SRAM RED – Cassette [en]

The brand new Sram RED cassette definitely scored a bull’s eye when it was unveiled the last summer, during the Tour de France. Indeed, while
most manufacturers didn’t change a single element of the cassettes since ages, Sram had the idea and the opportunity to change this. The system is quite simplistic in the absolute.
Actually, every revolutionnary components are designed through a simplistic idea.

Usually, every cassettes are composed of differents cogs attached to the rotor splines. Sram wondered if all these contact were really necessary and, what would happen if the contact was
smaller. Why keeping the contact area of each cogs? And what would happen if only a few of them would transfer the torque? Finally, why not fixing all the cogs together and removing the
central material?

That is why Sram developped the PowerDome technology: the height largest cogs of the cassette are machinned out from a single piece of chromoly steel, and the central material is machinned
too.
Have a look at this:

Only three cogs are in contact with the freewheel body: the largest through the Sram Red stamped red alloy insert, and the two smallest. This brings several advantages:

•  – Weight save thanks to the low material quantity
•  – High stiffness thanks to the block of cogs
•  – Perfect spacing between each cogs
•  – Heat hardened and nickel coated steel for very high length of life

Thus, the 11-23 and 11-26 cassettes are only, according to the manufacturer, 155 and 166g on the scale, which is 20 to 30g lighter than the best offers from Campagnolo and Shimano, and
only about 15g heavier than a titanium cassette. This feat does not compromise the properties we need from a cassette, it is realized from a relatively cheap and very resistant cassette,
which is not the case of the titanium.
On our scale, the 11-26 cassette weights exactly 161g without the lockring, which is 6g.