Let me first answer the question of mechanical versus electronic. It’s electronic. Not everyone can afford it, but that’s changing fast. You can see now, over the last 2 years, the game is afoot. Component brands are racing to get electronic down to affordable levels. First it was SRAM with RIVAL AXS. Then Shimano countered with 105 Electronic. Then SRAM counterpunched with APEX AXS. These are all 12-speed electronically shifted groupsets and for both these brands the lines between road and gravel – and in SRAM’s case even MTB – are converging and there’s great cross-compatibility between use cases.

A Scott Addict 20 is a high class road bike selling for $3,600, with Shimano 105 Di2. A Canyon Endurance CF SLX 7 with that groupset is $3,500. An Endurace CF 7 with Rival AXS is $2,999, and that bike with Shimano 105 Di2 sells for $2,399!

This is the new price point for an electronic, 12sp, 2x hydraulic disc brake road bike. You start, now, at $2,400, and you go up to $4,500 or so at that entry level electronic groupset pricing, depending on wheels and frameset. At a time of high inflation, where everything shot up in price, the cost of electronically-shifted road bikes plummeted and is still in freefall.

I think we’re getting to the point where it might be cheaper for these component companies to make a shifter with electronics than with the intricate pieces that make up a mechanical system. Plus, if you’re a bike manufacturer, electronically shifted bikes are much easier to assemble. We are now at the point where the cost of manufacturing and assembly means pushing everyone toward electronic, and this necessitates really low prices on those shift systems.

Electronic is even more important on tri bikes with the bar-end shifter’s long cable runs, and the difficulty in getting shift cables through full forearm armrests. I would rather have the cheapest electronic groupset on my tri bike than the most expensive cabled groupset. The one remaining problem is that the low prices we see for electronic road bikes have not yet been matched in tri. But that’s coming. It just took much longer for Shimano to grant factory time to componentry needed for tri bikes (e.g., electronically-shifted pursuit levers and bar-end shifters). We are still working our way through the post-Covid bike bust, and Shimano Japan is (one assumes) starting to remember what a triathlon is.

Now, then, SRAM or Shimano? And for this exercise I’m not going to talk about price, because both companies offer groupsets all the way up and all the way down the price gradient. I’m only going to talk about performance and features.

Why Shimano?

I was riding with a friend a couple of years ago and told him a whimsical story from my youth, as a bike racer in the 1970s, and my kinda odd training partner at the time said, during a ride and out of the blue, “Perhaps if you die I could have your Colnago.” After laughing his ass off my current friend asked me a day later, “Perhaps if you die I could have your Cervelo.” This would be my Cervelo R5, about which I will write in some detail next week but one reason my current friend asked for this (rather than, say, my OPEN WI.DE or my Quintana Roo SR5) is that my Cervelo has current Dura Ace Di2.

This groupset is ridiculously good. The shifts are lightning fast, it’s 12sp, but for all that the braking might be the best thing about this groupset. The hoods are ergonomic, but the one thing that sets this groupset apart from SRAM is the front derailleur shifting. Since the beginning Shimano electronic FD shifting has been bombproof. I’ve owned every iteration of Di2 since 2010 and I don’t believe I’ve ever dropped a chain on a Di2-equipped bike.

What held me back from Shimano has been the lack of a low enough gear for some of the steeper climbs and – well – I’m getting older. That changed with the move to 12sp, with 1:1 gearing available on groupsets all up and down the price scale (34 tooth chainring with a 34 tooth cog). Mind, when I began bike racing it was a 42/52 set of chainrings and a 5-speed 13-21 freewheel in the back. It seems I came to cycling at exactly the right time, as the migration from 42x21 as my lowest gear to 34x34 has occurred over time, and as I have aged into the need for successively smaller low gears.

Shimano also embraces as its 12sp platform an 11t cog as the tall gear in the back. On gravel a 10sp cog is not a big issue. On road, that jump from 11t to 10t is a big one. It’s like flipping the overdrive switch on an old English roadster.

These are the things I like about Shimano, and while the hood ergonomics are great on both SRAM and Shimano I guess I’d give the slight nod to Shimano. Charging is a cord you clip the RD and there’s one battery to charge. Easy peasy.

Why SRAM?

The biggest practical difference in my day-to-day riding is that I always take a SRAM battery with me when I ride. They’re small and light. Best is to take both that and a 2032 coin cell. Then you’re inoculated against battery failure on a ride (the coin cells go in the shifters). In point of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had to change a battery on a ride. But with SRAM you have the functional equivalent of carrying a spare tube.

