A groupset or gruppo (from the Italian for "group", often misspelled grouppo) is a bicycle component manufacturer's organized collection of mechanical parts. It generally refers to all of the components that make up a bicycle excluding the bicycle frame, forks, stem, wheels, tires, and rider contact points, such as the saddle and handlebars.
These parts typically include some of the following:
- 2 gear levers or shifters and
- 2 brake levers or
- 2 integrated brake levers/shifters
- 2 brake calipers, front and rear
- 2 derailleurs, front and rear
- 1 headset
- 1 bottom bracket
- 1 crankset
- 1 chain
- 1 cogset, freewheel or cassette
- 1 seatpost
- 2 hubs, front and rear (Some manufacturers now offer group-branded pre-built wheels)
- Pedals pair
- assorted cables and cable housing[1]
Except for special commemorative versions, manufacturers do not actually package the various different component together to be sold by retailers as a complete groupset. Therefore when a modern road groupset is bought after-market (as an upgrade for an older bike, or for someone building their own bike), the customer can choose which parts they require, the price of the groupset is just the individual prices of the chosen parts added together.
The major groupset manufacturers are Campagnolo for road bicycle and Shimano and SRAM for both road and mountain bikes.
Manufacturers typically offer a range of several groupsets, each targeted at a different budget or use. For instance, Dura-Ace, Super Record and Red are the top-of-the-line road racing groupsets for Shimano, Campagnolo and SRAM respectively.
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List of Groupsets for 2009
Below is a list of three current manufacturer's groupsets for Road and MTB applications, each manufacturer's offering is arranged in descending quality. The number of sprockets of the cassette in each groupset is shown in brackets. This is often referred to as "10-speed" or "9-speed" meaning the number of sprockets, but the total number of gears is determined by this number multiplied by the number of chainrings, for example a bike that has a double chainring and a 10-speed cassette has 20 gears. However in practice the number of usable gear ratios is usually fewer as several of the gears may be the same ratio or may not be reachable due to the crossover of the chain.
Road
Shimano - 2009
- Dura-Ace Di2 (10, electronic)
- Dura-Ace (10)
- Ultegra SL (10)
- Ultegra (10)
- 105 (10)
- Tiagra (9)
- Sora (9)
- 2200 (8)
Campagnolo - 2009
- Super Record (11)
- Record (11)
- Chorus (11)
- Athena (11) - new for 2009.
- Centaur (10)
- Veloce (10)
Older Campagnolo groupsets that were discontinued from 2009 are the lower-end:
- Mirage (10)
- Xenon (10)
Campagnolo also offers 3 triple chainring offerings for steep hill-climbing. Ordered from the highest to the lowest quality, these are:
- Comp Triple (10)
- Race Triple (10)
- Champ Triple (9)
SRAM - 2009
In 2006, SRAM released two groupsets for racing bicycles, aimed at competing with Shimano and Campagnolo's offerings. The top SRAM groupsets are called 'Red' and 'Force', being the pro-level and amateur racing level lines, respectively.
It is worth noting that SRAM has trickled down its technology at an accelerated rate to compete, and the 2009 production groupsets feature several upgrades.
- Red (10)
- Force (10)
- Rival (10)
General MTB
Shimano - 2009
- XTR (9)
- Saint (9)
- Deore XT (9)
- Hone (9)
- SLX (9)
- Deore LX (9)
- Deore (9)
- Alivio (8)
- Acera (8)
- Altus (8)
- Tourney (8)
SRAM offer parts under several different brandnames:
- Shifters, Chains, Cassettes - SRAM
- Brake Calipers - Avid
- Cranksets - Truvativ
- Mountain Bike Suspension - Rock Shox
each with their own products. For example the 'hierarchy' of SRAM shifters is:
- X-0
- X-9
- X-7
- SX 5
- SX 4
- 3.0
Specialist
- Shimano Dura-Ace (track) - (1) - Track bikes
- Campagnolo Pista - (1) - Track bikes
- Campagnolo Time Trial - (N/A) - Time Trial components with bar-end controls, chainrings with oversized toothing and super-light brake levers in composite material.
- Shimano Hone - (9) - Enduro and Freeride applications
- Shimano Saint - (9) - Downhill and heavy-duty applications
- Shimano Nexus - (N/A) - Internal (planetary) hub gearing
See also
- List of bicycle parts
- Category:Bicycle parts
- Chipset - A similar concept in the semiconductor industry
References
- ^ Berto, Frank; Ron Shepherd, et al. (2005). The dancing chain : history and development of the derailleur bicycle. San Francisco, CA, USA: Van der Plas Publications/Cycle Publications. pp. 276–277. ISBN 1892495414. http://www.cyclepublishing.com/cyclingbooks/dc.html.
External links
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