I'm building up a second flat-bar road bike and I'm very confused right now about some compatibility issues. So, as I mentioned in another thread, I currently have one set up with the Shimano SL-R770 10sp flat bar road bike shifters and a Rival group...and it works perfectly! But the new bike build has all 10sp Shimano, so I'm thinking of moving the R770 shifters over and getting Sram flat bar shifters for the first bike. So one option is:
http://www.sram.com/sram/road/produc...speed-shifters
But they are kinda mid-end, and the upper end is double tap which would confuse my fingers whenever I switch bikes. But looking over at their MTB gear, the 2011 components are also 2x10 Exact Actuation. So I'm thinking the X.9 shifters are what I'm looking for, and as far as I can tell they should be completely compatible with a 2008 Rival group: both are 2x10, "1:1", "Exact Actuation", and "Impulse Technology". And they look identical.
http://www.sram.com/sram/mountain/pr...rigger-shifter
But there is a lot of hype and fluff around these terms. "Exact Actuation" and "Impulse Technology", and even "1:1" are meaningless really, so having those three features in common is not enough for me to believe they work well together and it's not stated explicitly either 'yay' or 'nay' anywhere I could find. It's hard to get straight, correct info from these companies. I mean, like I said, I've got Shimano shifters running a Sram drivetrain perfectly right now and according to the industry that's impossible.