too.

Although SRAM Apex appeared on quite a number of new bike models in the first few years of its release, now that Shimano’s equivalent or lower ranges can match the wide choice of gear ratios, many manufacturers are seemingly favouring Japanese components once again. As a guide, though, Apex tends to be found on bikes priced below Shimano 105, making it good value. And, as we’ve already mentioned, it also offers enough ability to be a worthy choice for a wide range of different intended bike uses.

The Shimano Sora is possibly the most easily overlooked groupset in the company's range. While budget bike hunters are impressed by the effective gear swapping of low-end options such as Shimano's Claris and Tourney, and more demanding riders look towards — on a sliding scale — Dura-Ace, Ultegra, 105 and now 10-speed Tiagra, Sora tends to exist on those bikes which are not eye-catching bargains, nor particularly aspirational.

Buy now: Shimano Sora groupset from Chain Reaction Cycles for £259.99

That’s actually a shame, because as far as reliability goes, you’d be hard pushed to find a more resilient road bike groupset than Sora, yet it comes with all the aesthetic niceties you’d associate with Shimano.

The current Sora range — technically designated as Shimano’s 3500 series — was introduced in late 2012 and appeared on 2013 model year bikes, so going by Shimano’s constant upgrading cycle it’s probably due an upgrade again reasonably soon. The previous iteration used a thumb lever to drop the chain down, but as with all its more expensive siblings, the modern Sora features Shimano’s much-lauded double paddle Dual Control technology.

Shimano Sora vs other Shimano groupsets

Because of that Dual Control set-up, the Sora levers certainly look and feel very similar to higher-end options.

The operating system used to change gears — a click of a small paddle inside the brake lever to move the chain down, the paddle and brake lever pivoting together to push the chain up — is essentially no different to what you would find on mechanical versions of more expensive Shimano groupsets.

One small difference is that Sora levers — along with those found in the Claris and Tiagra series — feature small lever-top windows letting you know what gear you’re in. Higher-end levers don’t provide this.

Sora only comes with a choice of nine available speeds at the back — you can only use it conjunction with cassettes featuring nine sprockets — compared with the 11 found on Dura-Ace, Ultegra or 105, or the 10 speeds found on Tiagra. However, nine speeds are still more than you’d find on Tourney or Claris.

For easy spinning up hills, the Sora rear derailleur will cope with a biggest sprocket of 32 teeth, down to 11 teeth on the smallest sprocket for high-speed fun. Further forward, Sora offers the option of fitting either a compact chainset — with chainrings featuring 50 and 34 teeth — or triple chainset — with 50, 39 and 30 teeth. There’s also a cyclo-cross specific 46/34 Sora chainset.

The Sora brakes are fairly unremarkable aluminium dual-pivot calipers. And the whole groupset has been given a relatively underwhelming black finish. That appearance might fit Sora’s functional character, but it’s a little dowdy and far less sexy than the gunmetal grey found on Claris.

Finally, as with Claris, Sora suffers from a lack of intra-Shimano compatibility. While the 11-speed groupsets have some interchangeable parts, Sora is the only nine-speed groupset in Shimano’s range, so upgrading the drivetrain isn’t particularly simple.

Shimano Sora performance

Sora has always had a slightly agricultural feel about it — gear changes tend to need positive force and aren’t quite as smooth as the more refined road cycling options in Shimano’s stable — however, that’s also its most endearing quality.

Sora is most often fitted to aluminium bikes around £700 to £800 and at this price point people tend to want something that works securely, all-year-round, and are happy to forego a little refinement in exchange for reassuring function. To that end, Sora delivers.

In fact, calling it ‘agricultural’ is a little harsh — ‘utilitarian’ would be fairer. It simply works. Rear gear changes might not swoosh quite so imperceptibly as Ultegra, but we’ve rarely — if ever — found ourselves cursing a misbehaving Sora rear derailleur. Similarly, all Shimano’s front derailleurs work very assuredly, and the Sora version is no exception. It’s also a very receptive system for home mechanics to work on.

Sora’s not all perfect, though. Those unexceptional-looking brakes are unexceptional in performance too. A swap to improved aftermarket brake blocks certainly helps, but fresh out the box we’d prefer the supposedly lesser Claris brakes.

