Anyone using SRAM apex?

[PaulSecteur]

Hi,

Just been looking at the differences between the 2010 and 2011 Spesh Secteur elites. The 2010 is a tripple using Shimano 105 and the 2011 uses SRAM apex with a double, but an 11-32 on the back to give it a larger spread of gears.

At the moment I have a mountain bike with a large spread of gears, and I have been looking to replace the cassette with a road size one, main because the large changes in the ratios at the lower end (the bigger cogs) is a pain on the road as you can go from slightly grinding the gears to spinning too fast.

Does this hold true for Apex too?

 

[tigger]

I haven't used the Apex but I have Sram Red compact double (50-34) with an 11-28 PG 1070 cassette. This gives me pretty much exactly the same range of gears as my old triple bike, which was 53-39-30 with a 12-26 cassette.

The cassette I have is 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 22, 25, 28. Generally this is pretty progressive across the range, obviously jumps a little at the lower end but there's never a time when I seem to either grind or spin too much and it makes sense to have bigger jumps for hills. I'm a big fan of this set up.

The range you're talking about for the Apex 11-32 (PG 1050) is below:

11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 19, 22, 25, 28, 32

This is almost as progressive, just the extra jump from 13 to 15. So if you think you can live with this when your tapping out on the flats or slight decents then I think you'll be fine.

If you're talking about using this on a triple - then I'd say the 11-28 is plenty

Double-tap is fantastic BTW - I'm never going to touch Shimano or Campy again

 

[Garz]

Wow 32!

I think a 28 (short) would be ample unless your carrying extra gear. As Tigger says though the 'jumps' between gears aren't as important as people make out.