Garbaruk Cassette with SRAM Transmission

Since pulling on those fat plastic levers in the 90s I was hooked on the shimano's reliability.  My affinity for shimano was galvanized when the latest 12 speed rendition appeared.  I liked it enough to convert our family "fleet" over to 12 speed, making it easy to swap parts and have a single set of spares cover the lot.  It took a while for Shimano to catch up with SRAM, but what they produced was of obvious quality and value and I was content, for a time.

I grew accustomed to replacing 2-3 rear derailleurs every year for my own bikes, and 1 or 2 for others in our fleet.  I even swapped one out the morning of stage 3 for Breck Epic last summer (the clutch had failed and I lacked the special grease).  Sometimes the derailleur didn't _look_ bad, but even after straightening the hanger, shifting wouldn't get better until a whole-sale replacement, often with a new hanger.  I have a bag of spare hangers to fit all our bikes.  It's all kind of exhausing.

A year ago, when underbiking Floyd Hill with my XC, my derailleur completely imploded on a small drop on The Sluice.  The derailleur flew into the rear triangle, luckily the frame was spared.  This wasn't the first XT dereaileur that has suffered this fate in our family.  I decided it was time to try something else.

I wanted to switch to transmission when it was released.  The problem is making a change like this was a hard sell.  I like my existing power meter, oval chainring, and lightweight garbaruk cassette.  With all this investment in gear, it's hard to justify throwing it all in the parts bin and moving on.  I was also concerned about the heft SRAM's new offering, and about having to maintain and remember a battery.  I was concerned about the lack of adjustability.  With long days on the bike, sometimes adjusting a limit screw can be the difference between hours of hikeabike or limping out on existing gear.

I discovered that the my cassette was in fact compatible with SRAM's new transmission parts, including the chain and rear derailleur.  The same was true of Garbaruk's oval chainring, so the upgrade was suddenly more reasonable from a cost perspective, as I could keep my existing crank and bottom bracket.

After 2000 miles on the new drivetrain I am convinced this is the best setup for me.  The GX derailleur has been extremely reliable, only occasionally needing re-torquing when shifting gets a bit out of spec.  Shifts feel crisp and precise.  6 months after install SRAM released new firmware which improved shifting speed substantially.  The shift pods are easy to use and reduce fatigue for super long days on the bike.  I'm looking forward to another season with this setup, especially as Garbaruk recently upgraded their cassettes to be specifically compatible with Transmission.