Buy now: Shimano Sora groupset from Chain Reaction Cycles for £259.99

Bikes with Shimano Sora

The B’Twin Triban 500 is the least expensive new bike we’ve seen fitted with a full Shimano Sora groupset and retails at an astonishing £429.99. However, mainstream bike manufacturers tend to fit it to aluminium models priced from about £700 upwards, and there are even some great value carbon bikes fitted with it, from about £1,000.

The technology of the current Dura-Ace track chainset and BB is over 10 years old now, so British company USE has taken matters into its own hands.

USE’s cunning plan is that you put a modern Shimano-pattern five-arm 130 PCD road chainset (obviously the latest four-arm spiders won’t work) on your track or fixed bike and fit this single chainring for 1/8in chains, which has set-back teeth for a track chainline.

Now, in theory, you can benefit from a lighter and stiffer chainset. However, the USE chainring, which is machined from a solid piece of 7075 aluminium, at 261g (52t size) is well over twice as heavy as an ordinary replacement Shimano or TA ring, making it weightier than before.

This chainring is undoubtedly stiff enough for pro track sprinters, but those of us with normal-sized quads will worry that our track or fixed TT bike now weighs even more than they did before, and probably don’t look right either.

Let's cut to the chase. The Campagnolo Athena Electronic Power Shift (EPS) system works really well. The buttons and levers embedded in the brake hoods are ergonomically well positioned. The shape and feel of the ‘down' button, usually activated by your thumb, is sloping and snug.



The feel from the lever lacks the reassuring clunk that the Campag Ergopower is rightly celebrated for, but you still feel a ‘click' even though there are no cables being activated in EPS.

The shifting is quick and precise: under load, out of the saddle, on the down-stroke of the pedal, up steep hills and even wearing winter gloves the number of fluffed changes was insignificant (ie the same as with any other similar system).

None of this should be a shock, since the electronics and ‘brain' of the system is essentially the same as that used by the more expensive Super Record and Record EPS systems introduced in November 2011. The technology is the same, only the materials used in parts manufacture has been downgraded, mostly from carbon to aluminium.

It's also worth noting that the wiring looms of the systems are different, so there's no mix 'n' match option for the cost-conscious consumer.

Staying trimmed

When the system is correctly set up, when the battery is charged and after bedding in has taken place, then the shifting is slick and efficient.

The best thing about the Athena EPS system - and the one thing that a mechanical system can't do - is self-trim on the front mech. Rather than having to fiddle around with the three-way setting on a mechanical system front mech trim, the EPS takes care of it all, adjusting the position to avoid chain rub in every gear combination.

Anyone familiar with the existing Campagnolo Ergo levers will adapt very quickly to EPS. It takes very little getting used to. Which is a good thing, right? Of course it is! Except the same is true in reverse.

You quickly get used to a well set-up non-EPS system. You can switch more or less thoughtlessly from electronic shifting to a good ol' fashioned mechanically activated drivetrain. And when this thought strikes you, you start to ask yourself what the point actually is. If EPS feels like mechanical shifting but with slightly less effort and a lot more technology and cost, well, what's the point?

Ironically for a system that is said to need little adjustment after initial set-up, there does appear to be a ‘bedding in' period. Considering that there's no cable to stretch with EPS, after a few rides, the rear mech slipped out of perfect alignment and chattered a little.

The front mech decided to throw the chain over the top on the upshift and unship the chain between chainrings on the downshift. Whether it was simply springs, bushings and lubricants ‘stretching' or some other voodoo is impossible to know, but the system was easy to re-calibrate using a system of lights and buttons that could, if you were smart enough, be done on the fly - but a lot less of a faff doing it off the bike. Essentially, you can align the set-up in 0.25mm increments using buttons housed in the lever hoods to get everything spot-on.

As for fears of battery failure leaving you in 53x12 on an Alpine sportive; that can't happen - the system shuts down and automatically drops onto the inner ring. Disregard the ‘battery low' flashing warning lights and audible warning bleep at your peril. But, apart from the default shift onto the inner ring, you can also pop the spring on the rear mech and select the sprocket you want to ride home on.

From flat to full, a battery will recharge in four hours, but you'll need to be able to move your bike close to a socket because removing the battery unit isn't straightforward.

