[Closed] Chains and casettes

Having had an SRAM PowerLink chain on my cross bike I'd never have another Shimano one, the ease of cleaning it is great and increases its life. New SRAM cassette and chaion going on my MTB this weekend.

would you expect an expensive cassette and chain to outlast a heavier but less costly set?

IME, not significantly.

Get a connex chain. Not too expensive, comes with the best quick link ever made, and they run really well.

XT cassettes are nice, and you can find bargains.

Nor mine, chewed an XTR chain and cassette (that came with a bike purchase) in the same amount of time that I chew up any other

Just got a 73 chain and 970 cassette for 35 quid so that will do.

SRAM for the chain and Shimano for the cassette

I assume your only shopping for 9 speed here;

SRAM/Connex/KMC chains, Never buy Shimano chains anymore, do however go for a Shimano Cassette though. I'd suggest a Deore but an HG61 rather than the older HG50, marginaly lighter, no point bothering with XT or XTR unless your after the weight loss, wear rates have more to do with use and maintenance than how much cash you throw at the part... IMHO of course.

Yup 9 Speed only.

I seem to get through chains and cassettes pretty fast so any good deals would be welcomed.

Just worn a KMC chain out but on the plus side it never snapped on me.
Srams do snap on me.
Shimanos have both snapped and worn out (even XTR)
Wippermann look good but are stupid money.
Expensive cassettes just dont seem to be all that strong and hard wearing so at 18 quid the Sram970 looks a good bet could try the deore I suppose.
Haven't pressed buy quite yet so do keep them coming.

There is an issue of how the cassette interacted with your freehub body. I.e. an XT cassette is much better on my Hope Pro 2 as the
Interacting metals are the same. Cheaper ones tent to chew it up. But that might not be an issue with your hub.

+1 SRAM chain.

I think Shimano cassettes last slightly longer than SRAM but it's more of a gut feeling than a fact, TBH. Shimano do shift a bit better though. As for more expensive ones lasting longer..... Hmmm. I don't really think so. Not by much anyway. Put it this way, for the same price as one expensive set, you can have 2 cheap ones...... And that WILL last longer! 🙂

I've had bad experiences with XTR cassettes, I owned one that died in about 100 miles use. I returned it and it was replaced and that died in a bit longer time, about 200 miles. NEver touched them since, stuck with LX/XT level items, at least when they die they are not stupidly expensive.

Get an Alfine hub instead.

Well unless it would last twice as long the expensive option at twice the price doesn't make sense and I don't think anyone would ever claim it would last twice as long.

XT is favoured on Al alloy freehubs as it has a nice alloy spider for the larger cogs which stops the freehub getting damaged by thin sprockets biting in.

the SLX is a tad heavier (20g) and has one less cog on the spider but is about 1/3rd cheaper. About £28 from Rose bikes + postage.