Help me reduce my annual spend on rear mechs please!

I’m running a 1×10 set up with a 11-36t cassette on my Bronson.

I’m getting through rear mechs at a rate of about three a year. I’m always really careful with line choices to try and prolong the life of my mech.

But a stray stick or rock eventually flys up and delivers a fatal blow or like yesterday my chain came off in a race and got dragged into my wheel before I could stop which twisted the cage of the mech. I’ve been running XT medium cage mechs.

Any suggestions? or should I just start buying cheaper mechs to make it more bearable? My only concern is that an SLX mech might be even less robust.

Saint?

Chain device?

Zee. Perfect mix of strength, value and a short cage exponentially reduces rock-derailleur interaction. HTH.

+1 Saint

Zee is good as well as it shares the short cage but it’s not as tough as a saint mech. If you have the 2 in front of you the saint mech looks and feels a lot sturdier.

Zee FR (the wide range one) covers 11-36 and will be an upgrade on the XT in terms of cage length and life. It does have cheapie SLX bushed pulleys so if you are really picky a set of bearing based replacement pulleys might be wanted. I’ve killed the cage on one – I forgot chain growth, *once* and after the hanger snapped the cage was mangled in my rear wheel – nothing special spoke wise, just DT’s, but the wheel was undamaged and the cage wrecked.

Saint is tougher and higher spec while also being a shortie. It also has an adjuster so can properly cope with narrow DH ranges without a whole new mech. If you’re getting through three XT mechs a year and don’t plan backing down, I’d buy Saint.

Re-evaluate your carefulness.

Go single speed or Pinion 🙂

Cheers!
I.

Re-evaluate your carefulness.

+1

Re-evaluate your carefulness.

+2

I didn’t think a saint mech could be run with a 11-36t cassette?

I see that the Zee mech comes in a longer cage than the saint for this range of cassette. But I’ve also heard that it still can’t cope with chain growth on a full sus without running a narrower range cassette.

3 in a year! Sorry you are doing something wrong, bad workmen blames his tools and all that

Re-evaluate my carefulness sounds like slowing down, sounds less fun.

I’d just taken my chain device off after having one for the summer for an Alps trip and other races. I was going to put it back on for this race yesterday but after seeing the course I decided not to. Sure enough within first 100m on the first run the chain came off. Typical!

I see that the Zee mech comes in a longer cage than the saint for this range of cassette. But I’ve also heard that it still can’t cope with chain growth on a full sus without running a narrower range cassette.

I run a Zee fine on a FS with a 30t front and 40t rear expander.

3 in a year? I’d take that. I’m on 2xt and a force this month.

I had the exact same problem. Have your previous mechs been the xt and slx ‘shadow plus’. If not this is where you have probably been going wrong. I personally would recommend the Zee FR! Solid build and short cage so its less likely to be hit on rocks ect.

People who think Zee mechs are solid are sadly mistaken. They’re also made of cheese. I have had shimano clutch mechs from deore-slx-xt-zee and they’ve all suffered broken clutches internally through normal use. A zee has twisted when I got some long grass in the chain. I simply send them back and get new ones under warranty. That wouldn’t work with rock strikes though.

2 year warranty with shimano so they’ll replace them without often even requiring the mech’s returned, just photos. Very poor product, but I’ve no idea what else I can do. People say SRAM goes sloppy.

I also had a zee FR on an 11-36 that twisted through normal use, nothing getting caught in the chain at all. All set up properly. I’ve gone to XT medium cage mechs now as they won’t twist due to the strain forces of riding a full sus, but the clutches still fail after a short period of time.

My riding is hard trail oriented rather than XC tours of the countryside.

Used to be about average for me as well. I gave up on rear mechs on my hardtails and they are now all alfine or singlespeed.

I’m down to my last rear mech on my full suss. If that goes I’m getting a Zerode or a mallenyard to replace it (if he ever decides to sell any).

You can get a stronger mech but some things will just destroy them. I did a blind drop last year and on the landing their are largish rocks that are always in different places, when I landed the mech took a direct hit nothing was going to save it.

Re-evaluating your carefulness doesn’t need to involve slowing down at all, far from it. If you learn to read terrain better, look further ahead, choose/plan better lines and ride more precisely you’ll be faster for it.
There’s little point being fast if you have to stop halfway through a race/ride due to self induced mechanicals.
Beginning to sound any MOAR fun yet?

Any suggestions?

Get sponsorship from Shimano, let them pick up the tab?

Just before you drop down into a technical section drop down from first gear to keep the mech further away from the spokes of doom. Also a bit of thread lock on the bolt can stop both the adjusters going out of sync and the attachment bolt doing the same.

Thought the SLX mech was the same, it’s just that the pulley wheels have got solid bearings instead of ballraces?

People who think Zee mechs are solid are sadly mistaken

Sorry that doesn’t include me, the owner of a Zee, that I’ve been running for two years with no problems.

Zee mech is just an SLX mech with a different badge and available short-cage.

You must be doing something wrong. I last broke a rear mech when I flipped my Diamond Back WCF6.0 over my head and it landed mech first on rocks in Grizedale Forest. The year was 1998, getting on for 20 years ago now!

are you running the correct length of chain? it might be too short Hence too much pressure on your chain when your suspension is gee’d out.
or are there stick/rocks/debris jammed into your destroyed mech’s?

