I have

8 speed racer

9 speed hardtail- needs new chainrings- on a 5 bold chain set so needs whole chain set

9 speed full sus

10 speed dh bike.

Is it worth it? Its £120 for a 4 bold 9 speed cahin set or about the same for a set of rings but if i commit to it, will i just be in the same boat when the other bike needs some new bits?

Or is it time to stock pile while its cheap ish and still available then change to 10 speed in the future?

Surely a 10sp chain set will work fine with a 9 speed rear setup?

Well I went 10 on one bike recently which gave me a pile of spares for the other,9sp, bike so it will be a long time before I need to seriously consider 10ing the 9. Its worth picking up stuff when you see it eg my lbs recently had 970 chains for £8, I bought 2 and wish I had bought more!

Buy a Deore chainset for £50-odd and stick with 9 speed

Or keep an eye on the classifieds

Take advantage whilst it’s getting cheaper imo, there is still 7 speed stuff available so i’m sure 9 speed has a few years of availability left and it’ll only get cheaper.

I’ve just been slowly replacing as and when I needed new bits- Turned one bike 10-speed and put the best 9-speed bits on the other, then gradually switched that one over too, and the commuter’s slowly eating the remains of the 9-speed stuff.

I converted 3 of my bikes and saved all the 9 speed parts for my Mrs 9 speed bike. So far she has enough spares now for a few years.

So your after just new rings? Just get 9 or 10 speed machined jobs or lower end shimano from interwebs, a 9 speed chain will run just fine on 10 speed rings, and the other way around it will probably run fine too!

Just built up a winter hybrid thing out of junk parts, tiagra 10×2 but on a 7 speed freehub only 9 of the 10 cogs actually fit, and even then, I find for commuting purposes I am just constantly chainging gear as they are so close to each other (12-30t block).

I find 10 and 11 speed much more highly strung, especially those that have a lot of internally routed cables, so you do have to adjust the gears more often than an 8 or a 9 speed setup, although shimano have just changed the pull ratio on their latest offerings which might help things?

Shimano 10 speed packages come up from time to time for (relative) pennies…i recently took a cobbled together 1×9 system off my other half’s bike and replaced it with a full Deore 2×10 for £145 from Ribble, the quality is great and it works flawlessly.
Nothing against 9-speed in itself (my other bike is a 2×9 set-up) but the single ring set-up the bike came with was awful, it would drop the chain, ghost shift etc etc….and apart from anything else the limited range was a pig on hills.

I’m in no hurry to go 11-speed and will change from my last 9-speed bike if and when it breaks only….and then i’ll go 10-speed as its so cheap at the moment.

Provided your set-up gives you the range you want/need then it doesnt matter whether it’s 8-speed, 9-speed, 10-speed, 11-speed etc

My current plan is to stick with 9 speed until it’s all knackered and 11 speed trickles down to XT. I’m going to skip 10 speed altogether.

After switching from 175 to 170mm cranks, I’ve actually got spare 9 speed chainset kicking around.

I am not changing to 1 x anything so I wont be changing

Possibly if everything breaks at the same time but it is just more gears rather than a bigger range [ and even that requires 2 x or you have less].

My cranks are 5 bolt, I can’t find any new 5 bolt chain rings.

The shifters are starting to be a bit iffy

The rear mech is starting to look a bit worn after having the chian wrapped round it a couple of times

All I actually NEED is a 32 middle ring, but…

Onzadog what have you got going?

I didn’t think 9 speed would run on 10 speed rings, maybe I’ll use this to get some 180mm xt cranks 🙂

I had no problems using 10 speed rings on a 9 speed chain/shifters etc. Couldn’t tell any difference tbh

AFAIK 9 & 10 speed rings are identical. The only difference is that the gears are closer together on a 10 speed cassette to get them all to fit on a standard freehub. Therefore the side plates on a 10 speed chain need to be thinner to cope with this. Hence a 10 speed chain will “work” with a 9 speed system while a 9 speed chain would be too thick to use on a 10 speed system. As far as the chainrings and gears on the rear cassette you can chop and change to your hearts content. And while not perfect a 9 or 10 speed front mech will work with either system too.

When will it stop 12 /13 speed ? Do we really need another cog added all the time ?

Deore chainset/BB will be cheaper than rings anyway.

XT chainset with 2×10 rings and BB are £86 at CRC at the mo with the extra 10% COMP code

All my bikes currently run on 9 speed. Nowt wrong with it and whilst bits are still available I’ll keep running it. Besides, getting fitter will make me go faster, not an additional cog at the back end of my bike.