Cheap XD cassettes

Where can i find cheap xd cassettes in either 11 or 12 speed.

I have 2 bikes. 1 with new shimano deore 11 speed. The other with worn out Sram GX 12spd. I want the wheels and tyres to be interchangeable easily for different rides. As i have a worn out set of sram 12 was thinking of replacing with an 11speed set up, but it all seems so pricey! Almost cheaper to get a new rear wheel sochave a standard freehub!

Depending on the hub you have, swapping the freehub body and using a different cassette pattern is very likely your cheapest option.

Also hinges on what you consider cheap.

Sunrace do a nice 11sp XD one, but it’s hard to find for less than £100 at the mo.

have you typed SRAM XD 12 speed cassette into a search engine?

Sram GX Eagle XG-1275 12-speed Cassette €89
https://www.bike-components.de/de/SRAM/XG-1275-12-fach-Kassette-fuer-GX-Eagle-p57614/?o=69408595-black-10-50&delivery_country=DE

SRAM XG-1150 11-speed Cassette €94
https://www.bike-discount.de/de/sram-xg-1150-kassette-11-fach-10-42t?number=20017279&__delivery=2&__currency=1&srsltid=AfmBOoqTwH2l_2ITbE8w265gHmzpd4Jws6Y4MIjvbGPeNrLolOCCUFNkKRs

Cotic have some 12spd SRAM cassettes+chains on their outlet page 

You can keep your derailleur and switch to a 11spd shifter. The XG-1150 is £85 from Tredz and the best in terms of weight/cost/durability ratio.

Hopkinsoncycles has the gx eagle very reasonable
Gx

You can keep your derailleur and switch to a 11spd shifter. The XG-1150 is £85 from Tredz and the best in terms of weight/cost/durability ratio.

Good advice.

If I could live with 10-42t I would just stock up on these.

Cheap XD cassettes, isn’t that an oxymoron 😁

There seem to be a few new e*thirteen cassettes coming up on ebay at good prices at the mo, both 11 speed (9-46) and 12 speed (9-50). They fit on XD freehubs. Have used them myself with no issues.

e.g.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/335193642849

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/156015972807

StuF

Cotic have some 12spd SRAM cassettes+chains on their outlet page

Near twice the price of the German sites though

11 Speed 9-42T XD Cassette fits SRAM XD GX EAGLE Mountain Bike MTB Freewheel

Are these any good ??

Anyone used them and could report back please

I found it more cost effective to go straight to a steel hg freehub then there is a wide availability of cheap 11 speed cassettes to choose from.

Same as onzadog and daveylad – my Hunt wheels it was cheaper to buy a new HG freehub and a a couple of NX (HG) cassettes than it was to stay with XD

@blastit

I’ve just bought one of those airbike cassettes for my commuter/gravel bike

Haven’t used it in anger yet, still awaiting some new brake rotors.

It came quickly, looks well put together and weighed what they said it would. Will be interesting to see how it gets on

Switch to HG freehub

£35 12 speed sram eagle cassette: https://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/sram-cs-pg1210-eagle-11-50t/

OR

Switch to 11 speed and enjoy cheaper and longer lasting chains and less finickity setup and maintenance. I run sunrace or deore hg cassettes (you can get chinese xd fitment ones too). You can keep your rear mech and I’d recommend a used XTR shifter for the double downshift.

https://airbike.uk/collections/11-speed-cassette/products/11-speed-9-42t-xd-cassette-fits-sram-xd-gx-eagle-mountain-bike-mtb-freewheel

I’ve got a 12 speed version and very satisfied considering the price.

These airbike cassettes, how are they performing?

It’s the reason I’ve stuck with HG freehubs. I wanted to swap but cassettes for XD and Micro Spline are piss-takingly expensive. TBF the SRAM standard does require more machining, but 100 quid minimum for a wear part, no thanks!

