[Closed] Does anybody commute on XTR?

I used to commute on XX group set. Only thing I noticed was I would go through cassettes a lot quicker than friends, would also need to replace my rear tyre a lot which can get expensive as used to run conti black chilli tyres. Nothing else wore out, I would look at getting a spare rear wheel with XT cassette on and a slick-ish tyre.

my commuter is my best bike. When you ride 30 miles a day on it, why not go for best you can afford?

Well, I've been commuting on UST Minions for the last year so I'm fine with stuff like that. I didn't really think about cassette, I think without a doubt I'd be going for an XT or SLX cassette good shout.

I know the XTR front chain rings are very expensive, but my current one lasted a year and a bit, should I expect the same?

meehaja - I agree with that in principle as that's what I do, it was merely whether the XTR would be a silly upgrade over the Saint with commuting in mind.

Only thing I noticed was I would go through cassettes a lot quicker than friends, would also need to replace my rear tyre a lot which can get expensive as used to run conti black chilli tyres.

Sod the tyres, XX cassettes at £320 a pop would do it for me!

I commute intermittently on a Dura Ace equipped road bike, generally from March - October, but periodically over winter as well. As above, commute is 45 miles each way, I enjoy it more (and go faster) on the nicer bike!

I wouldn't buy an XTR groupset purely for commuting, but then I wouldn't buy an MTB for commuting!

I found I wore different sprockets (usually the smaller ones) out when communting, compared to offroading. Similarly I spent more time in the big ring too so they tended to wear more.

Does anybody commute on XTR?

Does commuting on Dura ace count 😀

I commute on Rohloff. 8)

What Ruscle said, get a spare wheel or pair of wheels. Cheaper and easier to store than a complete bike.

I wouldn't buy an XTR groupset purely for commuting, but then I wouldn't buy an MTB for commuting!

Njee- I agree as I wouldn't either, but then this is my bike for eevrything, lets face it 45 minutes round trip isnt ridiculous by any means in terms of commuting. However the benefits would be for my riding elsewhere on the weekends and week nights, which is literally once a week minimum.

I've only one bike and its full XTR, but if I was commuting 45 miles per day I'd put slicks on a spare set of wheels, cassette possibly too.

I've got an xtr front v brake does that count?

I have XTR on my FS MTB which I commute on (similar distances to the OP) when it's sunny 🙂

It is not commuting admittedly, but I train all the time, that means all winter, on my race road bike - so full dura ace, full carbon rims, tubular race tyres - the full shebang! I ride because I love riding and I wouldn't want to ride a piece of shit and have something nice sitting gathering dust. If I had to commute, I would ride something nice every day.

Njee- I agree as I wouldn't either, but then this is my bike for eevrything, lets face it 45 minutes round trip isnt ridiculous by any means in terms of commuting. However the benefits would be for my riding elsewhere on the weekends and week nights, which is literally once a week minimum.

That's fine, I said I wouldn't do it purely for commuting, this isn't purely for commuting, this is your 'for everything' bike. My only MTB has XTR, nowt wrong with that.

Common problem this if you run just one bike. If you ride in traffic in bad weather (oily, salty, crappy spray getting all over your bike) you can wreck your bike very quickly.

I don't really tend to find that. My 'nice' road bike (the aforementioned Dura Ace one) is 8 years old now, and when new was my only road bike, so got used a lot in all the crap weather. I've never really found parts wear out that much quicker. Get dirtier for sure.

I've only one bike and its full XTR, but if I was commuting 45 miles per day I'd put slicks on a spare set of wheels, cassette possibly too.

It's 45minutes per day, not miles.

njee - Yeah I think you're correct, I'm almost at the point where I'm not even classing it as a commute, and if I think of it as a fun 45 minute urban ride everyday, suddenly the XTR being bad concept doesn't even come into it.

Think I'm sold 😀

Don't think of it as 'commuting' just think of it as 'cycling' and therefore why would xtr be a bad thing. I run xtr for my commute/cycle.

Why would you use XTR? Shimano do a commuter specific range of components called Yumeya which will bring you substantial performance benefits on your daily grind.

Cheers
Schweiz

The MTB I commute on has some XTR stuff on it - Dual Control shifters, discs and mechs and front hub. We had them in the house when I was building it up - stripped off another bike that was sold as frame only - so figured I might as well use them. It's old 2003 vintage xt stuff (M960 series) so not worth a lot to sell on, but its done plenty miles and has a lot left in it hopefully.

