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 the following:
With the following forming part of some groupsets:
Except for special commemorative versions, manufacturers do not actually package the various 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 while 105, Veloce and Apex are their entry level road racing group sets, respectively.
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Below is a list of the three largest manufacturer's groupsets for Road and MTB applications. Each manufacturer's offering is arranged in descending price/quality. The number of sprockets of the cassette in each groupset is shown in brackets. 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, although some of them overlap. Please see the article on bicycle gearing for more information.
Road
Shimano - 2009
Campagnolo - 2009
Older Campagnolo groupsets that were discontinued from 2009 are the lower-end:
Campagnolo also offers 3 triple chainring offerings for steep hill-climbing:
SRAM - 2010
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 that each year production groupsets feature several upgrades, some years more than others. In 2010 SRAM have released a new groupset, Apex, which is aimed at a more casual level.
MTB/General
Shimano - 2011
SRAM also offer parts under several different marques as they've slowly bought out several smaller, specialist bike part manufacturers. These include:
SRAM are phasing out 3 ring front chainrings in their MTB range for a 2 front chainring, 10 sprocket rear cassette setup, commonly found on road bikes.
Specialist
There are some groupsets which are designed for a specific purpose (track cycling, downhill etc.). Some are just partial groupsets which are intended to be used with other groupsets.
The Shimano Nexus began as a internal hub only and has slowly grown into its own groupset including a higher end internal hub (Alfine, previously Nexus 'Redline'), chain, shifters, cranks, brakes and calipers.