It’s perhaps not been the best-kept secret in the gravel cycling world, but today Shimano announced the launch of their latest GRX gravel groupset and it’s been updated to 12-speed. Read on to find out more.

Dusty trails, stunning sunset colours, happy-looking riders and a box-fresh 12-speed GRX groupset – Shimano definitely know how to reel in us gravel riders. Four years after the launch of the original GRX 400, 600 and 800 groupsets, today sees the launch of the updated 12-speed versions. We’re not going to go into all of the technical details of the new range, as you can find all that here, but here’s a quick summary:

There are three versions of the new 12-speed mechanical RX820 GRX groupset:

• Nickname – Unbeatable. 1x12 set-up which pairs a 10-45 tooth microspline cassette with a 40 or 42 tooth chainring and a medium cage rear mech. This is aimed at riders “who love pushing for personal bests or duking it out at the sharp end of a race”. 
• Nickname – Unstoppable. 1x12 set-up which pairs a 10-51 tooth microspline cassette with a 40 or 42 tooth chainring and a long cage rear mech. This is aimed at riders taking on “all-day or multi-day adventures which are heavy on climbing”.
• Nickname – Undroppable. 2x12 set-up which pairs a 31/48 tooth double chainset with an 11-34 or an 11-36 tooth hyperglide cassette. This set-up offers riders “an ultra-wide gear range when cruising the flats, smashing dirt rollers and tackling massive climbs”.

There are all sorts of clever new features and tech built into the new GRX groupset – improved ergonomics when using flared bars, a dropper-post specific left-hand lever option on the 1x12 version, replaceable cages on the 1x12 rear mechs so that you can change from medium to long versions easily and microspline cassettes on the 1x12 versions allowing the use of a smaller 10 tooth cog. There is also an updated set of RX880 carbon wheels to compliment the new 12-speed groupset.

Shimano are also launching an updated version of the RX600 groupset. The new RX610 version also gets a boost to 12 speed and features a number of the same technical improvements as its more expensive sibling via some great trickle-down engineering. There are both 1x12 and 2x12 options available. The main differences are that the chainsets come with slightly smaller chainrings, there isn’t a left-hand dropper-post lever available and all the RX610 components have a slight increase in weight over the pricier RX820 versions.

You can find all the details of the new 12-speed GRX groupsets on the Shimano gravel website.