Now this looks good.
Look at that cassette!
2×9, could it be back….?

https://m.pinkbike.com/news/first-look-box-one-prime-9-drivetrain.html

Daft question but why would you want to go back?

In what way is 9 a benefit over 10, 11 or 12?

I’m not saying it’s worse but I also can’t see it’s any better. Assuming similar range on the cassette you’ve a similarly large rear mech. It’s not liable to be any lighter. It’s not liable to be cheaper or stronger. The chain might be a bit wider but that’s not to say any stronger – the plates are no thicker as far as I’m aware, just broader rollers.

Other than nostalgia what am I missing?

Price

I have 2×11 on my newest bike and 2×9 or 3×9 on my old bikes. 9 speed works fine, so no point upgrading those, but I definitely wouldn’t go back if I had 10, 11, or 12 speed.

plus one – the cassette is $120, or £98. A Shimano SLX one is £100. So the consumable isn’t cheaper. And 11/12 speed cassettes are very hard wearing – I replaced a 4 year old XX1 cassette in May that was still on the original chain and had covered several thousand very hard miles (it was originally on Joe Barnes’s enduro bike). Shimano have said that because the tooling for 9 speed chains is so old that 10/11/12 speed chains are actually more durable.

Edit: his original post said “Price and longevity”

I can’t say I see the appeal of this – the gap between gears must be massive, you’d never be in the right one.

price

I see the cost of the group is almost entirely in the cassette, given pricing on their other groups (and fairly basic errors like making it very difficult to remove your rear wheel) I can’t say I’d be in much of a hurry to try their $16 (£25 at a guess) shifter.

I’m not sure about 9-speed, but I’d be all over a unibody 10 or 11 speed cassette

A Shimano SLX one is £100

RRP 75 quid, 45 quid on Merlin.

the cassette is $120, or £98. A Shimano SLX one is £100.

RRP for SLX 11sp is £75, available for £35 lots of places.

Nobeer- £100 is for 12 speed.

A Shimano SLX one is £100

$99 rrp for the 7100 according to jenson USA so roughly 15% less than the box one.
Add to that massive OEM uptake on Shimano stuff it’ll be available at heavy discounts in due course (crc are showing close to 50% off on m7000 cassettes) and the box stuff likelihood will sell at near rrp and I doubt you’ll ever pick one up for less than a mid to high end 12sp cassette.

“Price”

The prices listed in the link (and on the other website) are wrong. They’ve shown pictures of Box one with prices of Box 3 (or just made up, I can’t tell). If you check the Box website the prices are closer to the expected levels.

Box 1
Unibody Cassette: $360
Shifter:$75
Mech: $175
Chain: $50
Groupset: $627

Source:
Box 1 https://www.boxcomponents.com/Box-One-P9-X-Wide-Multi-Shift-Groupset
Box 3 https://www.boxcomponents.com/Box-Three-P9-X-Wide-Multi-Shift-Groupset

“In what way is 9 a benefit over 10, 11 or 12?”

Reliability. I had 11-36 10 speed on my bikes for years and was pretty lax with maintenance, ride them in horrific wet and muddy conditions and they just kept on working well, always shifting reliably. I’m not getting that with 11 or 12 speed, they seem much fussier about mech alignment, cable cleanliness and so on. The extra gear range is nice when tired though.

No thanks to anything from Box. Really nasty stuff. Can’t see why anyone would be interested in this over the established options

The prices listed in the link…
… The Box website the prices are closer to the expected levels.

Oooff yeah that’s a jump!

Reliability…

I can’t say that tallies with my own experience of 11speed sram, setup was a bit more finiky than 1×10 (or 9) but not terrible. Certainly not as bad as a front mech could be back in the day. As for long term shifting I’ve run mine for three years now, it was 2nd hand to me and its been faultless, though I’d go so far as to say the mech could do with replacing as the return spring has lost its oomph so some shifts are less than expedient now.

My recollection of 9 speed xt is barrel adjusters getting played with weekly, limit screws needing weekly attention, cassettes lasting 6 months, oh and snapped chains, only a handful but since I left 9 speed behind I can’t remember snapping one.

You say ‘back to 9 speed’. I never went away, rockin’ the 3*9 old skool here.

The Box website the prices are closer to the expected levels.

Wowsers.

So, stick to 11sp 1x Shimano

I thought the whole point of the prime 9 cassette was that it’s going to be 9 sprockets on 11 or 12 speed (?) spacing, so you have a narrower chainline, can still use current 11 speed clutched mechs (just set the limit screws in a bit) save a little weight (by having fewer sprockets) and the compromise is a couple of bigger jumps between ratios…

Although I’ve seen it suggested elsewhere that this is more for ebikes…

Of course you can go on ebay/aliexpress right now and buy a big range 8 or 9 speed cassette for peanuts, but those will only play with older (non-clutched) mechs due to spacing…
It might still be fun to try a cheap 8 speed wide range setup just to see how well it works.

But the box 9 speed kit looks like it’s too pricey to be worth the trouble, if you’re after cheap with a bit of range 10 speed Deore M6000 mech will apparently stretch to an 11-46 cassette (sunrace or similar) and you’ve probably already got a shifter that talks to it…

I’ve had 4 – 9 speed cassettes on various bikes over my lifetime and all have been pretty durable and bombproof, particularly with friction shifters. My road bike with 10 speed has been a blimmin’ princess by comparison; intolerant of dirt and slight misalignment and in need of more attention than anything before. Given that the tolerances on 11 & 12 speed are even tighter, I won’t be moving from 8 and 9 speed systems as long as bits are available.