Keep it covered

Once the battery has been topped up, remember to replace the protective power port grommet - it shelters both the battery and motherboard, so leaving it open to the elements isn't the wisest move.

Campagnolo does claim the battery is waterproof to a depth of one metre - an important consideration in the British climate - but we suspect the water protective plug is there for a reason, so suggest it's not worth gambling with leaving it off and then riding in the rain.

With recent mechanical shifting improvements, the electronic shifting v old-fashioned cables debate is somewhat back on the table for the first time since digitalisation. However, as with all electronic shifting, if you are not mechanically minded or have a workshop to fettle from, then the tool-free set-up of Athena EPS is a definite advantage.

Plus there's an intangible psychological benefit to having the latest and greatest technology bolted onto your bike.

Sturmey caused a, um, stir when it last year launched its three-speed fixed hub after years of anticipation, during which time the fixed scene has gone supernova. Will it appeal to the multitudes of fans of the cog, or is three speeds two too many?

The S3X fits easily with a few zip-ties to secure a run of cable up to a bar-end-mounted shifter. Or if your fixed bike is a road conversion, the cable stops will already be there. So far there's only the bar-end shifter, but apparently down tube and flat-bar shifters are in the pipeline.

Ratios are: first to second gear a step of 20 per cent, and second to third a 33 per cent increase. Third gear is direct drive. Yes, they're big jumps.

The first thing you can't help noticing about the S3X is its price - £249.95 for hub and fittings. The standard Sturmey-Archer AW, a three-speed freewheel hub, costs about £55.

The second thing you can't help noticing is the S3X's weight. Even though the hub shell is aluminium, it weighs 1,026g.

If you enjoyed riding a minimal, lightweight fixed bike, it's goodbye to all that.

The third thing you notice is that there's play in the hub that feels like a very slack chain. To change gear, you have to shift in the middle of that play, while you're not actually putting any force through the pedals. But as you can't stop pedalling because you're on fixed, it's a bit of a trick. And now, because of this play, it doesn't really feel like riding fixed any more.

As top gear is direct drive, that's the one you ideally need to be in to avoid slight, but still noticeable, hub drag. Which means for a 72in top gear, second gear is 54in and first, a twiddling, silly 45in - but it has become a pointless exercise because now you're getting dropped on the downhills again, even if you can go up very steep hills.

Unless... unless Sturmey could make second gear direct drive, as with its AW. Then you could have 72in as your direct-drive regular gear, top would be 95.7in, for downhills when hub drag is not so important, and bottom 60in.

When Campag announced in May that it was to add a lower-priced groupset to its range, there was considerable excitement. It was less than a year since it had unveiled the Super Record, Record and Chorus groupsets.

Perhaps it was the timing of the launch of super-expensive Super-Record - at the start of the recession - that led the Italian firm to launch ‘the 11-speed for everyone'.

One of the most striking and attractive things about the Athena is that it uses more polished aluminium and a lot less carbon than its more expensive cousins, although it shares the same engineering. With the retro revival, this makes it perfect for an old school-looking build.

Athena looked great on the De Rosa Neo Primato, especially the very pretty chainset with its wide, flat cranks. We have the polished alloy version, but it is also available in carbon with gun-metal rings (113g lighter), and there's a choice of 53/39 or compact. The Ultra-Shift chainrings have two dedicated sectors for upshifting and two for downshifting, and it works quietly and efficiently.

The cassette is steel with nickel-chrome treated surfaces, giving it a matt titanium-like look. Ultra-Shift tooth profile and sprocket synchronisation ensure the chain leaves one sprocket and engages the next at the same point each time. The rear mech, which is all polished alloy, has rubber jockey wheels to absorb vibration.

We found shifting to be fast and accurate, but the feel is not particularly plush. Changing down feels a bit plasticky and needs a very definite jab to the lever. The thumb button, spring-loaded in the other direction, provides a fast, mousetrap-like shift to a smaller sprocket. Once you stop expecting a Dura-Ace smoothness, Athena's spartan feel is acceptable.

The hand position on the new Ergopower levers makes up for the unluxurious shifting. The Vari-Cushion hoods use a softer rubber compound for the palm of the hand and the new ‘hook' is a comfortable shape to grip.

The brakes are a highlight - performance is excellent.

