Like the sound of the bomb proofness of the SLX shadow rear mech. How much difference to XT (tart mode should say I prefer the look as it’s all black)in shifting crispness.

Should also say im looking at this as now fed up of trashing (twice now the carbon rear cage on my XTR M972 👿

I noticed a big difference when changing from slx to xt – although this was partly down to the xt shifters being much nicer.
Ran slx for over a year though with no issues. I tend to think that the shifting crispness comes from good shifters and new cables rather than the mech these days. (IMHO)

(older stuff – haven’t bought new for a while):

I think shifters govern the niceness of shifting much more than mechs – and they don’t break as often. Cheap mech, nice shifter here.

(isn’t there supposed to be a weak bit near the mount bolt on “all” shadow mechs? – I don’t use ’em so no experience)

XTR shifters so that shold be good. The weak point I have got/found is the bottom of the carbon cage. Catch it and it falls aprt splinters !

Sherly there is more that they can do with a mech to make it shift better/move smoother than they can with a shifter. All a shifter needs to do is essentially pull(or release) a set amount of cable for each depression of a button. The mech has a much more complicated job.

SHADOW MECHS are a bloody useless, horrible waste of time, effort and materials. Go into bike shops and ask the mechanics. Do not waste your money on one. Get an older style anything-mech before you get one of those.

Why do you say that billyboy? I have 9speed ‘conventional’ XT on one bike, and shadow XT on the other. I really wasn’t expecting to notice any difference, but I’ve got to say the shadow shifting is much crisper…

SHADOW MECHS are a bloody useless, horrible waste of time, effort and materials. Go into bike shops and ask the mechanics

Err, why? I’ve not had the slightest problem and nor do I know anyone that has.

That said, I’m a good mechanic and I’ve been setting mechs up for 20+ years without issue….. 🙂

Same here no problem with the shifting set up the only issue is the carbon cage is fragile.

Only 2 differences between XT and SLX rear mechs:

1, Weight of whole assembly favours XT by approx 40 grams.

2, XT has proper bearings in the jockeys (ceramic and cartridge) whereas SLX has very cheap-n-nasty bushes that wear much faster than the teeth on the wheel.

Budget solution is buy SLX and a set of BBB cartridge jockeys (£10).

PaulD

I have both, and there’s little between them. If anything, the return spring on the XT is looser than a clown’s pocket so doesn’t shift to the bottom cog, but the SLX doesn’t suffer from this.

More difficult to set up.

Bad wire routing. Look where the wire ends up!

Poorer shifting.

Noticeable lack of longevity compared to normal mechs. In theory they should be more out of the way and therefore last longer, but in practice they seem to require replacing more often.

Issues when used with SRAM cassettes.

I base that on my own personal use of several XT shadow mechs and years working as a bike mechanic wrestling with the things since they were introduced, trying to make them seem good on bikes we are trying to sell people.

I can’t say that I’ve yet had much dealings with the new 10 speed systems though.

Have I found the first fellow bike mechanic who actually likes them?

When I got my new bike I’m sure the old bike with Alivio shifters on a Deore mech shifted better than the new one with an XT shadow and deore shifters

Issues when used with SRAM cassettes.

Such as ?, please elaborate.

I run just this set up on one of my bikes.

running mine for the last 18 months with no problem at all.

SLX and a set of BBB cartridge jockeys

+1.

billyboy – Member

Bad wire routing. Look where the wire ends up!

Don’t you double the wire back around the bolt so it faces outwards again? I do, and haven’t had any issues with the cable at all.