Trying to hide every last wire and cable on your triathlon bike? Or do you need to easily add aero bars to that Continental Divide flat bar speed machine? The new Zipp VukaShift AXS 90 aerobars completely integrate the wireless shift buttons, battery and transmitter directly into the beams. That means no more BlipBox, which means no more worries about where to mount said BlipBox.Advertisements
Even better, they ship with a set of the new MultiClics so you can position a second set of shifters near your brake levers. They’ll mount directly into any standard bullhorn handlebar with aero extension mounts, and look particularly svelte with that Vuka Aero carbon base bar launched last year.
They’re designed primarily for TT and Triathlon bikes, but you can use them on regular road bikes running Red or Force AXS or flat bar bikes with Eagle AXS…with one very interesting caveat. We’ll get to that in a minute…
The VukaShift AXS 90 includes two sets of buttons. Two fit flush into the bar ends, plus the two MultiClics to place near your brake levers on the bull horns:
The VukaShift AXS 90 pairs with any AXS component, from the Force and Red AXS groups to the Eagle AXS mountain bike rear derailleur and Reverb AXS dropper seatpost. This gives you the flexibility to set up your controls exactly how you want…sort of, keep reading.
You can also plug Blips into the VukaShift AXS 90 arms if you prefer those to the new MultiClics, but you’ll have to buy them separately.
VukaShift prices, specs & weights
- Weight: 390g
- Length: 410mm
- Trimmable: 10mm off front, 90mm off rear
- Evo extension shape w/ 90mm rise
- Eliminates need for BlipBox
- Integrated rubber grips
- Price: $850 / €850 / £750 (including VAT)
- Ships: April 2020
The pairing button and battery access panel are on the insides of each arm. They use a standard, user-replaceable coin cell battery.
They include a removable GPS cycling computer mount that’s compatible with Garmin, Wahoo and Bryton computers (and any others that share those brands’ mounting pattern).
Will VukaShift AXS 90 work on a road bike? Or my mountain bike?
Here’s where things get interesting. First off, unlike the standalone MultiClics that are sold separately, the VukaShift AXS 90 is AXS only. Meaning, it won’t work with the original Red eTap…only with parts labeled AXS. Why? Because there are slight differences in the transmission protocol, and they wanted it to be as fast as possible (and bring it to market quicker), so they limited it to AXS only.
The other “limitation” is that these are designed to be a primary shifter on an AXS bike. Meaning, you can choose to use these as the Master component on a bike, or you can choose to use your AXS drop bar or Eagle AXS shifter as the Master. And a bike can only have one “Master” shifter…and no other shifters.
What does that mean?
It means you can either run your regular shifters, or you can run these. So, for a drop bar bike, you’d probably want to run their standard aerobar extensions and add MultiClics or bar-end Blips.
For a mountain bike, you’d simply remove the Eagle AXS shifter buttons and add the included MultiClic buttons on either side of the bar. Want to also control your Reverb AXS? Just use the AXS app to set a “double click” (meaning, push both buttons simultaneously) to control the dropper seatpost.
