Forum menu
I don't care about weight, I just want the toughest set I can find. My old ones are tearing up chain links and make gears skip about like buggery, and they're long overdue a binning.
Any suggestions appreciated.
ta
Deore chainrings use steel inner and middle rings, pretty bullet proof.
As for cassettes, they are pretty much all steel sprockets. SLX cassettes are pretty hard wearing and not too expensive.
Buy a new cassette, new chain rings and a new chain, check the chain regularly for wear and change it when its worn. Your whole drive train will last a lot longer
Eh what now?
Cassettes, chains etc are just about all as durable as each other.
It sounds like your entire drivetrain should've been changed years ago. You're supposed to change chains when they just start to stretch, this could mean 6-8 weeks of wet riding depending on where you live. If you leave it say 6 months or so you'll probably be fine but you'll need to change the cassette as well as the chain.
Raceface chainrings. Only ever broke teeth when i chose to use my chainring to land on a bolder from about 6' drop-off, but it still was useable. Machined out of one piece of alloy, not pressed like shimano.
Never broke any of my XT cassettes and i'm as heavy footed as bull trying to tap dance!
I never bother with the 'changing chain to avoid cassette wear', it can be a false economy IMO, just trash the whole transmission and replace.
Steel chainrings and an SLX cassette wouldn't go a miss. Some people (if you're a real animal) can find sprockets on a carrier to be more prone to bending, but that'd be really unlucky, if you think you're that much of a gorilla then go Deore on the cassette, it does weigh a ton though, literally, 1000kg of cassette.
I've toyed with chainring swappage a few times but always ended up getting a whole new drivetrain - otherwise the partly worn stuff wears the new stuff out too quickly.
Get a chain gauge - very cheap and a good way to tell when your chain is shot.
Im with Njee, buy chain, cassette, middle ring (and granny ring, jockey wheels if nececary), fit and forget apart from re waxing the chain once a month or so, untill next year. I can usualy get 12 months before the shifitng is bad enough to warrent replacement.
A properly muddy ride can take a new chain past 1% stretch in 20 miles (I did this at the Gorrick enduro) regardless of chain lube (putoline chain wax). The same drivetrain is still working fine and sifting acceptably ~400 miles later and wont be replaced untill the weather dries up sometime arround next easter. Best to replace it in the early summer and get the benifit of a new drivetrain for longer, otherwise your dragging a worn drivetrain round for the nice months!
A properly muddy ride can take a new chain past 1% stretch in 20 miles
That's what I've found, think I'd go through about 7-8 chains in a year, which when cassettes are generally only 3 times more than a chain (ish), it's a bit daft. Did used to change chains, but then realised how often I was getting rid of chains that had nothing at all wrong with them!
Half the time the Park tool reckons a brand new chain is at 0.75% anyway!
Raceface chainrings +1
Much, much tougher than any Shimano I've owned.
it can be a false economy
It can be yes. I've done the chain changing thing, and it probably did work out less economical, but it's a nice way of having a sweet drivetrain all the time. Chainsuck etc are gone. Although the main reason I started this is I got a bike with a ti XTR cassette on it that cost £120 (note that someone else specced it) and for some reasons chains were only £6 back then. Worked tho - the cassette lasted 18 months of regular wet riding.
However, I think the Park tool is rubbish. Best way to check chain wear is to look at it where it runs over the sprockets. Apply pressure to the pedal with your hand and then look to see how many teeth are touching chain rollers. If it's less than 3 or 4 then you can change the chain without needing to change the cassette.
Thanks folks
I'm with njee20 as well. The key to keeping a chain and cassette going is keeping it clean. Maybe i take things a little far keeping mine clean but i ride mine twice a week all year round and i've had two years out of my XTR set up. When its worn out i'll replace the lot.
just for the record i got an XTR cassette brand new of ebay for £80!
Molgrips - as a sideline, I had a Park Tool chaintool that absolutely sucked - couldn't ever get it to line up properly with the pins and sheared them as a result when emergency fixing on the trail.
Love the idea of great drivetrain all the time....
Fit it, look after it, when it starts slipping, bin the lot
repeat ad infinitum (or until you cant get x speed kit anymore and upgrade to x+1 speed.)
literally, 1000kg of cassette
Love it - that would be some pretty epic training 🙂
Another vote here for 'run it into the ground then replace'. I had my drivetrain for 2 years of (occasional) riding with no problems. Only replaced it all because I got a new crankset.
Biggest difference to drivetrain life? How clean it is.
Oh and another one who uses Race Face rings here too. Not cheap, but last better than the Shimano 'dairy milk' ones i've used in the past!
SLX seem to be twice the strength as XT, or so the on-line blurb says. For next to no weight penalty. The crank set was £89 from CRC; so I bought 2!
untill the weather dries up sometime around next easter.
Eh? Is it raining down south again? It's like a desert here. I'm fed up of dust. As for the OP question. Deore chainrings. SLX or SRAM 980 cassette. SRAM951 chains much cheapness at the bike chain!