When I travel with my bike on a plane I take out the derailleur batteries and carry them with me on the plane, in accordance with FAA regs. They’re maybe 3 amp-hour batteries each and you can take up to 50Ah of batteries on a plane. I’ve never had or heard of the FAA stopping a bike from getting loaded into the cargo hold because of a battery, but that might be a theoretical possibility and taking the Shimano battery out for travel is possible but a hassle.

SRAM is better than Shimano currently at the OE power meter. A Quarq on the crankset or in the spindle is a better power meter than what Shimano currently offers. This is a non-issue if you don’t ride crank-based PMs. I ride with regular Speedplay pedals on my SRAM bikes with Quarq PMs, and Speedplay POWR pedals on my Shimano bike (that R5 mentioned above).

SRAM’s shifting is more intuitive. Push on the left shifter the derailleur moves to the left. Push right, moves to the right. Change front derailleur, push both at the same time. When I get on a Shimano bike, it takes me a few miles and a few shifts to completely remember. SRAM, no need for that. Hike your leg over the top tube and the shift motions are natural.

Beyond this, it goes to use case. On my gravel and bikepacker bikes (2 of the 4 bikes I now own) I ride 1x and SRAM rules 1x. Eagle AXS kills it. For bikepacking there’s an extra reason: The ability to carry those extra batteries. Yes, I can multi-day bikepack with a charged Shimano battery and I’ll be gold. I can also carry a powerpack to charge that battery if need be. But you just can’t lose with SRAM in this use case, because the extra batteries are so spare and lightweight.

For tri bike riding I’ve fiddled a lot with both SRAM and Shimano electronic, and we’re in a weird time in this industry with aerobars in great flux. As we move to full forearm armrests the need for a completely wireless bar-end shifter is critical. SRAM has this with its Wireless Blips. Hanging a SRAM groupset on a tri bike is just so easy. The only fiddling is with hydraulic brake lines. But the shifting is completely wireless. The only 2 problems with SRAM – and I must assume these will at some point be addressed – are as follows:

1. The ability to pair Wireless Blips to derailleurs should be built into the AXS app, rather than the need for a temporary justice of the peace to marry all the elements. When I build up a tri bike I move it next to one of my road or gravel bikes because I need a “SRAM Controller” and you know you have one of these if it is a shifter with an AXS button on it. So, any AXS shift lever of any sort (mountain, road, gravel, whatever); or a Zipp Vuka Shift extension, or a Blip Box. But you don’t need a Blip Box on the bike. You just need any Controller and you only need it once, to pair Blips an Derailleurs. Better to have this in the AXS app on your phone.

2. The Wireless Blips are dope. But they do not have a good mounting system. You will need to epoxy them onto the side of your pursuit levers (see image above), and build some kind of bar-end plug to epoxy your Blips onto. Not dope. But it’s still, even with these hassles, the best bar end shifting system going. Below is a pic of Wireless Blips and what SRAM thought would be their overwhelmingly more common use. But as with a lot of stuff SRAM has made since its very beginnings, SRAM is surprised by how tri-oriented its products can be. This is why SRAM was caught flat-footed by making a product perfect for tri, but without the right mounting system for tri.

The good folks at Kú Cycle made a mount that works pretty well, and you can see this below.

So then, how does this all wash out?

Road: I give the lean to Shimano. The front derailleur shifting on my SRAM Force AXS equipped Quintana Roo SR6 is good. But you have to adjust the FD exactly as SRAM intends it, with the included guide. My Shimano equipped Cervelo R5 is less touchy and never, ever, ever derails or fails in any way. For 2x road Shimano still has it over SRAM, but not by a huge amount. If I was already a SRAMmie on other bikes I might choose SRAM because I can swap SRAM batteries and chargers across bikes.

1x Gravel: This is SRAM’s wheelhouse. Nobody beats SRAM at electronic 1x, mostly because of available gearing. Shimano is catching up fast. GRX RX820 mechanical is great and it was nice to see both companies launching mechanical 12sp. It may be a pick 'em on 12sp mechanical 1x. But I still give SRAM the nod on electronic 1x for gravel.

1x Multi-surface Bikepacking: See 1x Gravel above, plus the ability to carry an extra battery or 2 for long trips.

Tri: This is a toss-up. I give the lean to Shimano because of the FD shifting on any bike where routing shifter wires is not hard. I give the nod to SRAM on any bike where routing those wires is a hassle because of SRAM’s industry-leading “Look, Ma, no wires!” shifters.