SRAM Front Deraiullers...

[benb]

Has anyone looked at all 3 SRAM front deraiuellers (Rival, Force, RED) ?

I took the cable fixing bolt out of my Rival front deraiuller tonight to clean & grease it and the threads are trashed. (First time I pulled it, the cable has been changed once)

I may try to repair the threads.. but the body of the deraiuller is corroding. (My cranks are too)

The thing seems to be built out of swiss cheese. Definitely the most chintzy construction of any deraiulller of any I've had if I compare it to 105/Ultegra/DA/XT/LX or SRAM's mountain deraiullers.

The Force front deraiuller is trivially more expensive.. but it's listed at exactly the same weight which makes me think it is no more durable.

What about the Red? It brags about a Ti cage but doesn't mention if the body of the deraiuller is made out of anything more durable.

I have a spare IRD front deraiuller too.. but couldn't find a clamp in my box of parts so I may be buying whatever the LBS has in stock.

I'm having a hard time believing people were cool with the wear and tear of Cyclocross with Rival if my on-road results are any indication.. after 6-7k miles or so the entire groupset looks very very worn. BB is still fine, cranks are heavily worn looking, rear shifter is somewhat balky and probably needs to be rebuilt, one of the brakes is sticking (I can probably fix it), front deraiuller is gone, etc..

[palincss]

A leapmo off the cliffmo, perhaps?

[El Chaba]

That was an expensive lesson.....

[Chris]

IMHO I think the SRAM groups are big on promise but short on delivery so far. It is only natural I suppose with any new product, but with the prices they are asking and the comparable groups otherwise, they have seemed to be a disappointment overall.

[Bruce K]

I'm not sorry to say I haven't seen anything like that with mine.

I have all Force front derailleurs on my 4 SRAM bikes (2 Red and 2 Force). One is a cross bike (Force) heading into it's third season (1 with the Lyne Bessette of the cyclocrossworld.com team and now the second with me).

All 3 road bikes have about 1000 miles on them so far.

BK

[benb]

Managed to cross thread it back in, couldn't get it to go in straight.. it will be good as long as the screw is never removed fully again.

None of my stuff was showing any wear at 1000 miles.

It just started looking worn after 5000+.

My shifters look particularly horrible.. I may paint the levers this winter. The logos are completely gone and the plastic is peeling as if they had coated it with clearcoat or something and my fingers wore right through the clearcoat.

I think I will take the levers off and stick them in the plastic "tool dip" material if I still have any. That ought to work quite well as it's very grippy.

The real disappointment is just the contrast with SRAM's mountain components. Again maybe Force/Red are better but Rival is nowhere near in the same ballpark as their mountain stuff.

My first bike years ago had 105 and I didn't replace a single component till about 25,000 miles. At that point I had no trouble dropping the coin for Dura Ace on my 2nd bike.

After some bad luck with Shimano MTB stuff (brakes, deraiullers) I switched my MTB to mostly SRAM and was so happy I decided to "make the leap". But Rival is not going to motivate me to buy Red when it is time for a replacement like 105 motivated me to buy DA.

Hell my MTB cranks (XT) have been through a war zone for the past 6 years and I have actually worn out the rings to the point they need to be replaced.. but the crank arms look brand new compared to my Rival cranks.

[EDS]

Has anyone looked at all 3 SRAM front deraiuellers (Rival, Force, RED) ?

I took the cable fixing bolt out of my Rival front deraiuller tonight to clean & grease it and the threads are trashed. (First time I pulled it, the cable has been changed once)

I may try to repair the threads.. but the body of the deraiuller is corroding. (My cranks are too)

The thing seems to be built out of swiss cheese. Definitely the most chintzy construction of any deraiulller of any I've had if I compare it to 105/Ultegra/DA/XT/LX or SRAM's mountain deraiullers.

The Force front deraiuller is trivially more expensive.. but it's listed at exactly the same weight which makes me think it is no more durable.

What about the Red? It brags about a Ti cage but doesn't mention if the body of the deraiuller is made out of anything more durable.

I have a spare IRD front deraiuller too.. but couldn't find a clamp in my box of parts so I may be buying whatever the LBS has in stock.

I'm having a hard time believing people were cool with the wear and tear of Cyclocross with Rival if my on-road results are any indication.. after 6-7k miles or so the entire groupset looks very very worn. BB is still fine, cranks are heavily worn looking, rear shifter is somewhat balky and probably needs to be rebuilt, one of the brakes is sticking (I can probably fix it), front deraiuller is gone, etc..

I haven't had any corrosion problems with mine after two seasons of wear and tear, including winter riding in the northeast. Maybe yours wasn't set-up properly.

[EDS]

IMHO I think the SRAM groups are big on promise but short on delivery so far. It is only natural I suppose with any new product, but with the prices they are asking and the comparable groups otherwise, they have seemed to be a disappointment overall.

Their prices are lower then Shimano. Have you ever ridden SRAM?

[benb]

I haven't had any corrosion problems with mine after two seasons of wear and tear, including winter riding in the northeast. Maybe yours wasn't set-up properly.

What kind of "setup" issue would result in the cranks being pitted and scratched to hell and the finish being completely worn off the shift/brake levers?

And are you riding Force? Could be the finish is much better.

It's not just the deraiuller.. it's everything. Every single component.

[my2cents]

.

[EDS]

What kind of "setup" issue would result in the cranks being pitted and scratched to hell and the finish being completely worn off the shift/brake levers?

And are you riding Force? Could be the finish is much better.

It's not just the deraiuller.. it's everything. Every single component.

I am riding Rival. Have been since December 2006. My finish is fine, so I was searching for an explanation as to why yours was degrading so fast.

[benb]

I'll see what I can do about photos, it might take a couple days.

Not to be totally alarmist.. everything on the bike is still working fine other then the rear shift lever not returning to the original position sometimes. It is disappointing though.

I was fairly decent about not riding it in the winter salt.. but hard to say as the salt stayed on the roads for a very long time this year, the roads weren't really clean till well into May.

Some of the damage appears to be salt damage IMO. I'm decent about cleaning it.

Again as opposed to my MTB.. which has SRAM stuff and was rode through the winter without ever getting cleaned and has no visible corrosion.

[Chris]

Their prices are lower then Shimano. Have you ever ridden SRAM?

I have. The road stuff doesn't do it for me. The shifting is not intuitive to me. The brake recall, then the exploding rear derailleurs, the reports of a lack of durability, etc. have all brought me to my above personal conclusions. I have long been a fan of their mtn bike stuff though.

Take a look here... http://cozybeehive.blogspot.com/2008/08/sram-red-chainring-failure.html

And in terms of price, isn't red supposed to compete with 7800? It is more as I recall. I haven't looked at some of the prices of the other stuff other than the brifters etc, but they all seem to be higher compared to 105 and Ultegra.

[RHD]

I just recieved a call from the LBS about my SRAM Red equipped bike that was constantly throwing the chain off the cranks. The front derailler was not misadjusted, chainrings bent or any of the other excuses that several bike shops put out to explain the problem. The cage on the deraiuller had cracked at a weld in the front. Not until you pulled on the cage could you see the problem. I don't know how Nathan found it. Hat's off to a great mechanic.
SRAM is going to replace it, but it will still be out of service for two weeks untill the parts come in. Makes me think of how much I paid for this group and if I will ever buy SRAM again.

[CMorris]

Force and Rival are mechanically the same, only difference is Force is anodized dark gray and Rival silver.