Yeh it’s not me hitting stationary objects. I can avoid those! It’s stray rocks or sticks flying up and hitting it. Not especially often, and usually not doing any damage. But eventually one does unfortunately do terminal damage to the mech.

Yesterday’s fiasco with my chain coming off would have been avoided if I’d had my chain guide on. Chain is the correct length.

Zee isn’t solid- it’s literally the top of an SLX mech and the bottom of an old Saint. Which means a nice strong lever attached to a relatively weak body. It’s a wee bit more out of the way than a mid cage but I reckon the mech itself is probably the least durable Shimano make, just because of the mismatch of strong and weak putting so much strain on the weak bits.

The short cage is also very short, designed for road cassettes. Yes you can get the FR version which has the capacity to adjust around a 36T cassette but that’s not the whole story, cage length also dictates the ability to deal with chain slack. Some bikes with a lot of chaingrowth can exceed that capacity, which means either flappy chain or too-tight chain. Might work, might not.

Saint is very strong, with the additional bracing on the parallelogram, and durable bits throughout. But XT is also pretty durable ime, mine are every bit as scarred as my old Saint and still straight, or straight enough anyway. TBH getting the mech into the wheel can destroy anything though (Saint will take out more of the wheel 😉 )

If you’re riding hard, you’re going to do in an occasional mech tbh.

Surely your legs would be taking the brunt of all this debris flying up? The rear wheel will spits things out directly below and behind the rear mech, the front wheel will spit it out and it will hit your right leg/ankle/foot before it hits the mech given the angle of it.

Are you sure it is stray stuff and not just bad line choices? Going fast is the plan…but riding fast is even better…back off a bit and hone your skills then ramp it up and enjoy rear mech-free riding.

Chain length also might need a look at.

How many mechs have you actually broken?

The last time I broke a mech was about 4 years ago. That was the third in as many months. Just statistics innit?

As expected, loads of folk chiping in with how long they’ve been riding and never smashed a mech… Just accept people ride differently! Those that ride hard and fast on loose rock and allsorts will push the limits of their gear. It’s still reasonable to look for ways to reduce that cost rather than suggest the OP starts riding less like a hooligan! After all, thrashing a bike and picking straight messy lines is half the fun and way quicker!

As I’ve had to take an enforced break from DH, I now run a LT trail bike, being a pikey I didn’t want to buy all the bloody parts again so moved most of the parts across from my DH bike. My Saint mech with a OneUp RADr cage has performed brilliantly, taken some hits but still going strong.

Vote Corbyn and fall to the left.

As expected, loads of folk chiping in with how long they’ve been riding and never smashed a mech… Just accept people ride differently!

If that was directed at me, that’s not really what I said. I can’t really see how riding aggressively breaks deraillieurs anyway. Every time I’ve done it, it’s either been a crash or an ill-judged line choice / rock smash.

I smashed 3 Sram mech’s last year, and to this day im not sure how as it wasn’t apparent what had destroyed them, anyways, I changed to a Zee mech and shifter lengthened my chain by 2 links and not had a problem since

Stay away from a zee if you have large chain growth. Ive bent three in a year. Always the same way, the backbone metal body twists making the cage point away from the bike.

This is on two different bikes too.

I went to the same medium cage mecha, and SLX, which has been fine as it can deal with the chain growth more. Having the clutch on whilst climbing doesnt help too.

I’m another serial mech mangler.
Usual failure mode is a big rock either flying up and impacting mech or occasionally just me riding through a tight line too close to a fixed rock.

I’m going through about 2 XT medium cages a year.
I’d agree that those that said Zee is NOT the answer. I’ve found them to be far less resilient than XT.

The new bike has X01 on it and I’m frankly terrified at the prospect of replacing mechs. 😥

I don’t want to start any arguments on where we all sit on the scale of canal path cruiser to DH rocket ship and how that affects the life expectancy of a mech. I’ll have a think about what I’m doing riding wise.

How many mechs have you actually broken?

From memory the last one before this one was at the end of Spring when I was following some down BKB in the SH and the rider in front dislodged probably the only lose rock on that trail and it bounced off an embankment and went straight into my mech. The one before was at was in the winter and a stick wedged itself into my mech on some woodland singletrack on a night ride. The one before was at a DH race where the trail was just a gully which went round a corner, as I lent the bike over in the corner the mech caught on something in the gully. Riding in the gully was the only option and there was no way I could see what was in the gully or do much to avoid anything as I made the turn. Thinking back to last year I caught one on a lose rock on a fast descent which was just made up of lose rocks. I’d done the same earlier that year in Wales in a similar scenario. I’d had one meet its end from a stick lancing it on a daytime singletrack ride. Going back any further is starting to test my memory, although I’m sure you get the idea. I do clearly remember a lose rock pushing my mech into my rear wheel the year before in the Alps and it ripping the mech clean off. That made a mess!.

The saint mech with a rad cage is an interesting idea. It may well be stronger than my XT one but I will accept in most of the examples I’ve mentioned I’m sure any mech will have met it’s end. Good job I’m not running Sram 11speed mechs!

Are replacement cages available for shimano mechs? I can see some available online but I’m struggling to find both parts for my mech. Just thinking that replacing just the cage might be worth a try in this instance as it just looks like it’s this part that is damaged.