Monday I drove over to the bike shop just to chat. Conversation turned to AXS shifting. All I can figure is that he must have pulled some kind of Jedi mind trick on me, because the next thing I knew I was walking out the door with a box labeled "SRAM GX AXS."
Yesterday I slapped all the parts onto the bike, and it was straight forward like it should be. The only oddity was the shifting paddle. I mounted the shifter (controller) to my Magura MT7 lever with a SRAM Matchmaker clamp. It was bloody stupid. The paddle was way up high, so I had to contort my thumb into a crazy angle just to shift. That wasn't gonna work. So I threw the Matchmaker clamp across the garage and installed a discrete clamp for the shifter. It was much better.
After going inside for the evening, I started reading about the "paddle upgrade." I ordered one up, and it will arrive tomorrow.
Today was the virgin run with the new shifting setup. Really quickly, I figured out that the shifter needed more adjustment. I rotated it so it's really low, where my thumb normally holds the grips. I don't know why every picture/video that I can find show the shifter rotated way up high. That makes no sense to me. Anyway, now I can just move my thumb over to the shifter and rock it either up or down. It's pretty good.
Oh, and the whole eDerailleur thing... It's kind of nice. The downshifts are a bit quicker, for sure, and require less movement of my thumb. Upshifts were lightning fast with the Amish Derailleur, and so they are with the AXS system, too. I set up the system to provide "burst fire" shifts. The "burst fire" is not as quick as clicking quickly on a manual shifter, but it's fast enough for grabbing/dropping a bunch of gears.
I think I'll like the original paddle, but the new one arrives tomorrow. Maybe I'll give it a try, or maybe I'll just let it sit on the shelf. Regardless, I'm liking the new setup after one ride. Once I become more accustomed to it, I fear that the manual shifting on the other bike might not be good enough any more.
Check out the pics. The first is my hand in the normal riding position. The second is my thumb on the paddle with no change in my grip. The third was going to be of the derailleur, which you all know what it looks like, but my little attention whore wouldn't allow it.
Yesterday I slapped all the parts onto the bike, and it was straight forward like it should be. The only oddity was the shifting paddle. I mounted the shifter (controller) to my Magura MT7 lever with a SRAM Matchmaker clamp. It was bloody stupid. The paddle was way up high, so I had to contort my thumb into a crazy angle just to shift. That wasn't gonna work. So I threw the Matchmaker clamp across the garage and installed a discrete clamp for the shifter. It was much better.
After going inside for the evening, I started reading about the "paddle upgrade." I ordered one up, and it will arrive tomorrow.
Today was the virgin run with the new shifting setup. Really quickly, I figured out that the shifter needed more adjustment. I rotated it so it's really low, where my thumb normally holds the grips. I don't know why every picture/video that I can find show the shifter rotated way up high. That makes no sense to me. Anyway, now I can just move my thumb over to the shifter and rock it either up or down. It's pretty good.
Oh, and the whole eDerailleur thing... It's kind of nice. The downshifts are a bit quicker, for sure, and require less movement of my thumb. Upshifts were lightning fast with the Amish Derailleur, and so they are with the AXS system, too. I set up the system to provide "burst fire" shifts. The "burst fire" is not as quick as clicking quickly on a manual shifter, but it's fast enough for grabbing/dropping a bunch of gears.
I think I'll like the original paddle, but the new one arrives tomorrow. Maybe I'll give it a try, or maybe I'll just let it sit on the shelf. Regardless, I'm liking the new setup after one ride. Once I become more accustomed to it, I fear that the manual shifting on the other bike might not be good enough any more.
Check out the pics. The first is my hand in the normal riding position. The second is my thumb on the paddle with no change in my grip. The third was going to be of the derailleur, which you all know what it looks like, but my little attention whore wouldn't allow it.
.
). I picked up some spare pads also.
