Spy shots have shown Nino Schurter rocking a SRAM eTap rear mech. What’s all that about then? Custom one-off? Or real-world prototype?

>>> SRAM Red eTap: wireless shifting put to the test

UPDATE 08/03/18: below are some shots from Dutch site Velozine of various SRAM-owned patents that show a motorised rear mech and a few designs of electronic shifter.

And hey, it’s the opening round of the XC World Cup this weekend folks. Hmm…

The picture below – itself a screenshot of a now-deleted Instagram post – is doing the rounds in the mountain bike chatterati. Why? Because it shows Nino Schurter using what appears to be a wireless electronic rear mech.

Now then. It *could* be just a special one-off hybrid mech of SRAM’s existing eTap electronic road mech paired with a SRAM Eagle cage. Well, it more than likely is exactly that. But hey, let’s not let that put us off a bit of midweek gadget gossippery. It’s February for goodness sake, we need some cheering up while we wait for the clocks to change.

Maybe, just maybe, it is a whole new e-Eagle groupset hiding in plain sight. After all, that’s not a road shifter on Nino’s handlebar is it? Frustratingly, you can’t actually see anything of the shifter in the picture.

We’ve found another pic from Nino during the same ride and zoomed in to a ridiculous degree, and…

… you still can’t really see anything. Ah well.

There can’t be anyone who’d really be surprised if such a thing as eTap-for-MTBs existed, even if inly as part of SRAM Black Box skunkworks proto development project. Road bikes have had SRAM eTap for years now and it arguably makes even more sense off-road as it gets rid of a significant amount of cabling which is always a good thing on filth-soaked mountain bikes (especially full suspension ones).

Let’s wait and see what SRAM have to say about all of this.