I realise I can't mix rear mechs and shifters due to their shift ratio

BUT, if say I had XO shifters and rear mech and was hoping to run them with an XTR M960 chainset and XT cassette. Would that work or should I flog the XO for more XT/XTR stuff?

Any advice much appreciated…

Runs fine. Not used X0,. but ran X9 on xt cassette and cranks for ages and worked a treat.

xt chainset and casette will work perfectly. i would keep the xo shifters and rear mech, they are much better than xt in my opinion. I would however go xt for front mech.

Yer, i agree on the front mech as well, sram can't make decent f mechs

The spec of the moment seems to be
x0 shifters
x0 rear mech
xtr front mech
xtr chainset
xtr cassette

combine this with 4 pawl hub design xt or hope and you have a super fast shifting gears with an almost instant drive pick up.

This will also work on a budget
x7 shifters
x7 rear mech
slx front mech
slx chainset
slx cassette

slx hubs for micro rachet design…

there seems to be a consensus…. anyway B-0

Zone

Great advice thanks fellas, was expecting everyone to say scrap the shram and buy more XTR which is not what I was hoping for…!

I'll build on, with an XT front mech of course!!

if you dont mind the noise hope hubs are great. xt hubs have a habit of working loose and can cause all sorts of problems if you dont notice soon enough.

Superglue on the locknuts solves the working loose problem, but you do need to keep an eye on them as it's not a permanent fix. Wee bit of a pain but not a big deal as long as you aren't averse to a bit of maintenance.

Zone : Why XTR Cassette over SRAM (PG-990)?

Other than that I'm on the Zeitgeist …

I concur with sailor74..

We have to slack off xt hubs and wheels from new as they are too tight and end up with a damaged adjustment cone and then you get the play . We then lock the cone properly which helps.This is an issue with Ultegra hubs too. They both have a finer adjust difficulty due to the size of the bearings and axle.

The bling version would chris king if you can afford the hub service tool as well ..

The quicker drive pick up is something you will miss when/if you go back to standard three pawl or shimano hubs… you keep hitting stuff instead of clearing it…. your timing is condition by then. It drives you nuts.

Zone

I've never found SRAM cassettes to shift as well as Shimano ones. PG990's more akin to XT anyway, in cost and weight.

Basically as long as your shifters and rear mech match you can do whatever you want elsewhere.

We have found sram to be soft.. that's what feed back we have had and seen on regulars bikes coming back for a few years. They may have improved since!!! But we stopped using them!

XTR cassettes with correct chain management can give impressive mileage and the smoothest shift… IMHO! I use nothing else!

We had until quite recently some old old old xt 8 speed cassettes… heavy!… but just looked and felt like they where made of much better and harder stuff.

Zone