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I need an electronic groupset for my TT bike (fairly long story, I am just below 190cm...) and I am tempted by SRAM AXS but cassette options appear to be a sticking point. I am left wondering if there is any availability of 'sensible' 12 speed road cassettes available?
i.e. one which fits a Shimano freehub and inside a road derailleur
The SRAM cassettes aren't viable - I refuse to use a 10T on a road bike, especially for TT, throwing away power on wraparound losses seems to be quite silly. Also, I'd have issues with my wheels which all have Shimano freehubs.
KCNC advertise a Shimano spline 11-25T & 11-30T which would be ideal but nowhere stocks them, they appear to be vapourware.
Rotor have some a very expensive 12s road cassettes but 11-36T isn't going to fit inside an etap mech.
Campag do 12s cassettes of course, but those aren't going to be compatible with my freehubs either.
Are there any other options?
Change your freehub? I imagine your wheels will be posh enough to have interchangeable ones, and shouldn’t be mega expensive, relative to what you are spending on the rest of the drivetrain.
An xx1 AXS mech will take a 11-36 (and a lot more...) and will work with road AXS kit. Available as components shortly (I’ve got one on order).
No much technical info around about this AXS stuff. However, from what I can piece together an eagle mech would only index with an eagle cassette on a mtb freehub because the eagle chain, and cassette pitch is wider (5.2mm) vs 5mm for the AXS RED/force.
Also, it appears that the AXS red chain will not play very well with a non RED AXS cassette/chainring because the rollers have a larger diameter and narrow width. I'm not going to use AXS if I have to use their cassette and chainring system.
BUT possibly maybe I've found a source for essentially a campag cassette with Shimano splines which I can run with a campag chain, which I think runs on regular 11 speed chainrings..
Why does it need to be 12 speed?
Next gen Dura Ace probably due next year if you can hang on till then.
The background is I'm motivated to get electronic shifting for TT bike fit/UCI rules reasons, Di2 is a PITA to procure and install so I was drawn towards eTap and it just seemed a shame going for the old version when the new stuff was out and cost only 10% more.
But in the end I've pulled the trigger for 11spd eTap as it was just going to be a pain having mixed 11spd/12spd bikes.
However, I did find that I could've bought a 12spd 11-32T Recon cassette which fits Shimano splines which I could've used with a campag 12s chain, or possibly even a KMC X12. The Recon cassettes are carved out of a single piece of cro-mo, are very lightweight, and look really good so worth considering if you are in a similar situation.