I know it’s been discussed before but the most recent post I can find is more than a year ago…

Are there any 9spd cassettes available with a 36 tooth largest cog – that are also:

(i) reasonably priced (like ActionTech aren’t!) and…

(ii) don’t weigh a ton (like Deore do)

no

Just the Deore one I thought, else its 10 sp

Are you thinking of the price of a full ActionTec cassette? I’ve had no problems with taking the 11 off the top of an XT cassetee and putting a big ActionTec on the other end.

get a cheaper 34 and change the ring on the front ?

No.

If your cassette has died anyway just take the leap and go 10 speed.

http://r2-bike.com/FRM-Kassattenritzel-36D replaces the 11t

Cracking idea that ^ but well on the way to the price of a full cassette

I’m sure you could bodge it by taking a cheap (non-carrier) 10 speed cassette, splitting it down to component parts and using 9 speed spacers off an old 9 speed cassette (and dropping 1 sprocket, obviously. I’m not aware that anyone has tried this, mind.

I took a deore 12-36 one and added an old little ring off some random other cassette. But the rings weren’t quite compatible and it took a fair amount of work to get it to go. And the cassette was as heavy as a truck.

Should still have the bits somewhere though…

Could you not just use the 36t off the deore and not put on the 11 at the other end (use an xt cassette)

deore weight = 120gm heavier than an XT 11-34, I’d just buy Deore, not like it’s actually going to slow you down.

As for “upgrade to 10s” WTF are you made of money?

Stick with 34 and put a smaller granny on. Less than a tenner.

As for “upgrade to 10s” WTF are you made of money?

Seriously? It’s 1/3 the cost of a dropper post that people need, or about the same as a pair of tyres. Your comment befits a recommendation the OP ‘upgrades to XX1’, but not 10 speed.

Really? Chain, cassette, sti and mech for £100? Where are you shopping?

And you get…erm…gears…not the added function of the dropper post.

Reverb costs £180. Where do you get all that stuff for under £60? A bin?

Thanks for replies.

Yes, I’ve thought about going 1 x 10spd – but to do that I’d need to buy a Shifter, Cassette, Chain and rear Derailleur.. so as others have posted it ain’t cheap!

some stuff from sheldons site

Building Custom Cassettes

Shimano wants you to use one of its standard combinations, and offers a wide-enough choice to suit the needs of most cyclists, but you don’t have to if you don’t want to!

Shimano cassettes that don’t use spiders have most of the sprockets held together by 3 small bolts or rivets. These are not essential. Their function is convenience, in allowing the cassette to be installed slightly more easily. To make a custom cassette, you will often need to remove the screws or rivets. Just discard them: they are unnecessary in practice.

Some cassettes use screws with a 4 mm hex head. These can be removed with an adjustable wrench.
Some cassettes use screws with a 2 mm Allen head. These are frequently mistaken for rivets.
The easiest way to remove rivets is to grind off the heads where they protrude from the largest sprocket. I generally do this on a bench grinder.

It is not difficult to customize Shimano cassettes. If you substitute an un-approved cog, Uniglide or Hyperglide, it will still work, but the shift to/from that cog will probably not be as smooth as a Hyperglide shift normally is. Since people managed without Hyperglide for several decades, this shouldn’t scare you off. In particular, if you substitute the top or bottom sprocket, you will only have one shift that isn’t HG; shifts to or from the extreme sprockets tend to be less troublesome than intermediate shifts anyway.

For example, Shimano doesn’t make any true “corncob” (one-tooth-jump) cassettes for time-trialists or flatland riders. In 7 speed, the closest is the J (13/14/15/16/17/19/21).

If you remove the 21-tooth sprocket from a J, you can make it into a 13-19 corncob by buying an 18 to put between the 17 and the 19. Alternately, you could make it into a 12-18 by removing the 19 and the 21, and buying a 12 and an 18.

Similar modifications can be done with other ratios. Generally, the smallest sprocket needs to be one with a built-in spacer, designed for the top-gear position. While you can’t insert or remove a sprocket within a spider module, you can add sprockets on either side of these modules.

For example, if you want a 13-32 9-speed, you can start with a 12-27:

Replace the 12 and 13 with a top-position 13.
Add a spacer and a 32 after the 27
(you don’t need to buy the spacer, because you can use the spacer that came between the original flat 13 and the 14.)

There is no problem mixing 7-speed or 8-speed flat sprockets into a 9-speed cassette, or vice versa. The smaller sizes (11, 12, 13) that feature built-in spacers should ideally be matched, but even this isn’t generally a problem in practice. If you want to get finicky, you can compensate by using a wider spacer next to a narrower sprocket, or vice versa. On the other hand, if you use 9- or 10- speed sprockets with built-in spacers in a 7-or 8-speed cassette, the spacing will be too narrow for the wider chains used with these sprockets. You should use only 10-speed sprockets in a 10-speed cassette, because the internal width of the chain is narrower.