Chainrings, chain and cassette aren't XTR though - mix of what's cheap. 2000 miles a year on an MTB tends to burn through that sort of stuff fairly quickly.

my commuter gt avalanche happens to have an xtr rear mech. i am going to replace it incase it gets pinched.

Chainrings, chain and cassette aren't XTR though - mix of what's cheap. 2000 miles a year on an MTB tends to burn through that sort of stuff fairly quickly.

Get a road bike. The rings on my winter bike have done getting on for 10000 miles (and probably 3-4 times that on the 'nice' bike!), it's been cleaned 3 times I think and they're still fine! It's on it's second chain and cassette admittedly.

XT on your mountain bike and use the spare money to buy a more suitable commuting bike?

Why would you use XTR? Shimano do a commuter specific range of components called Yumeya which will bring you substantial performance benefits on your daily grind.

Cheers
Schweiz

Because if you read any of my previous comments you will see that commuting is only a minute part of what the bike is used for 😀

XT on your mountain bike and use the spare money to buy a more suitable commuting bike?

Again, from the very first post...

currently choose to have 1 bike, due to many things, but mainly space and money

Because if you read any of my previous comments you will see that commuting is only a minute part of what the bike is used for

Look up what Yumeya is - you'll see he was joking 🙂

Schweiz is pulling your leg. Yumeya is upgrade parts for XTR to make it even more expensive.

I apologise Schweiz wasn't aware you could 'upgrade' XTR!

On that note, OMG HOW MUCH IS THAT STUFF?!

Very Japanese, it's totally pointless! You can get ti bolts for 1/4 the price of the Yumeya ones.

My commuter has an old (M960 i think) XTR mech. Got to be 15 years old now. Its all recycled someway or other.

Still solid and functional but has had two new sets £2.99 jockey wheels in it's time.
Ride whatever you want.

M960 was only rapid rise, 2003 - 2006. More likely to be M952 I'd have thought (the matt grey stuff).

njee - there was a normal mech in the M960 series stuff. I well remember buying one and taking long enough to work out why i couldnt get gears set up right.

M960 was metallic shiny slate grey; the M950 stuff was a matt brownish grey.

My commute is a 50 minute round trip. About 25% on road. I do it on XT kit. If I could afford XTR I'd probably buy it! Whatever makes you happy mate, don't worry about what folk think.

Stu - M960 was rapid rise only. M952 carried on alongside it as the "normal" option. Then it was all replaced by M97 series which has rapid rise, normal and shadow options.

I commute intermittently on a Dura Ace equipped road bike

I bet you thought you were going to win the status war with that, but I'm afraid I have to point out that I occasionally commuted on a Campag Record equipped road bike 😉

I also have a smattering of XTR (old 8-speed stuff) on my "hack" mountain bike. As others have pointed out, if you're not leaving it somewhere it's liable to get nicked, you can afford it, you appreciate top end kit and you like to enjoy all your riding, then why not. After all, nobody even comments on people spunking huge amounts more money on a boring brand new Mondeo for commuting.

I bet you thought you were going to win the status war with that, but I'm afraid I have to point out that I occasionally commuted on a Campag Record equipped road bike

Nah, not really, not sure I can win any status wars with my 8 year old bike anyway 🙂

I think the most 'commute inappropriate' part is the PowerTap, but seeing as it's a significant proportion of my riding I may as well collect the data!

Stu - M960 was rapid rise only. M952 carried on alongside it as the "normal" option

He's right! A top-normal mech was mooted at first, but never actually happened.

I have done in the past, although eventually i did buy a cheaper bike for commuting which I used most of the time but i still used the fancy bike either when I discovered that the commuter had a flat just before I was due to leave or if the weather was good.

The best compromise sounds like it would be to use top end brakes, gears and shifters with a cheaper cassette & chain (spare wheels with slicks would likely be easiest). Chainrings are the only thing that stand out as being a bit of a pain as changing them over is a bit more of a faff than cassette and chain but they are liable to wear and be an expensive thing to keep replacing if you're doing all weather commuting miles.

A colleague of mine used to commute on a Dura Ace Di2 equipped Cervelo R3SL.