#colddeadhands

Been using 1 x 8 / 9 for the last 10 years with no probs  although i’m still using an older 26″ bike, my mildly hilly location doesnt require a huge cassette out back so 11-34T is just fine.

very long lasting and forgiving to run in my exp.

and with kmc chains and alivio spec cassettes available for not much more than £15 a piece its cheap as chips.

although the box comp. gear posted above is clearly on the pricey side.

The box cassette is lighter than a 12 Shimano with a similar range. That would be a good reason for going back. The price is not encouraging.

My Shimano 11 speed stuff is pretty nice compared to the 10 speed setup it replaced. No issues so far.

Disclaimer: if it’s rainy and muddy I go out on my SS.

Nope not for the foreseeable future. Expanded 1×10 and 11 speed are pretty good for me. I reckon expanded 1×10 is the budget/functionality sweet spot ATM.

Always thought expanded 1×9 is ideally suited to kids/budget bikes and should have been an easy widely available option years ago!

Instead we have been drip fed stuff that has been held back by the big two, so they can pimp “premium” new stuff with gold chains all the time.

You can’t get a clutch mech for 9 speed can you? My boy is running 3×9 and drops the chain a few times a ride over rocky descents.

IHN Member

You say ‘back to 9 speed’. I never went away, rockin’ the 3*9 old skool here.

Same here
#triple4lyf

Me too, no chainline issues, and a complete drivetrain for less than £80rrp. I work on the latest and greatest day in, day out, no way I want it on my bikes, thank you.

Not sure about the Box, but I’m still waiting for Microshift to get the Advent MTB 1×9 stuff into the UK.

chiefgrooveguru

“In what way is 9 a benefit over 10, 11 or 12?”

Reliability.

9sp Shimano was reliable. 9sp Box, I’d be less sure – their first drivetrains were disastrous

Interesting to read of others experience of 9sp,
I found it to be pretty poor tbh, needing constant fiddling to keep working tolerably, and with a tendency to snap chains regularly too.
(And NOT at the shimano joining pin either)
10sp was quite an improvement ime, needs adjusting far less often, and I’ve never snapped a 10sp chain. Far more durable.
I’ve always used deore/slx/xt, so it’s not as if cheap nasty components either.
One of my bikes was swapped from 9 to 10sp, immediate improvement, which rules out bent hanger or suchlike.

There’s a review on bikepacking.com – https://bikepacking.com/gear/box-prime-9-review/ – the pros and cons they’ve come up with are near the foot of the piece.

Maybe the chains were the issue. I’ve used Sram chains for years and can’t remember the last time one snapped. I know they have, it’s just not been particularly memorable or recent. The (admittedly old but still serviceable) Shimano chain on my commuter snapped twice, both times a plate shattered but fortunately the pin held.

But yeah, I’m guessing a close ratio 9 speed will be the same idea as a 7 speed DH cassette.

Not sure about the Box, but I’m still waiting for Microshift to get the Advent MTB 1×9 stuff into the UK.

I came here to post the same 🙂

I’m running a wide range 9 speed cassette with a narrow wide chainring and chain guide and have been for two years. Cheap Chinese cassette and chainring cost me about 45 quid, new deore chain about a tenner. Old 9 speed mech and shifter from the shed. Running it on my old hard tail, along with a second hand gravity dropper I got for peanuts. Does the job and cheaply replaced…

gear spacing just makes it look daft. Was half the point in me going to 1×11, is that it was basically just a 9 speed cassette with 2 easier gears. So was used to the 9 speed spacing on 11-34. 11-50 9 speed spacing does seem like it’d be huge.

You can’t get a clutch mech for 9 speed can you? My boy is running 3×9 and drops the chain a few times a ride over rocky descents.

You can use a clutch mech on 8 or 9 speed, It a a bit of a bodge but I’m using an 8 speed SRAM shifter with a 10 speed Shimano shadow+ derailleur, I had to make 6mm thick washer that goes between the cable and the cable clamping surface on the mech and use a longer cable clamp bolt. It indexes perfectly and the chain has never come off.

idea from https://www.pinkbike.com/forum/listcomments/?threadid=148662

I’ve stuck with 8 speed rather than 9 as the chains are much more durable, I lost count of the number of times we would have to stop mid-ride when someone broke the chain on their fancy 9 speed.

You can’t get a clutch mech for 9 speed can you?

Pretty sure my 9sp XTR rear mech has a clutch in it, or at least something which holds chain tension….

Pretty sure my 9sp XTR rear mech has a clutch in it, or at least something which holds chain tension….

That’ll be a ‘spring’ most likely…

Shimano introduced clutches with “Dynasis” (10 speed) Same with SRAM, both also did non-clutched 10 speed mechs too.

However a clutch isn’t actually essential for chain retention on 1x drives (IME/IMO).
N/W rings do most of the work in that respect, if you want to prove the point, turn off the clutch on your shimano mech and go for a ride, the chain and mech will rattle about more, but there’s a pretty high probability the chain won’t come off a N/W ring, at least not very often.

There are some Franken-setups where people used a Dynasis (clutched 10 speed mech) with a SRAM 1:1 actuation 9speed shifter and ~6mm of spacers on the cable clamp to match cable pull and achieve a clutched 9 speed setup…

I’m running an old SLX mech 1×9 (no clutch) on my CX/gravel bike with a N/W ring it drops a chain maybe once a year tops, about the same as my MTB with a Clutched 10 speed mech….

I’ve fitted 1×8 SRAM X3 with a N/W ring to my daughter’s bike, no chain dropping yet therre either.

Clutches ain’t essential, keep the chain and N/W ring as clean and free from crud as possible and they will hold onto each other very well.

The 9sp XTR rear mech (M972) and the XT M772 don’t have a clutch, but being a shadow design they are locked at the b-tension and that stops most of the chain slap that was common with the mechs that preceded these types. After that came 10-speed… and clutches.