Back in April, I picked up my latest bike, a Specialized Roubaix Expert. I loved my original, more basic Roubaix (as I noted in my account of my century ride in 2015) and had high hopes for its successor, with its SRAM Rival electronic gear change. Sadly, it has proved my most troublesome, unreliable bike ever. I’ve decided to blog about it in case anyone else is having similar problems with their SRAM-equipped bike.

I had a hint of the bike’s unreliability on my very first ride, just hours after collecting it from Dees Cycles in Amersham on Good Friday 2023. The brand new Roubaix was making a distinctive squeaking sound, rather than the smooth as silk ride you expect from a maiden journey. I had to take it back to Dees several times before that irritant was banished.

Far more seriously, the bike had a habit of shedding the chain when I changed up onto the bike chainwheel. As I pushed the dual gear change paddles, I would hear an ominous clanking noise as the chain went beyond the large chainwheel cogs, and flopped onto the outside of the chainwheel. I soon found that shifting straight back down would retrieve the chain and place it back onto the small chainwheel. Bizarrely, if I then tried another shift up the chain would move obediently onto the large chainwheel without incident.