Bikes Of The Bunch | New SRAM RED On BMC SLR01
From what the guys at SRAM are telling me, Australia is the first market in the world for the new 2012 Red groupset to land. Yesterday I had the chance to watch the guys at Bike Gallery to build up a new BMC Team Machine SLR01 and took it out for a short spin.
This BMC doesn’t have an owner yet but when Lincoln and Cam from the Bike Gallery gave me the heads up that they were building this I had to swing by to take a look. Bikeshops all over Melbourne dropped everything in a race to get the first bike with the new SRAM Red built up. Hampton Cycles were building up a Specialized Venge, Cyclespeed put together a Colnago C59, Kaos Custom Bikes built a sub 6kg Cannondale EVO, and I’m sure there were many more.
The BMC Team Machine SLR01 is basically the same frameset that Cadel used to win the Tour de France in 2011. The seatpost has changed from their clever “Streampost” to a more traditional design and they’ve gone from a BB30 to BB86. Since the BB30 cranksets haven’t arrived yet, this BMC was a good candidate to be one of Australia’s first builds.
The SLR01 is a terrific foundation for this build, however the new SRAM Red takes the spotlight today. The first shipments have been dispatched all over the world and we’re the first to have it commercially available. I was a SRAM Force early adopter in 2006 and has been the groupset I’ve used ever since. I’m currently riding Red on my race bike, but Di2 on my “good weather” bike.
As this bike is only a few hours hold and doesn’t have a home yet I couldn’t take it out for a good ride to get a feel for the groupset improvements claimed by SRAM and the early reviewers.

Price
The wonderful thing about the new SRAM Red is that the price has stayed the same while making many improvements. You can expect to pay approximately $2600 RRP in Australia if you’re purchasing separate from a bike (i.e. not OEM).
Is it worth the money to run out and replace your old Red groupset? For me, it wouldn’t be a logical decision – but I can’t think of many bike related purchases I’ve ever made that are logical…









