Goodbye Sram AXS, I'm going back to cables.

#mtb #mountainbike

It's not AXS, It's me (kind of). This is my experience with Electronic Shifting and why I'm switching back to mechanical.

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[the_boonies]

As a RF/wireless systems engineer I'm still madly in love with cable shifters. 32yrs of being able to repair my bike in the wild. No batteries or apps needed 🙌🍻🥳

[Simon.]

My all time favorite shifting system is Shimano XT it's durable, affordable, reliable and super fast and super precise, while on my current bike i have all GX including cranks with an AXS derailleur and i must say i love it except for chain slaps at any single jump, but my all time favorite it's the Shimano XT.

[Schalla-MTB]

Went to axs a year ago and love it. No cable stretch or any of the associated issues. Changing gears is also lightning fast for me. Not everyone would agree but it works for me. I suppose we all have our preferences.

[flgfish]

I like the tactile feeling of shifting too. There’s a beauty and functionality in mechanical things that gets hidden by electronics.

[brighamyates]

Such quality videos. You can tell the time you are putting into these.

[dougrodriguez]

I have a mountain bike with AXS and one with cable xx1. I love the cable drivetrain but AXS has a slight shifting performance edge from my perspective. I’m a bike shop owner and bicycle mechanic, for a very long time. Bike Junkie. I also struggled with ergonomics and finding the correct gear for some time with AXS. I’ve slowly gotten better at it but I still sometimes make mistakes shifting AXS. I get back on my cable gear bike and it is a more relaxing experience, no mistakes, no need to think about it so much. The other issue I’ve had is that I didn’t look at my battery charge one day before going for a a ride and that was the day my battery ran out of charge in the middle of a 14 mile loop. Last Sunday I made the mistake of not checking my battery charge ahead of time only to realize my battery was low on charge at the trail head just as I was ready to head in to the woods. Lucky I was by myself, sat in the car 45 min with the battery on the charger. It’s only a matter of time before the controller battery dies and I’m in the middle of a ride or getting ready to go. Yet, I will not remove the AXS from my one bike nor will I convert my other mountain bike to AXS. My world is perfectly imperfectly balanced.

[bucky]

I'm with you on the battery thing. I don't ride MTB often and I want to be able to grab my bike, check tire pressure and go without having to worry about charge level. Also, we always tell our customers to remove the batteries when driving long distances because the components will be awake the whole time and it will drop the charge levels.

[jdmtb]

I love my AXS. After struggling to get my derailleur to work properly, it was a joy to just screw in the new derailleur and it worked! No adjustments needed. Not something I think is needed for everyone but I really enjoy it!

I'm also running it with Shimano drivetrain with no issues so far.

[theohiggins]

Interesting take on the battery discharge issue. I have a road bike with axs and one thing that was outlined in the manual is to not store the bike with the batteries installed, to prevent battery drain. My bike is stored on a wall when not in use but anytime I am transporting my bike I install the covers included with the groupset for two reasons. 1 to avoid discharge 2. To decrease the risk of loosing a battery en route.

[topspot]

I just like the purity of a mechanical setup. The thing I like most about MTB is it's an escape, and AXS to me represents what I'm trying to take a break from. I don't want to have to charge my bike or use my phone, even though it's quick and easy.

[bradbsmusicchannel]

You can get the AXS shifter in a more inboard position by using a left side Matchmaker mount. Or just use a bar clamp instead of Matchmaker.

[joebikes]

Great video! I personally love manually actuated machines. No batteries. No motors. It's one of the main things that attracted me to biking. There's just something about a machine that outputs whatever you input. Just me and my donut fueled machine on the trails! 😂

[bigbird]

Here's a little trick I figured out for fishing lines through bikes without tube in frame routing. Take a spare piece of hydro hose and attach one of those little silver bullet things that come with new SRAM brakes on one end and the little red threading attachment pieces on the other. Then, since I worked in a warehouse, I carefully threaded one of those little plastic peel off strips that cover adhesives through the little hole on the bullet end. Push that through the frame until you can see it at the opening on the other end and fish it out using a small hook made on the end of a spoke. Once you have that end out, you can use the red threaded attachment to pull your housing easily through.

[GokkunGuru]

You can remove the battery when you're transporting your bike to avoid draining the battery. The battery lasts hella long in between charges.

[JoshuaTootell]

I put it on my XC bike to replace the XTR after hearing stories of the XTR shifter failing mid ride without warning, and I had a few big races planned with big travel where I would be pissed that I burned $1000 gallons of fuel to drive cross country to race only to have the race ruined by a defective shifter (I can accept trailside, but defects just annoy me). XX1 was perfect for that bike as a race bike. It shifts the same at the end of a 100 mile endurance race as it did at the beginning, something that isn't true as the cables slowly gunk up during a race.

