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Written by Joel Dexter
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Wednesday, 19 December 2007 |
Finally another choice when it comes to picking the ultimate build for your road bike. In a market formerly dominated by only two others,  | | SRAM Red Crankset |
SRAM steps up to the plate with its newest high-end offering, SRAM Red. The kit uses some amazing innovations, the PowerDome cassette for example, and some now tried-and-true functionality with the 10 speed Red DoubleTap shifters. You know as you pull the parts out of the boxes that SRAM means business with this stuff. Each part comes with a soft bag to put it in. I'm not quite sure why, but it is a little reasuring to have a blanket over your Red parts to keep them comfortable until they are removed to crush the competition. Then when you're done, you can buff and polish them like your grandma's old silverware.
 | | SRAM Red Cassette |
As mentioned before, the SRAM Red PowerDome Cassette is a pretty cool innovation. Eight of the ten cogs are built on a machined CroMoly block, which creates the dome, and has a styley red anodized laser etched aluminum cap on the inside. Also on the style side of things, the SRAM Red Crankset shows the tight carbon weave on the outside and is painted silver on the inside with SRAM written along the arm. A little bold perhaps, but it does look pretty cool when you see it in real life. The bottom bracket used for the kit  | | SRAM Red Rear Derailleur |
is the same super smooth ceramic Black Box Bottom Bracket they came out with earlier this year. The Red Rear Derailleur has an impressive list of ingredients; polished aluminum, a magnesium inner link, a titanium pivot, carbon cage, and ceramic bearings make up this lightweight workhorse. The Red Front Derailleur has a hardened titanium cage.
 | | SRAM Red Shifters |
Each part feels lighter in your hand than you think it would, especially the Red DoubleTap Shifters, which are more than 1/4 of a pound (actually about 140 grams) lighter than Shimano Dura-Ace shifters. The Red Brake Calipers are a revision of the already nice Force brakes, they did some extra machining to shave some weight off and they use better bearings to make them feel even better. There was no major revolution when it came to the chain to be used with the group. They already have the PC-1090 and PC-1090R, chains that I already recommend to Shimano and SRAM drivetrain users anyway.
There is no question this group is going to make an impact on the cycling world. It is going to be the group mounted to Trek Madones and ridden by Johan Bruyneel's Team Astana this coming season. It's great to see SRAM not only offering a high-end groupset, but one that is as good if not better than the rest. Curently quantities are limited, give us a call for latest availability.
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