[Closed] chainsets - why the huge difference in price?

bragging right s? willy waving ?

my thoughts exactly oldfart

deore is king............ 8)

your pedals still in place 😆

Weight, shifting, finish, stiffness etc.

Bit like saying what's the difference between handlebars, or seatposts, or cassettes, or chains, or frames, or wheels, you get the idea...

Junkyard, no! re tapped the hole but still came loose 👿

Njee20 no i don't see the difference - sorry.

You don't see the difference between something which weighs 1200g, and something which weighs 700g? That's a bit odd.

Whether or not the difference is worth the price variation is something else, but there is a difference.

The most expensive you could find was £500?

materials used i.e. carbon v steel/aluminium, weight, stiffness, looks. Whats the difference between tyres is prob a better Q. They're all rubber, schwalbe thin-plys are twice the price of maxxis 2-plys, the more expensive aren't always the lightest, better traction etc etc

no i meant with an expensive set your pedals stay in 😆
PS my rear rim is dinged so you can take the pi55 back.

njee20 see op

Well you more or less answered your own question then!

I don' think the analogy between chainsets and tyres holds. Tyres have many ride-significant characteristics in terms of grip, puncture resistance, compliance etc etc. A chainset just goes round and shifts gear. My £20 M440 is still doing fine after 9 months. Sure it doesn't look very bling, but I don't spend much time looking at it. To spend more would be a waste.

jeez must be getting old i agree with sfb

njee20 at 14.5 stone not too fussed about saving a few grammes.

jeez must be getting old i agree with sfb

does that mean all old people have to agree ????

only the senile ones?

njee20 at 14.5 stone not too fussed about saving a few grammes.

I think the point is that whilst you might not be, plenty of people are bothered by it, hence why you have chainsets that cost 10x as much as some other chainsets.

FWIW, I don't see the point of spending any more than about £100 myself, considering the bearings and chainrings are only going to wear out anyway. But considering £100 gets you something that's under 800g all in, when if you spend 5x that you're probably only saving another 100g or so, I think £100 is where the law of diminishing returns starts to come into play. Others will disagree though.

All that I've said is regarding chainsets for use on general XC/trail bikes though. Totally different for DH/Freeride, as the more you spend it's generally about guaranteed strength than it is lightweight. Saints are heavier than many entry level chainsets for instance, but you won't break em!

"14.5 stone not too fussed about saving a few grammes."

Why not ? A lighter bike is better to ride. Some cranks are alot lighter - for example XTR cranks are some 100 grams lighter than XT - which in itself isn't a huge saving but do that all over the bike and it adds up.

Take it too another level, THM Clavicula cranks which i doubt most people on this forum are even aware about are some 200 grams lighter than XTR. It may be a "small" saving - but it adds up.

I wouldn't mind saving a good few grammes - however the cost per gramme saved is very high on cranksets and I am unconvinced about much difference in function

if his bike was any lighter he would just have longer to wait for the rest of us at the top of hills.

which in itself isn't a huge saving but do that all over the bike and it adds up.

sounds like you've been sold :o)

Tyres have many ride-significant characteristics in terms of grip, puncture resistance, compliance etc etc. A chainset just goes round and shifts gear.

Very much so, but just because you spend more on a tyre doesn't mean you'll get more grip, puncture resistance, compliance etc etc. A tyre also believe it or not just goes round and is to many people a prefernece thing whereas generally speaking a more expensive chainset will be lighter, be stiffer etc etc

This is like the Audi Skoda argument. The people running Deore are poor and the people running XTR are considerably richer.

The people running Deore are poor

or mean (as in my case)

What if you own a 1999 Audi and someone else owns a 2009 Skoda??

or not stupid!

I own a skoda and an XTR chainset.

So people who don't buy £20 chainsets are stupid now?

Again, just because you don't want to spend the money/can't tell the difference doesn't mean others feel the same.

If it meant compromising on another part of my bike I wouldn't splash the cash on an XTR chainset, but I'll buy the lightest that still works and is sensibly priced (subjective I know!), as I will for every component.

And what's wrong with the tyre analogy? I genuinely doubt most people (me included) can tell the difference between steel and kevlar versions of the same tyre, save for the weight, they often cost twice as much, but I don't own any steel bead tyres, they're heavier!

[i]so apart from less weight wtf do you get for more money? [/i]

Materials, manufacturing tolerance/process, exclusivity, perception etc etc.

look at this way, all groupset manufacturers have a range of products that match depth of pockets, now, it may very well be the case that Deore will perform (in most places) almost indistinguishably from XTR, but if Shimano priced XTR anywhere near Deore, they'd devalue the entire brand. XTR is the best, ergo it has to cost the most. It follows then that XTR sets the benchmark for the start of top end products, thusly to make the claim that something is "better" than XTR it has to cost more.

As long as the punter's happy, wors, you don't have to worry about it, OK?

my mk2 XTR chainset was signifacantly lighter and nicer to use than current deore. And by nicer to use, i mean there is no noticable flex in the rings when shifting, hooks up better between rings - just nicer thats all. Current XTR is very nice and light, but performance in shifting is not any different to current XT in what i could feel.

i mean there is no noticable flex in the rings when shifting

if you can notice that it must be very boring riding surely?

My mate came into some money and bought a blinged up xtr bike, it didn't improve his riding much. He wanted it, so bought it. Now it's all starting to wear out he has replaced it with xt.
You buy what you want, or can afford at the time.
Some people like bling others don't!