Originally Posted by
ericcox
This is probably wishful thinking on my part, but if they were going to jump to 13 cogs, the 1X only XPLR would have been the time to do it. I've convinced myself of that as I've only had my bike with XPLR since November.
I am curious to see if they do any upgrades soon on Red or Force. It seems SRAM is being specced OEM on a lot of stuff lately; it seems to have better availability than Shimano at least on new bikes. XPLR vs GRX is just one example.
Remembering that, with AXS, getting 13spd is really only a matter of a firmware update…and having 13spd cassettes. Given that the gravel world didn’t fall all over itself to scoop up 13spd Ekar, I’d wager SRAM is going to save launching 13spd for Red, to steal the thunder away from new Dura Ace. The road world has proven to be very amenable to the notion of “more gears are better,” whereas gravel is embracing fewer gears and simply does not generate the kind of excitement an extra cog does on the road scene.