Hello everybody, welcome back!
In 2020 when SRAM refreshed their Eagle line, they reintroduced their shifters.
And what I have here is an old Eagle GX versus this new one, the Lunar gray Eagle GX 12 speed.
Is this any different? Is it any better? Let's take a closer look!
SRAM actually offers two shifters in their Eagle line, the one that I showed you,
which is the standard shifter, GX in my case,
but they also have the e-bike version of these shifters.
That is fairly clearly specified here on the label, you see the e-bike version says SINGLE CLICK, trigger,
this is the Lunar version because, again, it's the new one launched in 2020.
As opposed to that, the regular shifter only says Eagle trigger
this is the Lunar grey, the code differs, this is 431, this one is 432,
and here on the right you're going to see that these are made in Taiwan just like all the other SRAM stuff,
and 2020 week 46 is when it was manufactured.
So from the cheapest Eagle SX all the way to XX1, they do offer the two shifters,
one standard and one for e-bike, make sure you read the description carefully when ordering.
Aside from that e-bike inscription, the two boxes are identical
and underneath this piece of foam you find the shifter.
Shifter is encapsulated in this molded plastic, you're gonna find a couple of things underneath.
One, this is the bar clamp and the bolt needed to install your shifter,
and the other thing it's a little leaflet that SRAM includes with all their products.
When I first looked at these I thought they were dumb because there's no way to know which one is which,
but if you take them out, this is gonna be the regular GX shifter,
and the e-bike version it's gonna have this little inscription or mountain graphic, and it's going to say e-MTB.
And when you hear Lunar in the description, it refers to this Lunar grey, the default color for GX and X01,
you get into the XX1 and you have fancier colors.
Everything else is painted in black including this lever that is made out of aluminum.
The lever feel is identical between this new shifter and the old, it provides you with five down-shifts so
one, two, three, four, five, that are pretty crisp.
Up-shifts, as usual with SRAM, is one at a time so click click click click click.
Also they imply what's called the Zero Loss, well that's called Instant Release for the Shimano XT and XTR, this GX has something similar.
So what about the e-bike version of the shifter? Well, this one is as crisp as the other one and you can probably hear it here
but the big difference is you can only down-shift one gear at a time, not five.
So one at a time up the cassette, one at a time down the cassette.
They've done this so you don't jam that derailleur into the cassette and ruin the entire drivetrain.
Otherwise there's no adjustments whatsoever on the shifters,
you got to go to XX1 or X01 to be able to move this down lever position.
I have a video about X01 on my channel, I'm gonna link it up in the corner.
The specified weight of these shifters is 122 grams and that's exactly what I have here for the e-bike one,
the regular shifter is exactly 122 grams again,
and the old shifter comes up to 119 grams, so a whopping 3 grams difference between the old and the new one.
The inner cable length provided with the shifter is 2.2 meters and, as you notice, there is no housing included with these shifters.
And in order to replace the inner cable you're gonna have to grab a 3mm Allen key, remove that bolt and here comes the cover.
Interestingly this seems to be made out of aluminum now, in the past it was made out of plastic.
So with the cover removed, you just push on that inner cable and it's eventually gonna come out through here, and that's how you replace it.
And the only thing to remember is to shift into the hardest gear first before you try to push this out.
The e-bike specific shifter looks identical inside,
will be interesting to see if the mechanism can be changed from 1-click to multiple clicks or vice versa.
Just like the old shifter the installation is fairly trivial, you're gonna need some blue Loctite
and as you can see the bar clamp is one piece so you're gonna have to remove your grips.
If you have foam grips, sorry guys, you're gonna have to rip them off.
Then slide that clamp onto the handlebar, bolt goes in first, then you get a 4mm Allen key
and it's going to screw into the body of the shifter, you see the threaded hole right here, just like this.
Obviously the bark clamp installation is compatible with any sort of brakes you might have
but if you have SRAM brakes, these shifters are Matchmaker compatible
so you can buy the Matchmaker adapter and integrate them with your brakes.
And if you're running Shimano brakes like I do, you can find adapters that are going to integrate these SRAM shifters with it.
This is for I-SPEC EV, I'm going to list it in the description of the video.
These shifters were introduced with the 10-52 tooth cassette, the expanded range.
Obviously that meant the 520% gear range,
but these new shifters, aside from the aluminum cover and the different color are identical with the old shifters
and they would work just fine both on the 520% drivetrains
as well as the 500% gear range drivetrains, the original Eagle that I reviewed quite extensively on my channel.
What do you think about the new versus the old GX shifters?
Are you considering replacing the old one for the new just for the color or maybe the aluminum cover?
Let me know what you think in the comments below,
if you found this useful don't forget to like, subscribe, keep an eye on social media,
and until next time hope to see you folks on the trails.
Cheers guys, cheers!