Hi,
Can someone sum up what is the advantage of short, medium and long cage rear mechs?
Are they just personal preference or are they used for specific applications?

Also

I’m confused with the whole quality structure of shimano / sram components.

LXvSLXvDeore etc

X0 V X7 etc

Can someone put them in order of quality?

Cheers
Col

Longer the cage, the more ‘teeth’ it can deal with. But…the ‘flappier’ it will be.

LXvSLXvDeore etc

X0 V X7 etc

Can someone put them in order of quality?

Get onto CRC etc, write the price next to each, and answer your own question!

DrP

Shimano don’t make LX any more, Deore is ranked just below SLX. something like this:

Alivio,Deore, SLX, XT, XTR

X7 is lower than X0

Alvio
LX
Deore
SLX
XTR

X5
X7
X9
X0

Is that correct?

Triple rings = long cage
Double = medium
Single = short

If your running single/double up front you can gain an andvantage with s shorter mech as it will stop the chain flapping about so much. You cant with a triple as you need a longer chain to work on the big ring/granny combo, so you need a longer mech.

The total capacity required from the rear mech is more of an issue than the number of chainrings up front.

i.e. you can use a short cage mech with a double chainset if the range (biggest to smallest in gear inches) isn’t too big.

I have used a short cage XTR mech with a 3 X 9 setup which worked fine apart for big ring and the three granny gears on the cassette, which you wouldn’t use anyway. Will be using a short cage on my 2 X 9 when get round to converting.

LOCOBOY…..theres an XT in there too, just below the XTR (if they still make XT that is?)

Alivio
LX
Deore
SLX
XT
XTR

As other have said, LX is no longer made (well it is, but it’s aimed at touring bikes now), but when it was an MTB groupset it basically fell in the same place as SLX. SLX originally was produced alonside it as a kind of ‘hardcore-ish’ LX.

You’ll still find bits of old LX stock around and it’s perfectly good stuff. Given how technology trickles down, it’s probably the same as ‘current’ Deore.

As for cage lengths on mechs, I happily ran a medium cage XT mech on a 3*9 setup.

I have used a short cage XTR mech with a 3 X 9 setup

Unless you did a cage swap you probably ran a medium cage. There is no short in XTR.

It was a while ago ( 2 or 3 generations ) and definatly a short mech 😉