Shimano XT / SLX 12-Speed

mik_git

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Well just discovered that Mavic are now doing microspline, so I'm sorted (I know, I know, but for some reason I love Mavic stuff). Just need to decide, go 12sp now, or wait X amount of time and buy a new bike...hmmm...
 

mik_git

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Also sometimes when I'm pondering stuff (like instead of working)... I wonder, since cassettes have gotten huge cogs, would it hav ebeen fine to go instead of a 10, keep the 11 and just go bigger on the big cog. It would weigh more and looks silly, but a 55 or something and keep a bigger front ring, get the same ratios but keep the same freewheel.
 

Chriso_29er

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Was just about to do a full XT M8000 upgrade on my trail bike and transfer all my M7000 onto my hardtail.
To be honest between the geoblocking crap and now this microspline bullshit, I'll just keep running both bikes as they are. Will be looking very favorably towards a 3rd party upgrade in the near future. Would rather that than even buying consumables from these pricks.
 

Nambra

Definitely should have gone to specsavers
I wonder if the 51 tooth granny cog on the Shimano 12-speed is necessary as the next gear down is 45 - ie. an odd tooth count, and the ramping works better if it’s an even difference in tooth counts between gears. Eagle goes from 42 to 50, maybe 50t made the chain ramps work better on the big cogs. Haven’t checked Sunrace, e13, kcnc, Leonardo etc. to see if they do the same.

Of course it could just be bragging rights.
 

rowdyflat

chez le médecin
Just an arms race and like all arms races its stupid.
You would need a 38T front to take advantage of a 51 T ,its heavy, would bend with cutouts and liable to be clunky with 6 tooth jumps !!
Dumb dumb dumb.
 

Calvin27

Eats Squid
I wonder, since cassettes have gotten huge cogs, would it hav ebeen fine to go instead of a 10, keep the 11 and just go bigger on the big cog.
at 11-50t we are already looking at over 450% range. That's already more range than a road double running 11-34 at the back.
 

mik_git

Likes Bikes and Dirt
at 11-50t we are already looking at over 450% range. That's already more range than a road double running 11-34 at the back.
yeah not really interested in going 1x till we get to at least 500%, 510% even better. Personal wants and needs.
 

cokeonspecialtwodollars

Fartes of Portingale
Was just about to do a full XT M8000 upgrade on my trail bike and transfer all my M7000 onto my hardtail.
To be honest between the geoblocking crap and now this microspline bullshit, I'll just keep running both bikes as they are. Will be looking very favorably towards a 3rd party upgrade in the near future. Would rather that than even buying consumables from these pricks.
Has anyone seen Zaf in here yet? Seriously if they keep this shit up my next build may just end up with a gearbox.
 

shiny

Go-go-gadget-wrist-thingy
Feel as though Shimano dropped the ball with this release. Just seem to be chasing OEM to get the group sets out there. If they really wanted to move units surely they would be allowing everyone to use the Microspline standard.

With so many other smaller brands releasing product like Box, Sunrace, Microshift. TRP have been testing product for a while, Rotor has their hydraulic system coming soon and the Geoblock in place there is lots of options out there.

Be interesting to see how long it takes for Shimano to Licence the standard if at all.
 

ozzybmx

taking a shit with my boobs out
Feel as though Shimano dropped the ball with this release. Just seem to be chasing OEM to get the group sets out there. If they really wanted to move units surely they would be allowing everyone to use the Microspline standard.
Not licensing a new cassette interface they are trying to get mainstream and this worldwide geoblocking joke... maybe they are trying to send the business under.
 

The Duckmeister

Has a juicy midrange
Another big advantage of 1x is getting rid of the front derailleur.
front derailleurs are good but high maintenance to keep from rubbing + shifting well
Bullshit. Yes there's a bit more precision in the initial setup, but once tuned they're far less needy of attention than rear derailleurs. Well, at least Shimano FDs are like that. SRAM could never build a decent front shifting system which is why they invested in mucketing instead of engineering & pushed 1x...
 

The Duckmeister

Has a juicy midrange
Also sometimes when I'm pondering stuff (like instead of working)... I wonder, since cassettes have gotten huge cogs, would it hav ebeen fine to go instead of a 10, keep the 11 and just go bigger on the big cog. It would weigh more and looks silly, but a 55 or something and keep a bigger front ring, get the same ratios but keep the same freewheel.
Nah, you'd need to rig a little shovel under the bottom bracket to dig a trench for the rear derailleur to run through.


Seriously though, given this is second & third tier stuff, there is nothing new that wasn't released with XTR last year, except the hub internals (and that's just a simplified version of what was proposed with XTR).

Handling of Microspline (and indeed why they even went to the trouble of designing it, given they already have a 9T-compatible hub design) I will admit is baffling. The standard HG-type cassette body is by far the industry dominant spec, because literally everybody has a licence to use it, even arch roadie rival Campagnolo. So being picky about who gets to produce Microspline makes no sense if they want widespread adoption of their Stuff. On the flip side, although SRAM granted the XD freewheel driver pattern an open licence, they patented the cassette design to go on it, so anyone else who wants to make a XD-compatible cassette has to develop a new way of making it fit..... So Shimano basically said "fuck you SRAM, if we have to make a new cassette design, we might as well make its own cassette body pattern". Which as I said above makes no sense given they've had a 9T-compatible design kicking around for years......
 

rowdyflat

chez le médecin
Maybe I have trouble cos shimano front mtbike derailleurs are optimised for certain triple gear ratios so my 20/30/38 doesnt work as well as 22/32/40 ?
 

ChrisJC

Likes Bikes and Dirt
Geezus, xt is expensive! How can Shitmano justify a price hike of more than double ove 8000? RD-M8100 is 192 Euro on Hibike!
 

Calvin27

Eats Squid
So being picky about who gets to produce Microspline makes no sense if they want widespread adoption of their Stuff.
Maybe it's to fend off the Suntours of the world eating into their geoblocked cassettes.

Business is not hard. Make a good product sell it at a fair value. Instead we have these muppets making products on the fumes of marketing and then resorting to bs practices to turn a profit.

I fear the MTB world is fast turning into windsurfing, almost all of the business is geared towards the $10k bike nowadays.
 

Mr Crudley

Glock in your sock
I fear the MTB world is fast turning into windsurfing, almost all of the business is geared towards the $10k bike nowadays.
I fear the same. I think the bike industry is also used to having their upswing peaks (BMX->MTB->hybrid->29->FatBikes->CX etc) are would always be looking for the next one but long term consumers are also harder to impress now too.

I love bike pr0n as much as the next guy and have throw my $$$ at the lords of bicycles plenty of times, but it often looks like not what it is worth but more so what the market is willing to pay. Smaller shops manufacturers are probably going to get more marginalised in future over the larger players with bulk buying OEM clout and geoblocking will have the consumer limited in one way or another.

If you really enjoy riding though, you will ride anything you have after the price tags have been forgotten. I rode Justin Timberline my $30 Gumtree find and didn't have a bad time either.
 
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