Njee/ MrP - did they do a 952 in 960 colours then? I need to dig out some old pics I think....

Edit: this lists only RR for 960 as you say... http://mombat.org/Shimano.htm#2003

Njee/ MrP - did they do a 952 in 960 colours then?

Nope.

Unless you had one where someone had managed to change the spring (not impossible, but incredibly unlikely) it wouldn't have been 960.

[i]Njee/ MrP - did they do a 952 in 960 colours then?[/i]

Not as far as I know. And I was working for the UK Shimano importer at the time of 960 being released.

Double post.

On a road bike, for commuting, I basically run an Ultegra cassette (Hope alloy freehub - should replace it with a steel one) and whatever cheapish rings/chain I can find.

Rear mech is dura ace, shifters are ultegra.

Basically I don't want to destroy an expensive drivetrain through commuting (but I do cover a fairly significant number of commuting miles).

If you have the money then treat your self to the XTR, you only have the one bike to look after and still saving a fair few pennies not driving.

Basically I don't want to destroy an expensive drivetrain through commuting (but I do cover a fairly significant number of commuting miles).

I usually have a 105 cassette on my PowerTap, but got a Dura Ace on there at the moment, with a DA chain, to maximise the cost of replacements! Still tends to last a year plus on the road I find. In fact the cassette's at least 2, if not 3 years old. I do like the road for that!

My commuter / town bike is XT / Race Face / Hope. It's essentially a flat bar CX bike with Hope disc brakes. Fantastic to ride. Bling to look at.

If you're using XTR and enjoying it, great.

I've never understood the roadie mentallity of saving your best bike and riding something less enjoyable. Unless it's the roadie masochistic thing about punishing yourself.

When people say you might wear the good kit out, commuting is no different to riding up a dirty filthy mountain. Probably less damaging.

It's essentially a [s]flat bar CX bike with Hope disc brakes[/s] hybrid

😉

I sold my Crank Bros wheels to a chap who planned to use them for commuting. The £700 ones. To be fair, commuting was about all they were good for....

Sturmey Archer!!

It's essentially a [s]flat bar CX bike with Hope disc brakes[/s] hybrid

It's essentially a rigid 29er with skinny tyres.

😉 😉 😉 😉

"It's essentially a [s]flat bar CX bike with Hope disc brakes[/s] hybrid"
It's essentially a rigid 29er with skinny tyres.

Like njee said.

GSuperstar - Member

I currently choose to have 1 bike, due to many things, but mainly space and money.

My entire commuter cost me just a little more than an XTR chain, and it's cheap enough and old enough to live outside when it has to. And when it needs a new chain or sprocket, 7-speed costs nowt.

Nothing wrong with using an expensive bike with expensive parts to commute on but it can't be justified on cost.

MidlandTrailquestsGraham - Member

I commute on Rohloff.

To the OP, I see the logic, and would ideally like to have only one bike. Where I currently work, though, I couldn't leave it outside, so I'm buying a commuter and hoping the missus doesn't complain about the lack of space at home... But sure, if you want to run XTR on your one bike, go for it. As other people have said, you can probably swap out some of the less durable parts for SLX or XT.

I usually have a 105 cassette on my PowerTap, but got a Dura Ace on there at the moment, with a DA chain, to maximise the cost of replacements! Still tends to last a year plus on the road I find. In fact the cassette's at least 2, if not 3 years old. I do like the road for that!

I'd probably get a bit better life out of things if I cleaned them, to be fair. But it's a commuter. And I'm lazy.

I probably get through a cassette a year (~8000 miles) on the commuter.

And of course, if your fitting XTR then you can get on of those rather splendid, if not rather expensive, XTR shadow plus rear derailleur.

Best buy of last year, i do hate the sound of the chain slapping the frame, now its no more. 🙂

I'd probably get a bit better life out of things if I cleaned them, to be fair. But it's a commuter. And I'm lazy.

Sod that! Road bikes aren't to be cleaned 🙂

I wouldn't consider putting less quality parts than what you want on my bike, car or van just because it gets you to work aswel as your hobby.
Using it off road should wear parts out a lot faster than dirty Tarmac

Sod that! Road bikes aren't to be cleaned

Finally! Someone else that gets it.

Aidy - Member

Sod that! [s]Road[/s] bikes aren't to be cleaned

Finally! Someone else that gets it.

ftfy