Problems with Rotor Carbon Q rings and Sram Red crankset

[AlgaeHater]

Has anyone successfully installed a set of Rotor Carbon Q Rings on a Sram Red GXP crankset? I'm trying to install these now and noticed that the drive side crank arm rubs against the large Q Ring. As a result you have to slightly bend the entire chainring to get all of the other bolts to install. This leaves the chainring slightly warped which is obviously not going to work.

Has anyone else run into this issue?

[tabl10s]

Had Quarbon's on two cranks simultaneously(have switched to THM's)with no problems.

[TobinHatesYou]

It’s because the Qarbon chainrings are 5mm thick while most chainrings are 4mm thick. That doesn’t play nice with the hidden-bolt design. I asked Rotor if they would ever address this and they said no...they’re more focused on their own direct-mount system and 5-bolt 110bcd stuff is going to be an afterthought.

[AlgaeHater]

It’s because the Qarbon chainrings are 5mm thick while most chainrings are 4mm thick. That doesn’t play nice with the hidden-bolt design. I asked Rotor if they would ever address this and they said no...they’re more focused on their own direct-mount system and 5-bolt 110bcd stuff is going to be an afterthought.

Thanks for your reply. What's really frustrating is that lists their Q Rings as compatible with Sram Red GXP cranks:

https://rotorbike.com/wp-content/upload ... rt-0.1.pdf

I wonder if this is an issue with the carbon Q Rings only. Do you know if the regular Aero Q rings have the same clearance issue? I may end up returning these and going with Absolute Black rings instead.

[TobinHatesYou]

Regular aero Q-Rings are 4mm thick and will work with Red cranks. The Qarbon rings do work with some “Red” cranks...namely the BB386EVO and Quarq power meter versions because the separate spiders don’t have the same kind of hidden-bolt arrangement.

Be careful with AB rings...they don’t have anti-drop pins.

[AlgaeHater]

Thanks Tobin. I'll try the regular aero Q-Rings and return the carbon ones.

[AlgaeHater]

OK, after a bit of dremel work to shave off 1mm of thickness on the Q ring (the part that was making contact with the crank arm) we have success!

I was a little worried with the front deraileur shifting but after some fine tuning I'm pleased to report that the Q Rings seem to shift better than the factory rings. On the factory rings, the chain would often ride the tops of the teeth when shifting from small to big before settling into the chainring after a few revolutions. The chain seems to settle in place faster on the Q Rings.

I'm looking forward to spinning up some hills. I have an oval Wolftooth chainring on my gravel bike and like the feeling spinning the cranks when climbing in the saddle.

[Jugi]

I was a little worried with the front deraileur shifting but after some fine tuning I'm pleased to report that the Q Rings seem to shift better than the factory rings. On the factory rings, the chain would often ride the tops of the teeth when shifting from small to big before settling into the chainring after a few revolutions. The chain seems to settle in place faster on the Q Rings.

I'd say that was a fine tuning issue you had with the factory rings which most likely stems from FD's attitude. You can consider yourself lucky, if you found a very good FD position for the Q rings without any extra effort or test riding.