 You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Whats peoples opinions on the Sram eagle NX range and Sram Guide T 4 piston brakes.
Interested in a bike that has both of these on. The brakes dont seem to get get much love, and NX is marmite.
Ive nearly always had Shimano drivetrain and brakes. Last time I ran Sram was there X7 and X9 kit. Quite liked that though.
My partner's got NX and Guide T's on her bike, as for the NX it's been fine so far aside from the ISIS BB being a bugger to get out when I had to reroute the dropper cable. Annoying for taking off cranks that you need a crank puller, but you can get a crank puller and an ISIS BB tool together for less than a tenner.
The brakes seem ok for her, she's not the hardest rider and probably only weighs about 50 kilos so she's never gonna be testing brakes to their limits. They felt crap out the box - they would pull to the bars when she got the bike but that was fixed by just pushing the pistons all the way into the calipers then pumping them back out to the discs. Now they only feel a little bit worse than my Code R/Guide RSC combo.
It does the job but you can notice it's less refined than GX etc.
I have nx on my ECR and I have to say I was really impressed.
Normally I have xt level and higher on my bikes and was very reluctant to have the nx thinking it would be horrid.
But it's just not, it works and I would buy it again.
I didn't like the NX cassette as only the largest 4 cogs are on a spider. The other 8 cogs are individual and started to cut into the freehub after 2 rides. Found Sunrace to be a much better option for a similar price.
I have Guides on 2 bikes. R one one and RS on the other. I don't know what the difference is other than my RS are from 2015, and the R are last year with the bleeding edge on the caliper which makes bleeding slightly easier. I think the calipers are currently the same on the T, R, RS.
Power is plenty and modulation is great. I've changed the caliper pistons and seals on one bike when they started sticking which was easy and fixed the problem. Parts are cheap.
One caliper was playing up last week where the pistons were retracting too much. The only fix was to remover the pads, pull the lever too much to make the system think the pads are worn, then put the pads back. Seems fine now.
Not had the sticky lever problem that was common.
I'd buy them again.
Sounds positive. Anyone else?
Totally not necessary at all, but swapping the shifter to X01 is nice. Feels a lot nicer and adjustable also.
I've got full nx on one bike (apart from cranks) and it's been fine.
NX derailleurs don't tend to last very long. A combination of weak spring and friction in the plastic pivots means the derailleur often has trouble going from 1st to 2nd gear. I've seen it loads of times. The GX derailleur is way better.
The brakes? Depends where you ride. I'm sure they are fine for UK 'XC-ish' type riding.
I agree with @walleater about the NX derailleurs.
My bike came with the GX derailleur, I couldn't find one at short notice during last year when I caught it on a rock. Had to go with the NX one. 6 months later and I'm having ghost shifting issues (hanger is straight as a die), there is a lot of play in the pivots.
Is it a deal breaker? Probably not, the first thing I would swap out is the derailleur.
I wouldn't see it as a deal breaker. A mate has NX on 2 bikes that I mend for him, seem to be fine so far. I swapped the Guide T for some Codes Rs and moved the Guide Ts to his other bike. The reach adjusment is more fiddly (cut down an old allen key to make it easier) and the clamps don't play with a Reverb button clamp , but other than that...
I've had a Giant Trance for about 16 months which came with NX and Guide T. I thought about an upgrade but so far they've been just fine. The brakes might be needing new pads as yesterday I went for an hour or so taking somebody round Cannock Chase off-piste and it was fairly fast - using the brakes a lot; everything tickety-boo. But last night I went out on my semi-gravel bike with old XT brakes and nearly went over the bars! Maybe that's the "modulation" that I'd heard about but never really understood.