I couldn't resist the urge to buy GX AXS when SRAM dropped the price in November, and it sat in the closet for a month after that. Then my nearly new shifter broke (last shifter lasted 4 years) so I figured it was time to toss it on. In the past couple of weeks I have been happy with how it works, that's on my coil sprung 170mm bike, that I beat hard. Time will tell if it can handle the abuse though, I'll see how that goes over the next year. I really wanted to keep this bike analog and am willing to return if I'm not happy, but so far it's great. Did a 50 mile/7000' ride the other day and it just worked like it's supposed to.

I can never tell what gear I am in on mechanical just by shifter feel, so I'm not sure about that part. I can't tell you how many times I've tried looking for another gear to downshift into with mechanical, but on AXS I can tell when I am in my 10 or 50 gear as the Garmin beeps at me. At that point I know I need to HTFU and climb, or I'm in full sprint mode and I know I'm out of gears (also handy knowing I have the speed I need for bigger gap jumps).

Cable routing isn't easiest on that bike, but the outer cable lasts so long that that is a non issue for me. I can suffer through replacing a shifter hose when needed. Housing on my XC bike makes the job SUPER easy, so that's not motivation for electronic either. Losing a cable looks better, but, meh. I don't care about looks when I'm riding.

Battery management has been an issue twice total, and neither time ruined a ride. Once when the system was new and I drove from SoCal to Oregon to race, and arrived with a dead battery. An overnight charge solved that. I also recognized that the derailleur "wakes up" with the SLIGHTEST movement, so just the truck idling is probably enough to keep it awake, let alone driving. I leave the battery in most of the time, I'm just aware that I should charge it before a big ride. The second dead battery was the other day after I had done several rides AND transported it. I had a green light at the beginning of the ride...but I rode for 7 hours that day and it didn't make it. But as I knew I could return to my van pretty easily on the ride I didn't panic at the low battery warning on my Garmin. It died 10 minutes from my van. I charged it up for about 15 minutes while I had a snack and drink, then went out for another lap with a green light on the derailleur. Low battery warning gave me about 40 minutes of riding before failure.

Shift lever, that's a personal thing I guess. The XX1 and GX shifters have different paddles (I learned after buying it) and I am easily adaptable.

While I thought the double up shift on XTR was semi gimmicky, I still used it a lot. AXS has a better gimmick with being able to program a double or triple shift in both directions. Still a gimmick, but I certainly use that.

The one huge selling point for me, which may seem silly, is fatigue. On big rides or cold rides, my thumbs get fatigued from shifting. On a recent ride in Utah in below freezing temperatures it hurt to shift, AXS doesn't suffer with that problem.

GX AXS is nearly the same weight as XO1. I don't remember what the XX1 weighed, but I think it was like a 5 gram penalty over XTR (but it was heavier).

I've never broken a derailleur. Not sure how some people go through so many, but that's a non issue for me. The X01 mechanical is totally gouged up, and the GX it replaced was the same way, but both shifted fine. The XX1 and GX AXS derailleurs are already marked up too, but I actually heard a hard impact on my Oregon race and heard the clutch disengage/re-engage so I know that works.

I've only ever snapped one cable on a MTB ride (road is a different story, damn Dura Ace). I replace cables annually and haven't broken a cable since (Dura Ace is every couple thousand, or every couple months!).

It is handy that I can swap the parts between my two bikes in an emergency. I travel with both as I don't enjoy riding my XC bike (but I enjoy racing) but I can't race my 35 pound enduro.

If the GX derailleur can't handle my abuse, I'll put XO1 back on. Time will tell on that. If the XX1 fails, I'll put the XTR back on and replace the shifter that has a bad rep.

At some point I'll probably install an AXS dropper on my trail bike, but not today. I need to check to be sure there isn't a clearance issue at full travel, I bottom out a lot.

[andrewmazzer]

Love my AXS !
No issues whatsoever and a huge bonus if you're packing your bike for a trip, it's SO easy to take off the RD and re-install without any cable hassles.

[louiefriesen]

I just like having fun and not worrying about anything. I really like XT, as well as SLX and Deore. They are cheap, shift super well, reliable, and nothing to worry about.

I think AXS is great and I'd love to use it on a rental or something, but it's not something I'd want to live with. I know a guy who has it in fact but we only rode together once on a group ride.

[steve]

I love my AXS system but I do agree with your assessment on not really knowing what gear you’re in:)! The number one advantage to this system, is us people who are not as mechanically inclined can always have great shifting without bringing it to the shop!!

[mrwhiteshorts]

Well done with getting the message out! Im on 1x SLX 12v, with a cable running uninterupted from the pod to the mech. i put chain lube in there which reduces friction further around the tightest corners. IMO i dont see how/why elect shifting is really really needed.

[escamunicha]

I can't imagine having more batteries to charge prior to riding. I already charge 3 devices (HR monitor, Bike comp, Tail lights). Even if they say it needs charging every 3 months. I don't want to constantly keep thinking if I have enough battery for every ride.