Spy photos of SRAM's XX super group

By James Huang

The official launch of SRAM's upcoming XX 2x10 mountain bike is still a solid three months off but a pair of apparent spy photos that have recently surfaced online seemingly provide an early glimpse of what's to come.

Assuming the images are real, here's what we can tell:

Shifters

SRAM has been experimenting with a mountain bike version of its DoubleTap single-lever shifter for some time now: a road version is already commercially available and we spotted a prototype dedicated MTB edition on a bike belonging to SRAM test honch Greg Herbold two years ago.

XX looks to finally bring the idea to fruition on dirt with a single lever that appears to incorporate a carbon paddle co-molded around an aluminum base. We can see no mechanism for adjusting the position of the lever a la X.0 but we'd be quite surprised if it really weren't included.

Otherwise, the body is distinctly X.0-like from what we can see (the top isn't visible) and the XX shifter apparently retains the familiar two-position aluminum clamp - and thus, the same MatchMaker compatibility.

Read the complete article.