XT 12 speed chains seem to be pretty delicate- in fact the only chains I can remember breaking for about the last decade, and I’ve done way less miles on them than I have with my usual KMC X12. Something I’ve seen picked up on elsewhere too… so I’m wondering what “3 times more durable” means in comparison with those, and with other people’s chains?

simondbarnes
Full Member

Making stuff backwards compatible just means new stuff isn’t as good as it can be.

That’s the downside. The advantage is that, well, it’s backwards compatible. That’s not trivial, and it’s not just about “I want to use the bits I already own”. Any new standard is harder to support- when you walk into the only bike shop in town because you’ve broken your mech and they say “Oh, sorry, that’s that new standard Shimano made that’s incompatible with everything else, we don’t stock that” then you see the real benefits of backwards compatible.

“I have 5067km and counting on a GX 11 speed cassette..”

“On a full power ebike?”

“No”

Well there you go! I generally do thousands of miles on cassettes on normal bikes but only hundreds on an ebike. The load on the sprockets is so different, especially if used for short trips on full power and you’re a reasonably powerful and impatient cyclist.

XT 12 speed chains seem to be pretty delicate- in fact the only chains I can remember breaking for about the last decade, and I’ve done way less miles on them than I have with my usual KMC X12.

Try the XTR – I’ve had really good life out of mine. Only 12 spd Shimano chain that’s made by Shimano rather than KMC.

That’s the downside. The advantage is that, well, it’s backwards compatible. That’s not trivial, and it’s not just about “I want to use the bits I already own”. Any new standard is harder to support- when you walk into the only bike shop in town because you’ve broken your mech and they say “Oh, sorry, that’s that new standard Shimano made that’s incompatible with everything else, we don’t stock that” then you see the real benefits of backwards compatible.

Working in a shop I’m fully aware of that. From a purely personal point of view I want things to be as good as they can be though. The R7020 groupset on my nice road bike is infinitely better than the 10spd Dura Ace & Ultegra that I ran on my previous nice bike and that just wouldn’t have been possible had it been made backwards compatible.

I haven’t tried to find out the precise details but I presume they’ll be using thicker sprockets to improve the durability, which then require wider centre to centre spacing so the chain side plates can fit, hence the change in the mechs.

sillyoldman
Full Member

Try the XTR – I’ve had really good life out of mine. Only 12 spd Shimano chain that’s made by Shimano rather than KMC.

TBH KMC’s own lines and SRAM both seem a lot better without paying XTR prices. (aside; do KMC still make the Shimano ones? I thought they said they were doing it all in-house when they launched the 11 speed range)

simondbarnes
Full Member

Working in a shop I’m fully aware of that. From a purely personal point of view I want things to be as good as they can be though.

OK but you said “Making stuff backwards compatible just means new stuff isn’t as good as it can be”, you seemed to be ignoring the benefits. For me, availability and usefulness is about being as good as it can be, or at least part of it… the best performing groupset in the world would be terrible if you can’t get the bits. Usability and livable-with-ness is part of what makes stuff good or bad.

I have to say this is the first new product to interest me in ages. I’m probably weird tho, still riding 8 and 9 speed, and don’t off road as much these days, and gone quite anti-consumption.

The durability and price of modern drivetrains just seems daft to me…I should probably try riding them tho!

The optimisation of rear mechs for shifting is mostly about parallelogram angle and offset. If the general profile of the cassette is sort of the same, then existing mechs should be quite capable of shifting the chain from one cog to the next. The missing piece in this would be a shifter indexed for the cable pull required for the cassette spacing.

This would offer backwards compatibility and a minimal increase in internal and retail SKUs (good for the aftermarket supply chain).

LinkGlide could have been a heavy duty cassette and chain option. However looks like Shimano want to have a way to target the OEM e-bike market and substituting in a cassette and chain would be invisible from a brand PoV. Their established order of Deore, SLX, XT gives them opportunity to offer Linkglide equivalents direct to manufacturers and have a plausible B2B sales pitch (good for the OE supply chain and damn the aftermarket).

My guess is that they deliberately made it incompatible because they do not want people mixing and matching regular and e-bike components. I can well imagine people buying a replacement cassette based on price and inadvertantly putting a standard one on an e-bike to replace a Linkglide one, then complaining that it wears out too fast. By making them incompatible, that cannot happen.

@thols2, isn’t that exactly what’s being complained about. Removing a capability to swap and change when in reality you might have a dead bike in need of a replacement part. The choice is between getting that bike going again Vs getting it back to original spec after a search and wait for a specific part to be available. If you’re in a resort and you bend a mech, you’ll Want to replace with something immediately available. If the number of Shimano standards has doubled you have half the chance the retailer will have the part in stock unless the retailer doubles their inventory.

isn’t that exactly what’s being complained about.

Yes, it is what is being complained about. Clearly Shimano have done this deliberately – they do not want people to mix and match e-bike and regular drivetrain parts. If you disagree with that decision, you don’t have to buy a Shimano equipped bike.

Try the XTR – I’ve had really good life out of mine. Only 12 spd Shimano chain that’s made by Shimano rather than KMC.

I thought Shimano had brought it all back in house some time ago (10 or 11 speed era)? It was part of the reason why they could claim the durability was going up despite chains getting smaller.