Hopkinsoncycles has the gx eagle very reasonable

I would wait until all the bent ones are shifted… Bought 2, both bent, both replaced by SRAM under warranty. Hopkinson said it was my bike and 2 couldn’t possibly be bent and that they buy hundreds so they would know if some were bent etc etc. Took to a local Sram dealer who kindly sent them away for me. 2 brand new ones came back so …🤷‍♂️

These airbike cassettes, how are they performing?

Mine’s been good for 1000km so far.

@oceanskipper – I must have been lucky then I have had two and both have been grand

I’ve been buying used 12 speed X0 cassettes from people upgrading to Transmission. They last for ages, and lightly used ones happy with a new chain can be had for about £50. They’re also lighter.

I must have been lucky then I have had two and both have been grand

Maybe the out of true batch are all gone now. They were only slightly wobbly but enough to make the shifting a bit meh. I dare say some people may not have even noticed. I did because I was replacing a perfectly good cassette that didn’t have the range I wanted so it was obvious to me when I couldn’t dial out the rasping. I posted a video of it on another thread as it seemed so odd that two had the same issue but so it was.

I’ve got the last 2 of my sunrace 10-42 in stock if anyone is after one

Zerofrictioncycles who test extensively state that SRAM 12 s chains are very good. Better than 11. Just in case it helps.

So I think it’s time to replace my cassette as I’m getting lot of skipping under load and has done nearly 5k. I have several options I could consider.

I swapped out my XD driver for a HG driver around 2020 and have been running a Sunrace 1146 cassette as the 1042 GX cassette didn’t offer me enough range. I could only go to a 30t chainring from a 32t so at the time switching to the Sunrace cassette made better sense for me.

Now I have a direct mount crankset I can now run as low as a 28t chainring and go back to a XD cassette. But is it worth it? There now available many cassettes cheaper than both the Sunrace & SRAM GX cassettes.

Airbike offers both HG and XD cassettes with similar range to the Sunrace and GX cassettes. If I go back to using a GX cassette, it is significantly lighter around 200g. The Airbike 942 cassette is also lighter than the Sunrace cassette but has greater range. So there would be a weight benefit going back to using either XD cassette.

Any longer term feedback about these Airbike cassettes? I appreciate that they haven’t been around long to get any meaningful performance review.

I’ve done a couple of hundred miles on the airbike cassette now and i’ve not noticed it at all which i think is a compliment to it. Had to do some OMG type shifting under load and it’s worked well without skipping

I’ve an Airbike 9-50 that is working well after a few months. I’ve also just worn out an 11-36 from them (hg) and would have replaced it like for like if they had one in stock as it was faultless, if heavy. If it’s any use to anyone I went with a Zitto from AliExpress which appears identical. Airbike themselves have always been very helpful.

Appreciate this threads a bit old now, but I just wanted a moan about the Sunrace MX9 – it’s not an actual XD driver, it’s an XD adapter and as such it won’t work with all bikes (as I found out to my disappointment this weekend).

The adapter itself interfered with the end cap on my WTB hub as the tooling is narrower than the end cap which made it exceedingly difficult to remove it as the cassette tool no longer slotted into place to get enough purchase. THEN the lockring sticks out too far and jammed itself into my drop outs, meaning the wheel won’t turn. Absolutely livid.

GeForceJunkyFull Member
You can keep your derailleur and switch to a 11spd shifter. The XG-1150 is £85 from Tredz and the best in terms of weight/cost/durability ratio.”

That would be convenient – have you tried that yourself. My LBS didn’t recommend.
I’d like to switch to 11s SRAM GX shifter and keep the GX 12s mech as I have a couple of 11s X01 cassettes bought for an earlier bike.
thanks

I had this very same issue with the xd ‘adapter’ causing it to foul against the dropout. I ended up with a spacer in there to gap it out by a few mm so it cleared things. Worked ok but far from ideal. I’ve switched it over to my hardtail and it works perfectly, without the spacer. Still a bit puzzled by it and the price means I probably wouldn’t go for that option again. But do want an xd option that gives me a 46 on 11 speed.

