Is a $1000 SRAM AXS wireless drivetrain worth it? High Low Ep 4

$300 groupset versus a $1,000 fully wireless electronic drivetrain. Is this super expensive drivetrain worth it? Or does the cheaper drivetrain give you the same value? And thank you to Squarespace for sponsoring this video but more on that in a minute. First up is ripping off the old outdated 2x drivetrain. Most if not all mid to upper tier bikes these days don't use a front shifter and a 1x drivetrain with a clutch is now the norm. Now that we have a blank slate on my low bike I'm installing a Shimano SLX 12 speed that I bought as a new takeoff from someone in the Saga Squad. Since I have an unlimited budget I'm installing a fully wireless SRAM XX1 AXS. Installing a new drivetrain on a mountain bike can go really smoothly or bring up a whole new slew of problems. And I have a feeling that installing a 12 speed drivetrain on these ultra budget full suspensions is going to be a lot harder than I expect. Everyone that knows me knows that I like to stand out on the trail so check this out. Garbera lightweight pulley wheels because you know the stock XX1 derailleur isn't flashy enough. Oh man my XX1 derailleur is looking fresh and installed way easier than yours. Shimano sucks, SRAM rules. But I cannot wait to install this beautiful cassette that takes an XD driver and our bikes have an HG driver body. Luckily BuyBike makes a 12 speed cassette for $60 off Amazon. No dude I need brand name stuff. I think you've spent plenty on this episode already. You'll get new wheels eventually. Here's where I have a major problem. My SLX cassette is for a micro spline driver body and will not fit the stock hub. So to solve that problem and to stay on budget I'm going to de-spoke the wheel and lace it up to this hub right here. This hub has 141 QR spacing which is technically boost with the right driver body. The hub is wider which in theory should provide more stability. So let's get this wheel build going. It might look like wheel building is easy in my videos because of the power of editing. The bane of my existence is losing the nipples in the rim which is a nightmare to get out. My luck has ran out. I can usually reuse spokes but this new hub's flanges are way taller so I measured the stock hub and the rim. Turns out the stock spokes will just be way too long and the calculator says I need 265 millimeter spokes. I hope this works out. I am glad that wheel build worked out but I need some trail therapy. Now we're out here at the trail and this is my new segment called clean for green. And Derek I challenge you to clean this climb and if you can do it in one minute I'll give you ten dollars. Let's do it. While he's doing that I'm going to tell you about this video's sponsor Squarespace. Making your own website can sometimes be harder than this technical climb but with Squarespace it's extremely easy to make your own site and get your own domain. And I've been putting off making my own website Evan's MTB Saga for a while now because I haven't had a website since you had to hand type one with HTML. Oh he's almost there. But with Squarespace I spent about 15 minutes making my own site. It was so easy with the Squarespace template. Oh no he's done and coming back. Now I'll have my own website for my brand to have blog posts, affiliate links and maybe a merch store. Hey Derek do you have a website? Yeah you do? All right. So go check out squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com slash evansmtbsaga to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. All right well looks like I need to make that challenge a little bit harder. Here's ten dollars and you owe me a like. All right that was fun. Here Chad take this. Oh another cheap sprocket. Wait a second. Bro we have a problem. This stock crankset is riveted. We can't even change out the chainring. All right well you're gonna have to use this old Dior crankset I had laying around and I'm gonna use this crankset off my Polygon Siskiu D7. So just when I thought we were in the clear turns out this Shimano 12 speed chain has something called Hyperglide and can only fit on their own special chainrings. So I had to rush order this super overpriced chainring for $75 off Amazon. Man this is really eating away at my $2,000 budget limit for the low bike. Despite the compatibility hassles and spoking a new hub this derailleur itself was extremely easy to tune. Only a few small adjustments and the shifting was near perfect. As a do-it-yourself bike mechanic I'd say that didn't take much effort at all. For my first time going wireless pairing the shifter and derailleur was pretty easy but the dang app doesn't have the arrows for the micro adjustments. But luckily I can still micro adjust manually and that's cool and all but I can easily spend hours micro tuning each gear. The bikes are complete and the high bike now weighs 32.8 pounds and the total project cost is up to $4,400. The low bike now weighs 33.2 pounds and has now cost $2,060 thanks to all the specialty parts that I had to buy for the Shimano groupset. And we haven't even got to the rear shock wheels and tires yet so why don't you subscribe to help me out. The access shifter feels like it has the strangest buttons almost like you're clicking a mouse but you can hold down the shifter to shift all 12 gears with one press which is actually pretty cool. The Deora shifter on the other hand can shift three gears with one big press. To get a good comparison I'm going to time how fast each bike can shift all the way up and all the way down. All right enough talk the only thing that matters is how it feels on the trail and I think we should race. All right let's go. The low bike's SLX drivetrain was very crisp and I feel like that's because of the cable. To me that feeling of an easy light shifter press is what a quality drivetrain feels like. The Haibike's groupset felt really responsive and it's great for someone who's super active on the gearbox like me but sometimes I feel like there's a delay with the shifter but that'll all be fixed when I get the good cassette on. On the descent there was virtually no chain slap on both bikes and any worries about a dropped chain were eliminated. Both low and Haibike drivetrains were a significant improvement and both equally capable. Across the line it was basically a tie. So after riding both bikes I noticed something weird. Even though the low bike is heavier it feels more crisp and put together especially since I did my bomber 4k. I'm not sure why but it just feels more snappy. The Haibike is kind of in a weird spot right now. It just feels too uppity and the upgrades don't feel cohesive with the entire bike but I hope that upgrading the rear shock will fix that. Of course you'd say that but which one would you buy if you had to buy it for your own bike? The expensive AXS or the affordable Shimano? Well my issue is more SRAM versus Shimano. It's extremely frustrating to have compatibility issues and have to pay $80 for a chainring. With the SRAM the XX1 chain fit on anything an old chainring, a cheap 12 speed cassette, anything. With the Shimano derailleurs I really don't like the cheap plastic clutch switch that you sometimes forget to even switch on. SRAM has that awesome lock button for when you're working on the bike and this XX1 just feels super high quality and durable. But for over a thousand dollars top of the line XX1 isn't worth it for a casual and I don't think the extra money is worth it for electronic shifting either especially when it has that dead shifter feeling. And if I was going to buy a drivetrain again I'd go with a SRAM GX or X01 cable actuated. Come on man, why don't you live a little? What is that? How much did you spend?