Groupset

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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 cassette
1 seatpost
2 hubs, front and rear
Pedals pair
assorted cables and cable housing.

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 Shimano and Campagnolo for racing bicycles, and Shimano and SRAM for mountain bikes. In 2006, SRAM also released two groupsets for racing bicycles, aimed at competing with Shimano and Campagnolo's offerings.

Manufacturers typically offer a range of several groupsets, each targeted at a different budget or use. For instance, Dura-Ace and Record are the top-of-the-line road racing groupsets for Shimano and Campagnolo, respectively. The announced SRAM groups will be named 'Force' and 'Rival', being the pro-level and amateur racing level lines, respectively.

[edit] List of Groupsets for 2007

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 fewer as several of the gears may overlap or may not be reachable due to the crossover of the chain.

Road

Shimano - 2007