Groupset

If you’ve been watching professional racing over the last few years, you’ve probably noticed more riders lining up to flat stages with a single chainring up front. Jonas Vingegaard has made it almost a signature — swapping to a 1x setup on stages where the terrain doesn’t demand the range of a full 2x drivetrain. The question worth asking is what those setups actually look like, why pros can get away with them, and whether any of that translates to the rest of us. ...

I’ve been on Shimano since the Ultegra R8100 launched in 2022. Before that, I tried the previous generation of SRAM AXS, and it wasn’t for me. The shifting felt less refined than what I was used to, brake feel was lacking, the hood shape never sat right in my hands, and the front derailleur was finicky — get the setup slightly off and you’d get rubbing, or worse, a dropped chain under load. I went back to Shimano and didn’t look back. ...

SRAM just quietly dropped something big. As of today, the entire old Eagle mechanical and AXS lineup — SX, NX, GX, X01, XX1, and all four AXS variants — is officially dead. In their place: three new groupsets called the Eagle S-Series. S100, S200, and S500. That’s it. This is a massive SKU consolidation, and honestly, it’s probably the right call. What Is the Eagle S-Series? The S-Series is SRAM’s new simplified MTB drivetrain lineup for bikes running a traditional threaded derailleur hanger — not UDH. If you want UDH compatibility, you’re still shopping in the Transmission range. The S-Series is explicitly for legacy hangers, older frames, and OEM builds where UDH isn’t in play. ...