Shimano 12-speed

[thelawnet]

Is now a thing. http://reviews.mtbr.com/shimano-xtr-12- ... ed-to-know

10-speed arrived on XTR in 2010, 2014 11-speed, now 2018 has 12-speed.

They only just came out (2017) with a new 10-speed Deore groupset (M6000), but presumably that will go 11-speed next year, along with a 12-speed XT.

The main innovation is a 10-51t cassette. SRAM only have 10-50t, so this is amusing one-upmanship. You can also get a 10-45t in both 11 and 12-speed, but OEMs don't want this, it's all 1x10-51t.

They have also come up with some marketing nonsense whereby cassettes are now 'hyperglide+', which is a lot of marketing guff that means that the ramp pattern between rings is smoother than before. Because for the last 30 years, they've been selling utter rubbish, obviously.

It all costs £££stupid (around $1400 for the drivetrain, plus at least $250 for hubs, though there might be a slightly cheaper freehub body upgrade
option) but perhaps the XT version will be more affordable.

Presumably this means a 10-speed Alivio will follow fairly shortly. And then a 13-speed groupset so you can get back to reasonable chainring spacing.

A load of overpriced bling for now, but perhaps it will trickledown eventually.

(Note btw that spending ££££ on these ridiculous cassettes still gets you less range than a 3x9 or 3x10 system that could cost less than the price of the cassette for an entire bike.)

[Bsteel]

The big change is the move away from the HG standard freehub body to a new 23 splined version.

[thelawnet]

The cassettes:

10-12-14-16-18-21-24-28-33-39-45
10-12-14-16-18-21-24-28-32-36-40-45
10-12-14-16-18-21-24-28-33-39-45-51,

So the usual thing of cheaping out by making the three cassettes almost identical.

The current 11-speed:

11-13-15-17-19-21-24-28-32-37-46

which has the ridiculous 37-46 jump (Sunrace do sell a 11-13-15-18-21-24-28-32-36-40-46). So nothing as lazy as that, but the 10-45 12-speed certainly doesn't look all that appealing compared to the 10-51.

There is no 3x option, only 38x28 or a single 38, 36, 34, 32, 30t. If you go for 38x28, the front shifter has only one lever, so you have to pull or push it, as appropriate, to change, there is absolutely no 3x option.

[Brucey]

23T microspline;



Interestingly the MBR article says that you might be able to upgrade a DT swiss hub with a new freehub body, but no mention of upgrading older shimano hubs to accept the new spline. Duh... this is exactly the sort of thing that is liable to drive your customers away, isn't it?

Also it seems a bit weird that they didn't (say) just adopt a 19T spline that was based on the old 10T spline; this would allow newer cogsets some limited compatibility with older freehub bodies.

Hey ho... this is all rather academic; the chances of me ever buying any of this stuff is about nil... it isn't just the ludicrous cost, I genuinely don't see the point.

cheers

[peetee]

I see a lot of road bikes through the workshop with 2x gearing and a high percentage of them have little to no wear on one of the chainrings. I am convinced that this is a general trend amongst those new to the sport and that product development gurus have seen the link to the monied sector and that has encouraged the development of 1x system as the new must have. I can see how it can appeal. Experienced riders honed to the right gear for every situation
May not recognise that gear shifting is non intuitive in that for one shifter a particular action give you a higher gear and for the other shifter its the opposite.

[thelawnet]

The enforced obsolescence of expensive previous year tech is interesting.

Shimano went through some years of saying 'sorry we're now on n+1-speed, every part of your n-speed setup is obsolete'.

But now they've come out with a new 11-speed that's completely incompatible with the old 11-speed and a 12-speed that's compatible with the new 11-speed.

The 11-speed 10-45t is literally the 12-speed with the 51t removed.

So you can either get up that hill, or you can save a Mars Bar (60g) and have it lopped off.

Oh, the chain is shorter as well, so there's less chain slap. Apparently 10-51t is compromised. Who would have thought it?

[Cugel]

23T microspline;



Interestingly the MBR article says that you might be able to upgrade a DT swiss hub with a new freehub body, but no mention of upgrading older shimano hubs to accept the new spline. Duh... this is exactly the sort of thing that is liable to drive your customers away, isn't it?

Also it seems a bit weird that they didn't (say) just adopt a 19T spline that was based on the old 10T spline; this would allow newer cogsets some limited compatibility with older freehub bodies.

Hey ho... this is all rather academic; the chances of me ever buying any of this stuff is about nil... it isn't just the ludicrous cost, I genuinely don't see the point.

cheers

Ha ha. These are the points:

* Sell new stuff to dafty fashion victims with a must-have craving for the new.
* Add a bit of planned obsolescence just in case one of the dafties tries to meld new with bits of old instead of going all-new.
* Demonstrate that you are "innovative", at least with the marketing.

