Is it just me or are people getting a bit bored by all the SRAM XX coverage…

yer it looks nice and 2×10 is a great idea, but the way people are writing about in the mags (all of them) you would think SRAM had managed to get a man on mars..

2×10 is not a new idea already on 2×11 in the road bike world and here in mtb land plenty of people already deal witht he concept of only two chainrings in the many double and bash setups..

grumble grumble

It's all just a little bit of history repeating…

Mind you, they have allegedly knocked a pound of the weight of the equivalent XTR set-up, so no doubt lots of weight weenie racers will be spunking all over it.

It'll be the same next year with the new XTR groupset, it's only dull because you've seen all the coverage on t'interweb first.

Easy solution… don't buy magazines.

Marketing and freebies for lazy journolists, it's the way of things.

how having 2×10 is ANY better than having 8×3 i fail to see.
when will people see that the number of gears you have makes NO difference, just the extents of the range, and how close the ratios are if you a roadie or DHer.

3×8, 12-28. thats "how I roll", and will continue to "roll" for as long as i can get hold of the parts

11:32 is for girls 😉

I think it would suit my steel 456 and save a bit of weight 😆

i'm on 1×9 33t x 11-34 on my 29er

@Olly –

11:32 is for girls

…or those with knees they value…

The point here is that triples came about when mtbs were 5 or 6 speed so to get any decent range of ratios without massive jumps between gears, a triple was necessary.

Now that we're up to 9 or 10 speed, you can get near enough the full range (you normally lose the very top gear, maybe two but other than on the road, how much use does that really get?) and the right sized gaps between gears with a double so why would you then choose to have an extra chainring? Why don't we run 'quadruples' (I know they were available for a while way back in the early 90s but…) or 'quintuples'.

24/36 and 11-34 for me. A bit lighter, works perfectly and has better log clearance. Why would I go back to a triple?

how having 2×10 is ANY better than having 8×3 i fail to see.

-Lighter
-More usable gear combinations
-Better chainline
-Reduced Q-Factor

And so on…

I swear this article wasn't up when I originally posted…

2011 XTR

tis borin'

2×10 you say….tell me more!!

1 x 14 for me.

Not clever enough to cope with more than one changer.

I just want the new SRAM roadie shifters and paul's addapters 🙂

The R2C ones? Nah, not convinced by them on an MTB.

how having 2×10 is ANY better than having 8×3 i fail to see.

-Lighter
-More usable gear combinations
-Better chainline
-Reduced Q-Factor[/quote]

However it also means narrower cassette sprockets & chains which will invariably wear significantly faster & be more likely to fail in the off-road context.

Well it's aimed at racey types, who will likely accept the increased wear and (still tiny and largely unproven) risk of a chain snapping, for the aforementioned advantages. When it filters down to £50 Halfords specials you may have a point 😉

However it also means narrower cassette sprockets & chains which will invariably wear significantly faster & be more likely to fail in the off-road context.

This gets trotted out with each addition of a sprocket. I remember it with 8 speed, 9 speed and now 10. I've never found any real difference despite doing most of my riding in less than dry conditions – they all wear at the same sort of rate (at least, I've never once noticed any significant difference between different bikes) and I've never had any issues with shifting in mud since about the mid 90s when I started using a full length cable outer. Similarly I've got friends with 10 speed cross bikes which have been ridden through horrendous conditions with no obvious issues.

However it also means narrower cassette sprockets

9 of the 10 "sprockets" are made from steel so should last better. Amazing tech really.

XX Cassette

Should last slightly longer than XTR, but on the majority of cassettes they're all steel anyway. Not that it's ever the ti sprockets that wear out on my XTR cassettes! And the XX is just crazy expensive to replace!