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Time for a new drivetrain, been comparing -
10 speed - Sunrace 11-42 cassette - zee mech - saint shifter - swapping between a 28t and 34t ring
11 speed - xt 11-42 cassette - xt mech - xtr shifter - swapping between a 28t and 34t ring
GX eagle - 32t ring
Just feels that for the cost and convenience the GX eagle wins, does longevity and performance win too? The only drawback I see is weight (not much at that).
Yes, it's a no-brainer unless you want to wait to see what Shimano does with XTR this year, but that will be more £££
pointless dinner plate and extra weight of gx eagle? just to mix things up a bit.
lightly used cheap 11 speed for the win!
i presume you have an XD driver already?
Cost? I went for Shimano XT 11 spd, but with an SLX shifter (don't believe the hype!) and it's at least £100 cheaper than Eagle..
(Have a 32 oval chainring)
Does GX11sp fit the bill for range? If not eagle, I havn't found a reason to take it off my list yet.
11 speed – xt 11-42 cassette – xt mech – xtr shifter – swapping between a 28t and 34t ring
Have you considered the sunrace 11 speed 11-46 cassette, would be cheaper to replace when needed and people say the jumps between the middle to low gears are nicer. Also consider that for the 11speed there are more chainring options currently then there is for eagle, I just picked up a superstar NW DM chainring with a code for £23! The eagle chainrings are circa £60!
I'm no SRAM fan at all BUT I'm not content with Shimano 11 unfortunately. I now have Eagle on two bikes and it's brilliant, not missed a beat and for a little more cash, it's great.
11 & 12sp Chain rings are cross compatible from what I've read
Really wasn't impressed with 11-speed XT I've owned and XTR I've ridden, loved Shimano 10 speed stuff, (Well I say Shimano 10-soeed, I ran a Saint shifter, XTR shadow plus mech with OneUp RAD cage and 11-36 cassette with hope T-rex, awesome set up!) Sram 11-speed stuff never impressed me much either, but now had X01 Eagle for 18 months and it is insanely good! GX is much the same, shifter isn't quite as nice and the cassette is a bit heavier, but in a blind test most would struggle to tell the difference. I wouldn't run anything but Eagle at the minute, I used to be a Shimano Fanboiii and general Sram hater, but I'm converted. Shimano need to up their game soon as they are being left behind rapidly.
Have you considered the sunrace 11 speed 11-46 cassette
Just see it as less range (10 tooth on the sram cassette makes a big different to range) and more weight.
Ditto on the shimano 11 speed, had it before, was a bit meh.
Sram 11 speed has been good, but reckon niggles have been worked out with eagle, but the main thing for me with the Sram 11 vs 12 is that with 12 I wont be fannying around swapping rings, and with a bigger chainring i'll get a bit less pedal feedback on the suspension (unsprung mass vs pedal kickback, which has the greater negative effect, another debate. .
My XTR 11 speed setup has been improved no end in noise & chainline related backpedaling chain drop issues since I fitted an Eagle front ring.
TBH if it wasn’t for the extra cost involved changing my Chris King freehub to XD I’d just go Eagle, really impressed with the GX setup on wife’s bike. With a 34t front ring the range is great.
I agree with the above. I have xtr and would go eagle if it wasn’t for the Chris king xc driver.
It’s become a polarised debate even among 1x fans.
New XTR is either going to be moar digital or 12sp in all likelihood. If it goes 12 then it’ll have to change freehub and going on history, Shimano will insist on something that isn’t XD even if it’s not as good. Prices are likely to be similar to SRAM cassettes and freehub bodies so it’ll be interesting, especially if they then trickle freehub changes back to XT 11sp.
Back to existing kit, the factors in play are cost, range, ergonomics and tribalism. Some people simply won’t have a certain brand on their bikes and there’s no real arguing with that. I’d say if you were looking at sprucing a bike with existing good 10sp components then wide range 10sp is probably a good shout. If you’re looking at a whole drivetrain, 10sp makes no sense to me and I’d look at 11 or 12. As noted above, you don’t really realise what a difference the 10T top makes until you’ve tried it. The 50T on Eagle doesn’t need to be a big bailout. You could choose to keep to the climbing range of 11sp SRAM (roughly equivalent to a 10sp double) but with a higher top for more all-round usability. It’s not a big stretch to see that since Eagle has the same %age range as 2x10 it could be in the same place. GX shifters are nasty though, I’d always upspec the shifter. The SRAM cassettes aren’t massively heavier than 10sp although they are heavier. Tyre weight will make more difference to ride quality though.
As always, careful thought about what ratios you actually use/desire and some time with a gear calc is probably wise before going shopping.
Are there any brake compatibility issues with Eagle? Remember the bad old days of mixing and matching and trying to get 1 finger braking... I tend to prefer Shimano brakes, but the potential of Eagle with a 32 or 34 upfront is pretty tempting.
