A friend’s just costed up new running gear (chain, derailleur, shifter and cassette) at a certain Chain Reaction and the XT stuff was cheaper. How so? Seems odd to me. Is it because they sell more XT so can cut costs on that range more?

Old 785 vs new 7000 by any chance?

Older, clearance, different?? Less popular version in XT, bigger volumes, lots of reasons

CRC appear to be doing a clearout post wiggle take over

SLX generations tend to arrive after XT so it might be newer and therefore hotter. Last I looked an SLX 11 speed rear mech was basically the same price as an XT, just because of discounting patterns.

Last time I looked (a week or two ago) M7000 SLX cassette was significantly more than an M8000 cassette of the same ratio.

I ended up using a chainsaw file to re profile the 42t and 13t cogs instead.

Edit: Now the M7000 is £2 cheaper than the M8000.

Alot of XT M8000 stock was bought when the Yen was 180, now its 130, much like it was when SLX arrived so SLX bought now (by shops etc) costs more than XT bought a year back.

When I went 1×11 just after the launch of the M8000 XT, I found Evans were selling the XTR version of the shifter for less than the XT version. When I asked why, the chap serving me said that XT was currently the ‘must have’ groupset and was hugely popular, with them struggling to keep it in stock, meaning that nobody was discounting it at that point. Apparently most of their customers like to match components when something launches and would not consider mix and match, even if it was with a higher groupset.
I paid c£60 for my XTR shifter compared to the c£75 the XT was selling for everywhere else at the time

Apparently most of their customers like to match components when something launches and would not consider mix and match, even if it was with a higher groupset.
I paid c£60 for my XTR shifter compared to the c£75 the XT was selling for everywhere else at the time

Yeah but a little bit of you dies inside every time you change gear 😉

Yeah but a little bit of you dies inside every time you change gear

I offset that with my pleasure at the discomfort felt by the OCD chaps I ride with (the mismatched coloured spacers, chainring bolts and coloured cable ends adds to the pain/pleasure quotient)

There was a dude at the glentress 7 a couple of years back that seemed genuinely bothered that I had a saint shifter on my scandal.

discomfort felt by the OCD chaps I ride with

Put mis-match branded tyres on and they might just kill you 😆

Put mis-match branded tyres on and they might just kill you

Currently a Specialized and a continental
to make it even worse, I am not running a set of wheels because one is currently a spare due to the original needing some repair work

Ben is spot on (apart from the use of alot which should be a lot). Exchange rates have a lot to answer for. Also there’s a lot less surplus OE kit floating about when a groupset is new. Give it a few months and there will be a surplus that wasn’t put on bikes that companies need to turn into cash to buy next year’s components.

My bad it was Jenson not CRC but I’ve just priced up the same kit with CRC and it’s still coming in at $300 AUD (about 230 USD). All M8000 kit not last years stuff.