Fitted to the BMC Roadmachine 01 Three, that puts pretty much any ascent on road within grasp, although it did mean that I tended to achieve slower overall climbing speeds than with a higher geared bike.
It’s worth mentioning that Sram makes two versions of its rear derailleur and that you can’t use either with the full range of cassettes: the shorter version covers 10-26, 10-28 and 10-33 cassettes, while the longer one handles 10-28, 10-33 and 10-36 ones.
Both derailleurs get Sram's Orbit hydraulic damper system, which aids retention of the 12-speed flat top chain and reduces chainslap on the stays.
Want even more range? The latest Wide variant of Force eTap AXS offers a different chainset and front mech that shifts the chainline outboard by 2.5mm to up clearance for wider tyres and has a 43/30 ring combination. We’ve more info on the Wide tech and Sram's extra-wide gear ranges here.
There’s the option to go single ring and to pair Force components with Eagle AXS MTB parts for a mullet build with a 10-52 cassette, giving you an ultra-wide range set-up.
Comfortable shifters
Another march that Sram has stolen on Shimano is the more intuitive shifting with eTap. It’s fairly easy to hit the wrong shifter button on Di2, especially if wearing heavy gloves. But with only a single shift paddle on each lever, eTap avoids this.
You just push the right hand paddle to shift up the cassette and the left one to shift down. Hold the paddle down and the rear mech will multishift – you can configure how many sprockets using the AXS app. Hit both paddles at the same time and the front mech will change rings. Again, this is reconfigurable in the AXS app if you want.
Sram's levers are comfortable too. They’re slightly larger than Shimano Ultegra, which makes holding them a bit more comfortable when riding on the tops and they’re grippy, with ridged upper surfaces. The brake levers are a bit larger than Shimano’s too and offer rim brake or hydraulic disc brake options.
You can wire in a set of Sram's Blip satellite shifters to give you the option to shift from the bar top or the drops.
Flexible shifting configuration
As well as standard shift mode, Sram's AXS groupsets give you two options to have the groupset do some of the thinking for you. Using the smartphone app, you can set it to perform sequential shifts, where it automatically swaps between chainrings when you reach a certain point on the cassette.
Whereas Shimano Di2 lets you choose where up and down shifts occur, Sram does this at fixed positions: upshifts occur around the middle of the cassette and it drops to the smaller ring once you try to shift down from the next-to-largest sprocket, in each case moving the rear mech to compensate – you can choose whether by one or two sprockets.
The fixed positions in Sram's shifting mean that it’s easier to configure and there’s less opportunity to set up something that doesn’t work well than in Di2, although the latter does have two pre-set shifting patterns you can select as well as offering you DIY configuration.
By the time you’ve reached the point at which the large to small ring change happens, there’s quite a bit of chain noise, despite the yaw system built into all Sram's front derailleurs that makes trimming unnecessary.
The change down is usually occurring under load too, as you’re likely to have hit a hill by this point, and I found it was often noisy and jerky. There’s a lag between the front shift and the rear shift that adds discontinuity to pedalling. You can press both levers at once to initiate a front change before you reach this point, but that rather negates the point of having sequential shifting.
Changing up to the large ring was smoother and quieter though, as by mid-cassette you’re likely to be spinning more rapidly under less load.
I found the compensating shift option more useful. Here, when you change chainrings the rear mech automatically shifts up or down the sprockets to put you in a gear closer to the one you had been using.
You can set the system up so that it shifts either one or two sprockets – I found two worked well for me. It’s smooth and fast and means that shifting chainrings is a one step process, rather than needing you to think about the rear changes too.
Although battery life is less than with Shimano Di2, it’s more than adequate. I got 24 hours of riding in without making an appreciable dent in either the front or rear battery level. It’s simple to check charge via the AXS app and the batteries are easy to remove from the mechs for recharging using the charging station when they do need a top-up.
nlike Red eTap AXS, Force eTap AXS uses a conventional spider in its chainset, so you can replace the chainrings more simply and cheaply when they get worn. You can fit a Quarq power meter to Force too.
Despite its downshift from Red, Force eTap AXS isn’t cheap to replace parts for though. Full price a cassette will cost you £170 and a chain £65.
So Sram Force eTap AXS is slick, sophisticated and versatile. As an aftermarket option, it’s comparable in price to an Ultegra Di2 groupset, gives you more gears and is easier to install on your bike.
It’s a shame that more bikes aren’t sold with Force eTap as an alternative to Ultegra Di2 and that those that are are often more expensive than the Shimano-equipped option, as the Sram system’s ease of use, wide range and extra gear make it a very attractive groupset.