That was my biggest drive towards it – 46t on an 11speed. As the lockring fouled the drop out there was no way a spacer was going to help, which is annoying.

I think it would probably have been easier/cheaper just to buy a HG freehub and install that – loads of HG 11 speed options, very few XD options going above 42t that I could find.

Yeah agreed. My wheels are dt swiss and the HG freehubs seem to get chewed very quickly by the sunrace cassettes, hence my preference for XD. Just found merlin selling HG freehubs at £23 so might just stock up.

I think it would probably have been easier/cheaper just to buy a HG freehub and install that – loads of HG 11 speed options, very few XD options going above 42t that I could find.

Sounds like you’ve had a mare with the Sunrace adaptor.

They have worked OK for me and the cassettes hold up quite well, but I’m a bit miffed that I effectively have the adaptors permanently fitted to my XD freehubs.

If only Sram did a 10-46 or 10-48t 11sp XD cassette in GX spec.

How cheap is cheap?

GX or XT for <£100 is palatable to me as I tend to only do any real miles on it in summer.  The spare HG freehub for singlespeed duties keeps costs down.  Seems more sensible to upgrade the 11s to 12s in the longer run.

If only Sram did a 10-46 or 10-48t 11sp XD cassette in GX spec.

Wasn’t the whole point that 10-42 is the same as 11-46, but substantially lighter, just drop a chainring size or two?

Wasn’t the whole point that 10-42 is the same as 11-46, but substantially lighter, just drop a chainring size or two?

If that was the point, why have they jumped to 50t on 12sp?

If that was the point, why have they jumped to 50t on 12sp?

Bragging rights? There’s a sort of logic to Shimano’s 10-51 as it gives nice consistent jumps, but then SRAM went 10-52 which was pure one-upmanship.

The range went up because they added another sprocket and kept the jumps pretty much the same, if you had a 10-50 11s cassette you’d get bigger jumps between gears and the designers at both companies obviously came to the same conclusion that bigger jumps than ~15-16% start to feel really noticeable in your cadence. In principle a 10-49 is closer to 11+1 cassette, but that doesn’t sound as cool.

But comparing 11s HG to 11s XD then 11-46 and 10-42 are essentially the same spread of gears, just offset by 10%.

Interesting approach with the spread of gears theory.

Going for a slightly less scientific approach and working on feel, 11-46 seems like the sweet spot for my riding, compared to a 42t I can get up a lot more with a lot less effort but keep a bigger chainring so I don’t spin out in the 11t. Have never felt like I needed the 51/52 and the faff of upgrading everything to 12s when all my bikes are on 11s. But then I run into this cul-de-sac of not getting a great solution for it.

Bragging rights? There’s a sort of logic to Shimano’s 10-51 as it gives nice consistent jumps, but then SRAM went 10-52 which was pure one-upmanship.

The range went up because they added another sprocket and kept the jumps pretty much the same, if you had a 10-50 11s cassette you’d get bigger jumps between gears and the designers at both companies obviously came to the same conclusion that bigger jumps than ~15-16% start to feel really noticeable in your cadence. In principle a 10-49 is closer to 11+1 cassette, but that doesn’t sound as cool.

But comparing 11s HG to 11s XD then 11-46 and 10-42 are essentially the same spread of gears, just offset by 10%.

No, they did it because riders needed a wider range and because bikes were getting heavier.

I’m on 10-46t with a 28t ring on two of my MTBs (30t on my lighter, short-travel bike), and it’s just about adequate for riding in the hills. And I’m in reasonably good shape FWIW.

 Have never felt like I needed the 51/52 and the faff of upgrading everything to 12s when all my bikes are on 11s. But then I run into this cul-de-sac of not getting a great solution for it.

Exactly the same here.