sram apex vs rival

granda

i was just wondering what peoples thoughts are one the differences between these 2 groupsets. i will be building up a new bike early next year and at first was going for rival but it might now be a bit above my budget and having heard good things about apex i was considering going with it and then changing it over to my older bike at a later date when i can afford rival.but if rival is a good bit better than apex then i'll try to stick with it.

Seweryn

granda wrote: »

i was just wondering what peoples thoughts are one the differences between these 2 groupsets. i will be building up a new bike early next year and at first was going for rival but it might now be a bit above my budget and having heard good things about apex i was considering going with it and then changing it over to my older bike at a later date when i can afford rival.but if rival is a good bit better than apex then i'll try to stick with it.

I can't comment on the Apex components, but I have Rival on my bike and I find it excellent. I used Shimano 105 for nearly 2 weeks and for me Rival wins. But that is also down to personal preferences more than anything else.

Idleater

I had rival installed on my btw bike as it was only an extra €60 / 10% on apex. I had the intention of speccing apex due to it possibly being harder wearing as it is a touring up groupset as opposed to the bottom of range race groupset.
However with that price difference I went for rival.
Differences include apex being all aluminum, rival has carbon levers, rival brakes are "better ", as are th mechs. Apex does offer a long rear derraileur and mtb cassette compatibility. Rival is obviously lighter.

mfdc

I built up my commuter with Apex and I absolutely love it, prefer it to the Ultegra on my road bike. I don't know the difference offhand between Apex and Rival but I'd guess that it's mostly weight and finish, aka not much of a difference at all to the average rider. Not too much of a difference to the pros either.

fran oconnor

I have Apex on my Canyon Roadlite and i find it great, it works very well as a groupset. The only thing i'd say is, i'd rather not have the long cage version, the 32 ring on it is mad. I'd raher the small cage version with a 25 ring. Other that that though its good..

granda

thanks for all the replies they are starting to help so just one more ,does anyone know if you can mix and match sram components e.g. rival shifters with apex rd and 11-32 cassette or can you also run the same cassette with a rival rd and is there any difference in the shifters beside the materials(carbon fibre-rival,alloy-apex)

Idleater

granda wrote: »

thanks for all the replies they are starting to help so just one more ,does anyone know if you can mix and match sram components e.g. rival shifters with apex rd and 11-32 cassette or can you also run the same cassette with a rival rd and is there any difference in the shifters beside the materials(carbon fibre-rival,alloy-apex)

You can mix and match all sram components and the brakes and cassette is shimano compatible. I'm not sure how different the apex internals are to rival, afair apex is a new group and rival force red is the racing hierarchy.

Caveats : to use a mtb cassette you need a long rear deraileur. Only Apex has this as the contador reference above showed which were shifted using standard red shifters. That reference to even pros use apex should not be taken out of context of a very specific hill time trial and one particular sram sponsored rider's climbing style.

granda

thanks ,so i'm going to stay with the rival but maybe i'll invest in 11-32 cassette and and apex rd if i decide to go mad on hills at any stage (wicklow 200)

Idleater

granda wrote: »

thanks ,so i'm going to stay with the rival but maybe i'll invest in 11-32 cassette and and apex rd if i decide to go mad on hills at any stage (wicklow 200)

Try a compact crank with a 12-27, you may not need the 32 bailout.