Code RED

Can You Handle The Truth?

When it comes to our bicycles and related equipment, most cyclists fall into one of three catergories, the scientist, the pragmatist, or a combination of both. The scientist, or engineer, possesses an intimate, some would say obsessive, knowledge of their equipment, whereas the pragmatist knows what works, or doesn't particularly work, well.

Most of us fall into the latter category, likely gravitating toward one of the two extremes.

While I am a big fan of Lennard Zinn (Velonews) and James Huang (Cyclingnews), many of their articles never reach the true pragmatist in our ranks. So I thought who better to provide a review than a person who uses the equipment to the extreme most of the time.

Team TIBCO's, Amber Rais once again graces our site with her presence to provide a practical review of SRAM's newest gruppo, Red.

SRAM Red
I had flown to California from Austria the day before my introduction to SRAM Red. Team TIBCO met early morning that day in Palo Alto, where a fleet of very sexy LOOK 585 frames awaited us with custom painted blue flames and full SRAM Red gruppos: hot. I couldn’t wait to get going on this new racing steed. As we rolled out of the parking lot, however, I panicked: “Aaack! Brooke, how do I shift using SRAM?”


My teammate Brooke Miller responded with what I considered unnerving nonchalance in light of the route ahead and my utter lack of experience with SRAM shifting.

“One click to upshift; two to downshift. It’s easy,” she said.

I wasn’t so sure, until a few blocks later, by which time I already had the hang of it. I’ve never had to think about it since.

SRAM refers to this phenomenon as intuitive feel. I call it amazing. Jetlagged and on a new bike, it took me only a few shifts to get comfortable with the Double Tap controls. Two days later, I raced my first crit of the season on SRAM Red with no trouble at all.

Comfort and Performance
The SRAM Red shifters (as well as their Force and Rival counterparts) have generated ubiquitous buzz with regard to their comfortable feel on the bike. By far my favorite quote comes from my friend Ueyn of Stanford Cycling, who e-mailed me after trying the SRAM gruppo for the first time:

“Those SRAM shifters felt like a melty stick of butter in my hands, too: perfectly shaped and delicious! And to top it off, I love the hidden shifter cables.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. SRAM intentionally designed the DoubleTap mechanism to ergonomically fit the shape of the human hand, and the result is, well, like butter.


In addition to how Red shifters seem molded to fit your own hand, they offer further customization by way of adjustable levers. Both the brake and shifter levers allow for reach adjustment, so those with smaller hands (like many of us women) can bring both levers closer to the handlebar drop, increasing the accessibility of the brake and shifter as well as creating a far more comfortable position for your hands and wrists while in the drops.


I love this new adjustable feature! I used to stick two furniture pads into my old DA shifters to bring the levers closer to the handlebar (they do make plastic inserts for this purpose, but the furniture pads are only 10 cents each). I can now get the fit I need by adjusting the shifters themselves without sacrificing style, which -- as we all know -- is priority number one.

SRAM Red also minimizes the distance required to move the shift lever for a desired gear change and shifts so quickly and cleanly that you’ll never have to think about it (they call this zero loss travel). With Red, one shifts instinctively without the distraction of delayed shifting or awkward hand maneuvering. In my observation, the ability to shift instinctively without hindrance is part of why Red has such good intuitive feel.


Perhaps the most physically obvious feature of riding the Red gruppo, aside from the buttery comfort of the shifters in your hands, is the ceramic GXP BB bearings. I’ve been told this bearing increases pedalstroke efficiency by more than 70% over conventional BB bearings, and while I’m no number cruncher when it comes to riding my bike, I feel this difference in a big way. Red’s ceramic bearing and stiff carbon cranks and spider produce surprising smoothness, and after training on a conventional crankset, pedaling Red feels similar to hitting a stretch of ultra-smooth pavement after grinding over miles of chip-seal. The difference is enough to make you feel as though you’ve discovered your very own superhero alter ego (the tights and spandex help, too).

Weight
I could not tell you the weight of my race bike with Red, but I can tell you how it feels, which is to say light. SRAM engineers designed Red to be lighter and more responsive than any other gruppo on the market, and their innovations seem poised to shape the future of road components.


Making something lighter often requires compromising strength or durability, but Red’s rear cassette gets around this problem with a machined, hollow piece of steel, creating a lighter, more precise and durable component. The weight savings on the rear cassette as well as a few other tweaks (e.g., the stiff carbon spider on the crankset) bumps the total weight of the Red gruppo below that of any other complete gruppo on the market. Plus, the cassette shifts like a dream and is much easier to clean than conventional ones!

Overall Impressions
I am no expert on bicycle mechanics; I simply ride a lot and know what I like. I like a machine that jumps when I jump, shifts when I shift and becomes an extension of me in moving forward as fast as possible. My best athletic performances occur when I’m not thinking, or rather, when thought and action unite. I am not thinking about my hand position or shifting; I’m racing. Mind, body and machine align with unified instinct for one goal. Red's clean and unobtrusive performance facilitates this fusion, providing the best available conduit between human power and mechanical speed on the bike.

In the words of Ferris Bueller: “It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.”

Photos: Courtesy Amber Rais (Team TIBCO)