Due to some serious chain line problems on my Yelly Screamy I am going to upgrade to 11 speed single.I would appreciate any advice,my 29er hardtail is used for the most part as my bikepacking bike. It currently has a RaceFace Deus XC crankset with a 32/22 double up front and a 9 speed 34 tooth cassette and Sram XO long cage rear mech.

I can afford XT 8000 kit thanks to a tax refund 🙂

My first question is the number of teeth for the chainring, 32 or 34 teeth ? Next up cassette, I am leaning towards 42 tooth, is that my best option, next up rear mech, what length cage and finally I note there are a number of XT8000 front shifter variants, I like the look of the I-Spec II but again I would welcome hands on advice (does the shifter come with the inner cable ?). Chain will be XT8000.

If I have missed anything please shout up, thanks in advance Paul

I have xt 11sp after years of ghetto 10sp and I love it. Chain ring? Depends how low a gear you want. I ride mostly Peaks and have old legs so run a 30t ring with a 42 cassette. This combo gives you a similar low gear to your current set up. A long cage rear mech is needed to cope with the wide range of gears. Shimano shifters come with cables and outers. Hope this helps

The long cage mech is only needed for a triple ring setup, you need the GS version (medium).

Medium cage XT mech here with an 11/42 cassette.

Cheers guys, thats the cassette and mech questions sorted so the spot light turns to the chainring. I am a long way past my best (in fact its so many years ago I’m struggling to remember my best :?) and I weigh in circa 200lbs with no kit on so getting the gearing right for slogging up hills with my bivi kit is important, thanks Paul

To work out what chainring you want enter your current gears and your potential 1×11 options into http://gear-calculator.com to see what the actual ratios are. Simples!

I run a 30t ring with a 11/42 cassette (as per above).

I find this ratio works well for me and allows me to easily spin up the climbs, technical or other, but still allows enough for the descents.

If you run a 42 out back you won’t go wrong with a 30 or 32 upfront.

Knock your self out with the comparison table.
Personally I’d consider SRAM GX if your hub will take it, Cassette is lighter than XT and pricing wasn’t far off
In fact the groupset pricing is about the same
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/shimano-xt-m8000-1×11-speed-groupset-builder/rp-prod136651
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/sram-gx-11-speed-groupset/rp-prod137570

Some excellent advice and kudos to Mike and Ross for adding depth to the discussion. Money will be spent and fettling will soon commence 😀

I am guessing my American Classic 29 wheels that currently has a SRAM red 9 speed cassette will not take the SRAM GX cassette without me spending more money so it could well be Hobson’s choice re the Shimano cassette ?

You would need to xd but it’s easily available

Mike apologies for being dense buts what’s XD in the context of this discussion ? thnx Paul

Try the german sites for 11 speed stuff. One of them recently had XT8000 cranks, cassette, rear mech, shifter and chain for eu301 – approx. £235

XD is the new freehub that SRAM 11 speed needs to fit a 10 tooth cog on the cassette. Shimano 11 speed uses the existing freehub standard so it’s cheaper if you’re upgrading but the cassettes are 11-42 instead of 10-42.

Some hubs (for example, Hope) can be converted to XD, others mean you’ll need hub.

Hi no beer, sounds like a great deal, the German site I know is bike.de, can you recall which site was doing the deal ?

Going to XD does add a chunk of cost- not just to convert the hub but also the cheapest cassettes are a fair bit more (but then the very heaviest XD cassette is lighter than XT and the second from heaviest is lighter than XTR)

Thing is you can stage into it and do the XT cassette first time then if you want, expand it later.

As far as gearing goes, it’s simpler than you think because you already have all the gears so you can test it. Just work out what gears you want most and go from there. 1x isn’t for everyone but the drawback is way smaller than you might think. (for me, it’s mostly meant spinning faster in high gears- I’ve always been a bit of a masher, I like pushing a high gear slowly but the truth is a lower gear spun faster is usually better. So I missed the highest gears but I soon found I didn’t need them.

Going to XD does add a chunk of cost- not just to convert the hub but also the cheapest cassettes are a fair bit more (but then the very heaviest XD cassette is lighter than XT and the second from heaviest is lighter than XTR)

Last I checked the gx was 15quid more than the xt on CRC and lighter than XTR..

You can get an XT cassette for £54 though. Re weight, SRAM claim 394g for the GX cassette vs measured 411g for XT 11-40 and 331g for XTR.

I am very tempted by the SRAM GX1 – 1000 GXP group set on Actionsports.de on sale for 350 euros which is approx £263 but the chainring is 32t and I want 30t and then there’s the cost of the XD conversion to factor in so its Shimano for me but if I was starting a frame build I would buy that group set in a heartbeat

Ah fair enough was comparing the one that has nearly the same range 😉 not quite sure how shimano manage to add the extra weight.

Hi no beer, sounds like a great deal, the German site I know is bike.de, can you recall which site was doing the deal ?

bikediscount.de – out of stock at present, I have an alert set up to let me know when it comes back in stock. There may be other sites that have it in stock, try alltricks etc as well.

bike24.com have most XT 11 speed stuff in stock.

Thanks guys I have bought the XT 11 speed kit and have taken a bit of gamble on a absolute black oval 32t chainring, I will let you know how things pan out,cheers Paul

I’ve just ordered (all 11 speed) from ActionSports.de
XT cassette 11-42
XT chain
XT rear mech
XTR shifter

all for 243 euro post (£185 ish).

Sounds about right,circa £200 with a chain ring is reasonable assumption unless you are in the right place at the right time and then you can get a full XT or GX groupset for circa £260 which is an amazing deal.Fingers crossed that my chain stays on over the rough stuff.

Hijack alert…

I’m also considering xt 11 speed from an xt slx deore mix of 9 speed on my ht.

I’ve currently got a deore triple up front that never gets shifted out of the middle ring. Can I keep my deore cranks and get an 11 spd narrow/ wide ring up front to bolt on or do I need a new crank/ chainset?

Any update….

New thread required?

burko73 – Member

I’ve currently got a deore triple up front that never gets shifted out of the middle ring. Can I keep my deore cranks and get an 11 spd narrow/ wide ring up front to bolt on

Yup, absolutely, probably how most people do it tbh. You’ll probably need to buy shorter chainring bolts too but that’s about it.

If you have a Hope Pro 2 rear hub (lots of us do), can it be retro-fitted with the freehub body for the cassettes with 10-tooth sprockets?

Pro 2 EVO is fairly simple to convert to XD for 10t sprockets.
Early Pro 2 is possible but a lot more cost and effort. In fact last time I checked it was almost cheaper to just buy a new Pro 2 EVO with the XD driver. Obviously you will have to factor in a wheel build but even early Pro 2 hubs sell well enough to cover your build cost.

Cheers Matt 😀