Sram baited the hook more than a year ago, when the first glimpses of something that looked like electronic shifting began appearing in prototype form on pro’s bikes. But it was clever with its disguises, fitting fake cables and wires, plus placing empty junction boxes on bars and stems to keep us all guessing. But its much-anticipated electronic shifting system is finally here. It’s called Red eTap, and it’s wireless. Not wishing to simply bring a ‘me too’ product to market Sram has sought to leapfrog all of its competitors. With its Red eTap shifting components, Sram has not just nudged the goal posts along a bit, it’s playing on a whole different pitch.
Electronic shifting is still highly divisive, despite Shimano’s Di2 having proved itself over five years in the market, and Campagnolo’s EPS now well-established too, plus other systems from Rotor and FSA also recently released. But wireless? Well, that’s just about as tasty for the naysayers as it gets. You can almost hear the gathering hoards drawing breath, ready to launch into an attack about how it will never catch on and couldn’t possibly be reliable. But Sram knows this. Plus, there’s that little elephant somewhere over in the corner of the room regarding its previous disc brake product recall. Of course that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with its electronic offering, except the fact if we are to be 100% certain about anything, it’s that Red eTap would never have made it this far unless Sram could bet its bottom dollar (potentially, literally) on its absolute reliability and flawless functionality.
Development
Brian Jordan, Sram’s advanced delevelopment manager, joked, ‘We had to buy a lot of paper some time in 2010’, hinting at when the project began, but directly referring to somewhere in the region of 250 different patents its competitors had already taken out, amounting to nearly 20kg of paperwork for the design team to scrutinise. Sram was far behind and with so much patented technology it was forced to take a different tact.
Sram’s road brand director, Chris Zigmont, says, ‘We wanted to improve the riding experience, but technology shouldn’t clutter the bike. A bicycle is supposed to be simple.’ Going wireless immediately removes the need for finicky internal wiring, junction boxes, stashing batteries, plus the fact connectors are the number one failure point of any wired system, but potentially it also brings a whole new set of problems. But Sram knew if it could pull it off, wireless shifting alone would bring a true advancement over its competitors. Yet it’s engineers still sought to look beyond simply electrifying the existing components and do something that would not be possible with a mechanical set-up.
Their focus turned to how to initiate the shift and inspiration was taken from the paddle buttons used in F1 racecars and fighter jets. Only having a single shift lever on each side means less confusion. One shifts up the other shifts down. Simple, effective and intuitive. And for the front derailleur? Simply press both levers together.
It eliminates any chance of an accidental front derailleur shift, and from my first rides, it took very little time to re-adjust my mindset to the new way of shifting at both ends of the drivetrain. You could even argue for the rear derailleur it’s more intuitive than existing shifters as the left shift paddle simply moves the mech left, - inboard, towards the top of the cassette - and the right paddle moves the mech right - towards the lower end of the cassette. Inside of my first hour of riding I’d stopped having to think about it and by three hours it seemed my brain had already completely remapped my shifting predispositions.
Airea wireless technology
First things first, it’s not Ant+, or Bluetooth, or Wifi. Sram Red eTap uses Airea wireless technology, chosen for its highspeed (low latency), reliability and low power usage. It’s also a high power signal with a range of 100m, so there’s little doubt it can cope with just over one metre, from front to back of a bicycle. The questions on everyone’s mind though, were fixated around reliability. What if the signal fails? How long will the batteries last? What about cross-talk between bikes in the peleton? Could the signal be jammed? What about crashes? Heavy rain?
Needing to get up to speed quickly on electronic testing protocols, Sram borrowed expertise and technology from other industries. Automotive and mobile phone companies are already applying the most stringent tests possible for things like vibration, battery life, dust ingress, waterproofing, chemical compatibility, corrosion resistance, thermal endurance, and thermal shocks. Sram admits, of course, along the way there were failures, but there’s always that dance to do with new products. Failures are actually fundamental to the process. ‘You want to see things fail,’ says Zigmont, ‘so you can say, yep, we saw that. And we fixed it.’ Suffice to say it would appear no stone has been left unturned in testing eTap, through around 700real iterations and three generations of prototyping, culminating in well over 200 bikes in the field totalling nearly one million kilometres of real-world riding.
The transmission signal uses an encryption that, Sram claims, is more secure than an ATM machine. The mechs will only pair to one pair of shifters at any one time, so there’s no chance of team mechanics accidentally pairing more than one set.
Sram developed a test platform to simulate 28 shifters being actuated simultaneously, distributed over 15 channels, equating to around 448 concurrent shifts, with no interference. It put hackers in team cars in the middle of pro races to try and jam signals and trace any potential sources of interference. The outcome, Sram claims, was flawless, and actually the wireless part was not the biggest challenge in the development of these products. Waterproofing, and battery retention in crashes, it says, proved trickier. When AG2R la Mondiale’s Alexis Vuillermoz won Stage 8 of this year’s Tour de France, riding eTap, Sram was happy it had its final rubber stamp, and had ticked every last box.
Installation
With so much new technology it’s easy to overlook another huge benefit of wireless – the ease of installation. It will take longer to remove your old components than to fit and set-up an eTap drivetrain. The derailleurs and shifters fit exactly like current Sram Red22 components. In fact in terms of ergonomic development, Sram has made only very subtle changes to the shape of the Red eTap lever hoods compared with its mechanical Red22 currently available.
All that’s initially required is to set the mech stop screws (as per any mechanical system) and perform the wireless pairing for the individual components. The rear mech is the brains, so it’s all done from a small button there. Pairing takes only around 15 seconds. A really clever feature is there are no on/off buttons. Sensitive accelerometers monitor movement, automatically waking up and shutting off the power. It’s also a big part of the extended battery life, which Sram claims is around 1000km of riding, impressive for something so small and light. Gears adjustments are simple, done with the function buttons on the rear of the shift paddle, which also means you can make tweaks on the fly.
Each derailleur has it’s own battery. These are small, neat and easy to remove for charging (Micro USB charger takes just 45 mins). Crucially this means you don’t need your bike to be near a power source. The batteries are also interchangeable so if your rear mech runs low on a ride you can switch it with the front mech battery. SRAM spent a lot of time perfecting the battery attachment system - the heavy duty clip is designed to keep dust and water out, while also keeping the battery incredibly secure. The shifters are powered by coin cell (CR2032) batteries that have a lifespan, based on 15 hours per week riding, of two years.
All things considered this is an incredible advancement that blew away my expectations. It’s been a long while since I was this excited by any single development in the industry. And it’s not at a ridiculous cost – even comparing favourably to its competitors wired systems. And as costs for this type of technology will inevitably fall over time the potential is enormous. I’d wager we’ll definitely be referring back to this product as a game changer in ten years time, for sure.
Overview
Shifters:
260g set.
£410
Right paddle for upshifts, left paddle for downshifts
Slightly reduced hood diameter. Maintains reach adjust.
Carbon levers. Larger shift paddles
Each requires CR2032 coin cell battery (user changeable) – claimed up to two years lifespan on 15 hours per week.
Front Mech:
180g
£265
No need for trim as per the Red22 Yaw front derailleur.
Aluminium and stainless steel cages
Interchangeable battery pack
Rear Mech:
239g
£420
Master device of the whole system.
Jockey wheels and carbon cage as per Red22
Interchange battery pack
Installs just like any other derailleur
Blips:
6g
£150 (set of 4)
Remote shift buttons that plug into eTap shifters
Versatility - can go under the bar tape, or on top. Fit wherever (inc. aero bar extensions)
Blip box required if not plugged into eTap shifters.
Contact: Sram.com