Unfortunately they sometimes do innovate for real to exude a useful and functional new thing. One must read all the bumph about the daft stuff too, to discover these useful bits.

Cugel, who just bought a new tool to stuff into the tool bottle.

https://www.bikeradar.com/news/article/ ... ers-51538/

[Brucey]

I can see the attraction of 1x for 'toy bikes' like MTBs that are used a few weekends a year and actually don't do that many miles.

But on the road folk are keen to use the same ideas and the result is an inefficient transmission that will typically wear out (several times over) in the life of one set of tyres. The costs of this are verging on the absurd; you can buy a complete bike that is quite good for the retail cost of an 1 x 11 or 1x 12 cassette, chain, and chainring.

If (say) you had a 2x6 system with the same gear ratios, and you only used half the gears, you would only have to change the cassette, and not both chainrings....

cheers

[fastpedaller]

Surely I'm not the only one to conclude that having a sprocket which is smaller than the jockey wheel of a derailleur is utterly absurd?

[thelawnet]

Surely I'm not the only one to conclude that having a sprocket which is smaller than the jockey wheel of a derailleur is utterly absurd?

well they've also innovated by increasing the jockey wheel size, to 13t. Except they already did that about 20 years ago, before going back to 11t.

[reohn2]

Surely I'm not the only one to conclude that having a sprocket which is smaller than the jockey wheel of a derailleur is utterly absurd?

It all became absurd once the sprocket number passed nine IMO.
The very reliable 3x9 system is more flexible with more ratios than 1 or 2 × 10,11,12

[Sweep]

Got to agree with you reohn, as someone who resisted 10 speed when looking for a new expedition bike a couple of years ago and so went for 9.

My only concern about this mad path (am happy for others to follow it) is reduced availability of 9 speed bits.

Anyone see that as a matter of real concern?

[Cyril Haearn]

Seems crazy to keep changing, and so expensive
But people may spend their money as they will, like buying a bike for five figures as mentioned elsewhere, right?

When I started cycling I had five gears, what will bikes look like in 40 years?

[Bsteel]

With the Sylence system it looks like Shimano decided not to follow the trend for noisier freehubs. An old patent may give some insight into the new design.

https://bikerumor.com/2016/01/26/shiman ... -dura-ace/

[thelawnet]

Got to agree with you reohn, as someone who resisted 10 speed when looking for a new expedition bike a couple of years ago and so went for 9.

My only concern about this mad path (am happy for others to follow it) is reduced availability of 9 speed bits.

Anyone see that as a matter of real concern?

Not sure tbh.

Shimano still sell 9-speed XT kit, for example. Obviously they can stop doing this at any time, but I don't think this is particularly linked to this new system, if they wanted they could already discontinue the better 9-speed kit, given that there were already 11-speed and 10-speed.

Ultimately I suppose everything gets made obsolete and the relevant parts become 'vintage'.

Looking at the new MTB market, it looks like the issue was that the market was

Shimano 3x7-speed -> Shimano 3x8-speed -> Shimano 2x11-36 (9-speed) -> Deore 1/2x11-42 (10speed) -> SLX 1x11-46 (11-speed) -> GX Eagle 1x10-50 (12-speed) -> X01 Eagle 1x10-50 (12-speed) -> XX1 Eagle (1x10-50) (12-speed)

In other words bikes are being sold based on the cassette range, and nobody is buying Shimano's 11-speed Deore XT, it's either SLX as the entry-level 11-speed, or straight to SRAM.

FWIW:
SLX drivetrain 1x11 £337 RRP reduced to £223 on CRC
XT 1x11 £422 RRP reduced to £279 on CRC
GX Eagle 1x12 £435 RRP reduced to £345 on CRC
X01 Eagle 1x12 RRP £1089 reduced to £760 on Evans
XX1 Eagle around £1200 RRP

Now Shimano have an ultra cynical 10-51t cassette (one article I read gullibly parroted the claim by Shimano that this is not one-upmanship but essential for the ramping on the sprockets hahahahaha), so Shimano hope to re-capture that X01/XX1 Eagle marketshare, and then next year when they release the 12-speed Deore XT, then they can recapture the GX Eagle marketshare as well.

Presumably this will work quite well as anyone spending £5000 on a bike can instantly see that 10-51 is infinitely (or 2%, same thing) superior to 10-50, and will direct their spending accordingly.

This makes 11-speed look a bit silly at the moment, as you've just got SLX at 11-speed, BUT the solution for Shimano is fairly obviously to 'upgrade' Deore to 11-speed and Alivio to 10-speed, so they've then got two groupsets each at 9-speed, 10-speed, 11-speed and 12-speed. With a 'mainstream' 11-speed groupset, they can subtly market to people that their perfectly functioning 9-speed is now horribly out-dated and in need of replacement.