What would you suggest?

Short is working great on mine with an 11-36 cassette

Medium is fine on mine with the same cassette 11-36 . 34t n/w at the front

Just got a Zee FR which is a super short cage @ about 50mm. Works great on my 11-34 but it will do 11-36 too.

medium cage here x 2.

Zee FR here too (the wide ratio version is FR if I remember correctly). Copes fine with 11-36 with 32 up front. Shorter cage = less chance of mangling due to hitting it on things! I like nice simple concepts like this!

Short is probably ideal but medium works fine and is more available. With shadow, the cage is pretty out of the way anyway.

Oh- Shimano’s short cage is quite limited in how much chainslack it can take up, I have a short Saint on my 224 and with an 11-34 cassette on it, it’s not capable of maintaining tension. It either hangs slack in a high gear, or the mech gets pulled past the limit in a low gear when the suspension compresses. That won’t be a problem on most bikes but if you’ve got a chaingrowthy design, it might be worth watching out for.

Oh- Shimano’s short cage is quite limited in how much chainslack it can take up, I have a short Saint on my 224 and with an 11-34 cassette on it, it’s not capable of maintaining tension.

The Zee short cage is fine (FR version) – so its a Saint thing rather than a Shimano thing.

The cages are the same length (I wouldn’t want to swear by it but I think the Zee uses the cage from the M810 Saint)

Go for medium so you have the option of upgrading to a 42 rear at some point if desired…

^^^^+1 Will be sticking with med for a Works 42T out back potentially.

????? will a medium cage work fir sure on a 42t works and the suchlike? I wanted to know the answer to this and read somewhere yesterday that a long cage is required..dont mind being proven wrong though.

The size of your chainring shouldn’t matter, with 1×10 systems- the amount of chainslack to be dealt with comes from changes of gear. So the gap between a double does make a difference but not the actual size of the rings, whether single or double.

The article on Pinkbike about the Oneup Components 42t states medium or long x5-x9 and XT- XTR…no SLX?

Oh sorry, I thought it was a 42T front you were referring to not a rear! 😳

So ive just recently changed the jockey-wheels on my XO rear mech to hope..would these be compatible with say a zee rear mech?

Good points raised by Northwind regarding the Zee’s ability to take up slack. I think I’ve got it right now, but it was a bit nerve jangling shortening my chain. With a 30t front and an 11/36 cassette I let all the rear shock air out and had the mech out straight in bottom gear. When I pumped the shock back up and changed into top gear there was only just enough tension in the chain. I took one more link out based on the fact I shouldn’t be bottoming out the shock in bottom gear. I really wanted short cage for potential rock damage reduction, but if I get any issues I might have to go medium.

I ran the Zee with my homebrew 11-42 cassette and it seemed to work fine, I only had the 42 on for a couple of rides as it would have trashed the freehub i think but i wanted to see how the gearing was and if the zee worked. (it’s perfect on a normal 1×10 btw, no reason to run a medium imo)

@ torquil.. was the Zee you ran with the 11 – 42 a short- cage and why would the 42 of ruined your freehub?