In typical SRAM fashion, there isn’t much given away in these images or text, but we’ve tried to blow them up as best we can after the break. After reading the press release, hit ‘more’ to see what we could get from their images…we think we’ve got something here!
PRESS RELEASE: Madrid was the location for one of the most dramatic races of the season so far. The drying race conditions allowed for a very fast start, and shortly after the start, Julien Absalon found his way to the front along with Ralph Naef. Naef launched several solid attacks against Abslaon, but it would be Julien’s day once again. This win marks his 19th World Cup Cross Country win and continues to build on his solid grip on the overall series lead.
SRAM Product Category Manager, Ron Ritzler said, “This is a groundbreaking victory for both Julien and SRAM. Absalon is one of SRAM’s key athletes that has been involved in the development of our new XX group.†Ritzler goes on to say, “SRAM is estatic that Julien was able to race to a World Cup win on the new XX group right as we roll this product out to the
rest of the world.â€Â
“Spy Shots” right this way…
The closeup above (click to enlarge) shows a couple of interesting things about the SRAM XX brakes:
- Graphics across the levers very reminiscent of their RED road group logo.
- Check out the whittled down appearance of the lever pivot and mount compared to current Avid Elixir CR (shown below).
- The mount seems to insert into the clamp on the bar as opposed to the integrated Matchmaker clamp on the CR.
- The body seems machined down even more than the already minimal Taperbore body of the CR
- Hard to tell from these images if there’s a reach adjust dial.
- Also, the PopLoc lever looks like it integrates into the clamp and is very minimal
From the same image of Absalon’s levers, another racer behind him had the same levers that was slightly clearer:
Also note the current, fatter lock out lever on this bike.
Here’s what we spotted in this one:
- Two-chainring crankset, which we’ve pretty much known would be the case.
- Very minimal looking caliper design
- Two piece rotor with thin spider arms…mostly likely aluminum inner and steel outer, but could be a Ti rotor to shave grams…
- While we’re expecting carbon crankarms, you can’t tell from this pic.  They look pretty thick, so they’re probably very stiff, as would be expected on a world cup race-level component group.  The “RED-type” graphics aren’t visible in this image, likely to help them keep a low profile in the pits.
- Normal looking diameter on the bottom bracket…
In case you’re wondering, those are Fulcrum Red Carbon wheels.
Here’s our previous post on SRAM’s XX for more info.