The pivot point for the levers has been repositioned and just a very light pressure means a powerful grip on the rims from the Skeleton calipers. The only problem with the levers is an aesthetic one - there is no polished aluminium option; they are carbon wrapped and they don't look right next to the other polished components.

Wighing only 130g and constructed from aluminium, scandium and titanium sprockets, we couldn't help thinking that KCNC's cassette wouldn't last.

Indeed, it appeared to show signs or wear after just two short circuit races. Inevitably, the gold anodising on the aluminium and scandium alloy sprockets gets eroded by the chain, giving the impression of rapid wear, but after an initial ‘settling in' period it didn't get worse.

Most importantly, the tooth profile was not showing signs of deteriorating. Now it has clocked up around 2,000 miles and the quality of the shifting, all along, has been faultless, used with a variety of SRAM, Shimano and KMC chains. There's some visible wear now, but it's certainly no worse than you'd expect for this amount of use.

It's cheaper now than SRAM, Shimano and Campagnolo's top-end cassettes, and it trumps them all for weight too, saving between 30g and 90g.

Gore RideOn inner cables are Gore-Tex coated, within a sealed liner from end to end.

The Gore-Tex protects the cable from corrosion and significantly reduces drag, improving function. They’re expensive, but experience suggests they’ll outlast standard cables by miles. Fitting is a breeze but 6mm gear outer casing looks dated.

Gore RideOn cables were spotted on the Cannondale CX9 of multiple Three Peaks winner Rob Jebb during the cross season, and cyclo-cross is where these cables really come into their own.

SRAM Rival is a mid-priced groupset, and at around £650, sits on a similar platform to Shimano’s Ultegra groupset in terms of current website price searches. In SRAM’s line-up it is the budget version, as both Force and Red are more expensive. I’ll say from the outset that to my mind, Rival's performance is close to Dura-Ace, which means it punches considerably above its impressively low weight.

SRAM Rival was originally launched in 2006, so you’d expect the ’09 upgrade to feature a few cosmetic, material changes trickling down from SRAM’s Red and Force groups, as well a few ergonomic modifications which make gear changing (even) easier.

>>> SRAM groupset hierarchy explained 

In the looks department the ‘double tap’ technology brake levers have been upgraded to carbon and look for all the world identical to the more expensive Force versions. Essentially the gubbins are also the same on the inside as Force, that this year has seen the trim shifted from the inner ring onto the big ring, another improvement. Where this year’s model wins out is with the slightly longer levers and larger format gear-shift paddles, which on the road makes braking and shifting a doddle from a variety of hand positions, particularly in the drops and a vast improvement on the originals. The short 15deg sweep also gives a shift that is superior to Shimano, feeling vastly reduced especially when changing up the block.

To my mind the hood shape has always been superior in design to Shimano and Campagnolo alternatives when it comes to comfort and that’s still the case here, replicating the top-of-the-range Red ergonomics. Reach is adjustable but this can be fiddly; the shift lever uses a separate adjuster that is the worst, needing to push in a small clip, which requires a sharp implement or small flat-bladed screwdriver. The brake lever is the polar opposite, just pull back the hoods and use a hex key to pull back the lever.

Rear shifting was always excellent on the Rival groupset, especially using the 1070 OpenGlide cassette with its sculpted sprockets that appear to have lost some teeth, allowing the chain to move up easier under pressure. A PowerLock link on the PC-1070 chain makes for fast and easy fitting and has been faultless so far.

This year the left-hand (front) shifting has improved markedly to match the rear, with the longer levers offering better ‘throw’ for smooth, quick shifting between inside and outside chainrings. The front derailleur is also designed for either compact or standard front ratios, keeping things simple.

The Skeletonised brakes, that again replicate the higher-ranked Force, offer powerful and well modulated braking as before, and there is improved access when replacing pads. Otherwise, everything remains the same apart from the finish that is an improved black on the cold-forged arms.

There’s nothing much to report in the chain and cassette areas, but on the crankset the once-optional ‘Open Core technology’ AL-6066 alloy crank arm upgrade is now standard and provides a little weight saving and improved rigidity for better power transfer. A stiffer ring design in the shape of SRAM’s PowerGlide rings has aided the shifting performance up front. This crankset also makes good use of the GXP bottom bracket designed to work specifically with SRAM’s cranks and help drivetrain’s rigidity.