How do you feel about mixing and matching? It doesn't all have to be parts from one manufacturer does it....
In theory you could invest in an XD FH body and a SRAM 11 speed cassette today and use it with either a Shimano or SRAM Drivetrain in anticipation of future 12 speed groups from either manufacturer...
Reading some of the other threads about it the thing that would put me off Eagle right now are accounts of it being more sensitive to cable stretch/hanger alignment and tales of the top Jockey wheel wearing out and leading to mech implosions. Of course you don't know what percentage of installations these issues are arising from or what levels of maintenance / mechanical sympathy the owners are applying so it's all internet hearsay...
I would hope/expect that any future Shimano 12 speed group might be a bit more of a polished technical execution (admittedly not guaranteed), and that you could could use with a SRAM 10-50 Cassette with it. If that's worth hanging on for is another question...
10t Sprockets are still the main selling point for SRAM Cassettes and you can have that with relatively reliable 11 speed now leaving you setup for a future 12 speed upgrade. So I'd maybe hold off on the Eagle for now.
There’s no real compatibility problem with SRAM shifter and Shimano brakes. Without resorting to Problem Solvers you’ll be stuck with separate bands but they can coexist happily on bars.
As cookeaa points out, SRAM 10-42 cassette with Shimano mech and shifter works too. It works so well that I could literally swap a back wheel (one with an XT cassette and one with GX) and see no index problems, complete plug and play swappability.
I would guess that alignment issues are closely related to derailleur faults, but coupling pride with the amount of noise relatively few failures can cause on the Internet I doubt we’ll ever get to the bottom of this. It’s worth noting that SRAM are very specific about chainline for Eagle, going so far as to warn of accelerated wear if their guidance isn’t followed.
There’s no pull ratio change between 11&12 speed SRAM although there are upgrades to the derailleur. The XD driver is unchanged. If you want to hold off 12 for a while to see what happens after XTR, then a freehub, GX (1150) cassette, 11sp shifter, Eagle chain, RD & ring is probably the ultimate mashup for bangs per buck and being ready for the future. My calcs told me 10-42 and 32T was so close to 11-34 and 26/38 for climbing that I didn’t care ...
Slight hijack but any tips of where to find the best deal in GX11 or 12? Preferably mech, shifter cassette and chain as have cranks that should in theory work wupith 11 or 12?
There are upgrade bundles for GX 11 and Eagle at Bikediscount.de
Shifter, chain, mech and cassette.
GX11 €229
GX 12 €249
Depending on the state of Syria, Brexit and which way the wind is blowing, the £/€ rate may change...
Lots of very good options available right now.
I build a "plus" full suspension bike right now and decided to stay with good old fashioned 2 x 10 M6000 Deore...
The bike should climb very well - modified the "boost" crank from 26T+36T to 24T+34T, rear is 11-42 (with Deore rear mech - think it's called "GS" for this 11-42 cassette). (Shimano only sells 2x Deore boost cranks with 26T+36T - if you like other chain rings you have to order these separately)
Front mech: new side swing M6000.
I use this set up already on an other bike (and lots and lots in the mud). Fantastic stuff. Really a neat mountain goat set up.
In our bike group we have 1x11, 1x12, 2x11 and old stuff like 3x10 or my 2x10 stuff.
My impression: the 1x11 pals suffer all going long/steep uphill stretches. The 1x12 pals need to tweak quite a bit on their mech to keep it running. And the 2x and 3x suffer sometimes chaindrop. But with the new side wing M6000 didn't have any chain drop yet...
All these new 1x options are great. But for low cost mounatin biking the new Deore 2x10 is a great solution as well. Nothing for serious racing maybe - but great for hobby trail biking...and with the "mountin goat" set up just great if you bike lots of steep uphill stuff.
My impression: the 1×11 pals suffer all going long/steep uphill stretches. The 1×12 pals need to tweak quite a bit on their mech to keep it running. And the 2x and 3x suffer sometimes chaindrop. But with the new side wing M6000 didn’t have any chain drop yet…
Remind me again what the ratio difference is....
The 1×12 pals need to tweak quite a bit on their mech to keep it running.
And just to offer an alternative viewpoint, this hasn't been my experience at all in the year I've had my Eagle. I've adjusted the limit screw once (when I changed wheels). Even the cable tension screw on the shifter I must have turned once or twice at the most. No more then when I was running XT.
I bent a hanger once which made me think something awful had happened until I actually looked at it. Other than that it hasn't missed a beat at all.
The first time I took the cassette off and put it back on (again, changing wheels), however, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. Compared to the Shimano freehub it's night and day. For that alone* I'd probably choose an XD driver over Shimano no matter what derailleur I was running. It's just so much better.
*Well - it perhaps wouldn't put me off a hub altogether, but if I had a choice, all other things being equal (which they never are) I'd have XD.