I’ve got a Shimano chain on a GX drivechain in rotation with a couple of Sram ones, I’m sure it shifts better, but then it’s always comparing a freshly waxed chain to whatever comes off.

“Clearly Shimano have done this deliberately”

But have they? Cassette sprockets on 11 and 12 speed are pathetically thin, and fill very little of the inner width of the chain.

If Shimano have made the sprockets thicker (which is the obvious thing to do for durability – and explains the increase in weight) then how can they make the new drivetrain backwards compatible?

Depending on price, I might get one of these groupset’ for the Stooge for when I feel like gears. I might just buy Deore instead though.

thisisnotaspoon
Full Member

I thought Shimano had brought it all back in house some time ago (10 or 11 speed era)? It was part of the reason why they could claim the durability was going up despite chains getting smaller.

Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Nonsense of course- the KMC-made Shimano chains weren’t great, but only because they were made to Shimano’s not-great spec. KMC’s own design, own brand chains were fab.

Would it not help if cassettes had somewhat larger top gear sprockets? An 11 is horrible inefficient and wears so badly. Can’t claim to be e-clever though as I borrowed my brother full suss ebike for only my 2nd ever eride yesterday. Even on the hills that had my analogue mates (that are fitter than me) out of the saddle I was no lower than about 5th. A much closer set of gears would surely enable a more economical design.

Would it not help if cassettes had somewhat larger top gear sprockets?

It would be heavier. Not good marketing.

thisisnotaspoon
Full Member

I thought Shimano had brought it all back in house some time ago (10 or 11 speed era)? It was part of the reason why they could claim the durability was going up despite chains getting smaller.

Yeah, that’s what I thought too. Nonsense of course- the KMC-made Shimano chains weren’t great, but only because they were made to Shimano’s not-great spec. KMC’s own design, own brand chains were fab.

Hadn’t heard that – no idea to be honest! XTR/Dura-Ace chains suggest that Shimano’s spec isn’t the issue though. Appreciate they’re not cheap, but compared to other consumable drivetrain parts these days, they’re also not crazy expensive.

Re Linkglide – I’d guess the shifter can only upshift one at a time, and downshift one or maybe two at a time to prevent cack-handed multi shifts under big load on an E-Bike. If that’s the case, it makes total sense to make it a unique system without cross compatibility so that you can’t swap the shifter to a standard Shimano with multiple shift ability. No point in building in protection for the drivetrain and user if it’s easily circumvented.
It’s a pretty specific system that you either want or not – don’t really see the point of mixing it with other systems.

Right enough – only HG53, HG73B and CN4601 are made by KMC. Cheers for info!

sillyoldman
Full Member

Hadn’t heard that – no idea to be honest! XTR/Dura-Ace chains suggest that Shimano’s spec isn’t the issue though

Nah, definitely shimano’s spec/design- KMC made far better chains, at the same price point, to their own design. Shimano basically had them making a not very good product which sold anyway because it said Shimano on.

KMC chains don’t shift as well or run as quietly, so I guess at the lower pricepoints, they both have compromises.

Never found that tbh, I use the basic KMC chains when I’ve got a choice and as far as I’ve ever felt they shift exactly the same as XT chains… Never had an XTR 12 speed but for 9-11 it was the same, XTR chains were lighter but they didn’t shift any better.

Pretty common for shops to swap KMC for Shimano (particularly on road bikes) to improve shift and reduce noise – I’d imagine some deep section carbon wheels can amplify the noise.
XTR just last much better IME.
To be fair I haven’t used a KMC since 3×9 days though!

I know Shimano seems to be about 18+ months behind their production schedules at the moment, but has anyone heard anything about Link Glide coming into stock at some point soon?

This post inspired by me apparently destroying a Microshift (actually I just typo’d that as Microshit which is rather appropriate) 11 speed cassette in SIX WEEKS!!! Yes, 6 weeks and only about 200 miles and the Levo’s motor plus my legs have worn out some of the smaller sprockets to the point that they’re skipping.

Loads more information here

https://nsmb.com/articles/gambling-on-the-retrogrouch-shimano-xt-linkglide-m8130/

Looks good. It even avoid the 15 18 jump which did sometimes annoy me on 9 speed. The 11 13 never seems to matter as much

11-13-15-17-20-23-26-30-36-43-50T

Got LinkGlide yesterday! Looks solid AF. Hoping it lasts!

What did you go for and where did you get it? Thinking of the 10 speed for the emtb

I’ve got the XT 11 speed. After realising my cassette was so knackered that I couldn’t use my biggest few sprockets (they’re the unworn ones) I started hunting online for LinkGlide rather than put on my back-up HG SLX 11s cassette. And amazingly it was finally in stock in places!

Popped into my LBS to have a chat about something else, mentioned LinkGlide and they said they had it in stock so I got it from them and saved myself the hassle of fitting it. I think they’ve got 10 speed too – the boss there said that generally 11 speed was for eMTB and 10 for e-utility.

I did think about 10 speed but I’m planning to ride my Levo as an unpowered bike on some away trips – rather than take my (currently singlespeed) hardtail – and I thought I might want that big sprocket if I’m doing a big climb on such a heavy bike.

I had HG XT 11s before and it feels at least a nice – I like the shifter a lot!