New parts for the CX bike

Cyclocross season just started, and this will be my 4th season on the Orbea. Apparently that is a long time to have a bike now, and I've heard "you should get a new one" quite a few times. I guess that would be nice, but I already bought a bike this year, and the cx bike just needed a bit of maintenance. Until now, about all I've done is put on new tires when they wore out. And replaced the chain once. So, after all that time and a few wet and muddy events, the shifting quality was not like new. It still worked, but sometimes shifts on the rear cassette were slow or I'd have to overshift to get to a bigger cog. Of course fresh cables and housings would have fixed the issue, but where's the fun in that?

Just like my mountain bike, I wanted to ditch my front derailleur. I think they're still useful for road bikes and touring, but everywhere else they are going away. The key part of a 1x drivetrain is the rear derailleur, which needs to have a clutch mechanism and the ability to handle a wide range cassette. Combined with a narrow-wide front ring, which holds the chain much more securely than a ring designed to shift, that is usually enough to keep the chain from falling off, even over a lumpy race course or riding a mountain bike downhill. If you want a clutched derailleur on a cx/road bike, that pretty much means using sram. Yeah, there are ways to use a shimano mtb derailleur, especially with di2, but sram makes the parts that are meant to do this

After the demise of my old road bike, I had a 1x setup using some of those parts in mind. The first idea was to use my rival 2x10 shifters with a mtb derailleur because that fancy force cx1 stuff was pricey. But by the time I actually got around to doing this, Sram had come out with lower priced rival and apex versions.

After being pretty certain that apex 1 used "zero-loss" shifting and would feel and work just like the nicer parts, but with a weight penalty, I went into Missoula Bicycle Works and ordered some stuff- a new shifter, brake lever, and a rear derailleur. I went online again to get a shimano cassette and chain because it is way cheaper. I don't blame the shop though, this is on shimano for not caring about a map policy or parts coming from other markets or giving local shops competitive pricing. And you can preach about buying local all you want but $40 is $40. Anyway, I digress. here are some pictures of the new stuff:

Just one lever to do all the shifting. I really liked the sram shifters on my caad, and these are actually a little better because of that zero loss thing. Free play in a shift lever is something that really bugs me. Why is it just floating around? Why does it not shift as soon as I push the lever? The previous 105 shifters had a ton of movement before the shift actually occurred, especially on upshifts. Sram is really good at that immediate shifting thing, and even the low end apex group provides super quick and crisp shifts. As far as I can tell, these work and feel exactly like the more expensive groups, all the way up to force cx1 and red. The downside is weight- there's no carbon/titanium/magnesium here. Rival would have saved a few grams and wasn't too much more expensive, but like I said I was on a limited budget and every dollar saved here can go toward some better wheels. Or beer.

For gearing, I went with 42 x 11-32. That gives the same range as my old double, but shifted down a bit to the easier side. I was considering 40 x 11-36, but a friend had a 42t ring sitting around and the 11-36 cassettes were more expensive. The derailleur will handle up to a 42t cog so I can swap it for something else later if I need to.

While I was at it, I ordered a set of TRP CX8.4 mini-v brakes, because the stock tektro cantis were pretty much useless. A lot of slack to take up, then very little braking power once you got into them. These are definitely better, but still not the best brakes in the world. There is a lot more power, but the lever feel is a bit soft and it takes a lot of travel to get braking hard. I was hoping for something powerful and firm, like road dual pivots or a hydraulic disc setup. But that was not to be I guess. Still, the power is a lot better, and I was really happy with them on the race course. Riding down a dirt road at 35mph, though, you wonder if you're going to run out of lever travel before the brakes are working as well as you want. You don't, and I'll probably get used to it though.

Follow up: after adjusting the pads closer to the rim, the brakes are a lot better. The directions say 1mm on each side but I have them as close as they'll get without rubbing (and they do slightly if I crank on it or get some grit in there). The extra leverage means more cable pull to move the pads so every little bit helps on these. Next time it needs cables I'll also go with better brake housing.

So here are all the parts I used and what they cost

Sram apex 1x11 RD - 61
Apex rear shifter - 84
Apex front brake lever - 43
Shimano 105 11-32 cassette - 35
Shimano HG-601 chain - 20
Sram force 2x10 cranks - taken from old road bike
Sram 42t chainring - 40
Wickworks chainring tabs - 15
TRP CX 8.4 brakes - 75
New bar tape - 12
Labor at MBW - 20
Total - 405

A little more than I expected, but I suppose adding those brakes is what pushed it up. I did sell some old parts I had so that offset the cost by a good amount. Depending on what I get for the 105 group on ebay I could actually break even.