Having a great ride early doors in the freezing fog and fast running trails when at a really slow point I hit a stump I think which in turn pushed the derailleur up at an angle and into my wheel. It’s bent the cage beyond all recognition but I think the sprung section is fine. Spoke has a slight knock so guess it’s best to replace it but is it worth replacing the inner and outer cages or plump for a new XT mech?

Kudos to my mate for pulling and pushing me the 7km home.

£20 for cage v £60 for a new one, I don’t know – personally I’d buy new – but mine is a bit scuffed and battered, my jockey wheels are a rough and it’s generally looking a bit second-hand.

Oh and I’m hamfisted and probably break it.

I faced this dilemma. The price of the inner and outer cages, and also to replace the worn jockey wheels made it a no brainer.

SLX 11spd mech might be worth a look?

I do get the impression that they’ve become basically disposable items… like a lot of stuff these days 😕

I would go new – can you be sure rest of it (and the hanger) is not distorted – so might repair and then no good anyway

@orangespyderman I get the feeling Shimano would rather you didn’t go taking their shit apart, at least they don’t take the piss with the bits they will sell you.

I had similar with a Zee mech I cmashed up when it was a week old. It just felt bad trashing it.

In the end, it finished up being a not-really-zee with a sh XTR 970 carbon GS cage…

If I was doing it again, TBH I’d break the smashed mech for future spares and replace.

There’s no guarantee the rest of the mech is undamaged, the knucles/pivots can twist if they get pulled hard enough in the wrong direction. I’d buy a new mech and keep the old one for spares.

P-Jay – Member

@orangespyderman I get the feeling Shimano would rather you didn’t go taking their shit apart,

Shimano publish a maintenance routine for rear mechs that involves taking them apart.

Bugger. The rest of it looks ok but I cannot be sure it’s not bent in some way. On Madison it’s more like £30 for both bits; well annoying. Jockeys are barely used.

I had a cunning plan to buy a new one for my FS bike, get the cages, do up the knackered mech from today and whack on the hardtail (which I’m slowly buying 1×11 parts for) but £30 for two bits is a bloody smack in the nuts.

SLX tends to be more than XT currently.

£46 for an SLX off Mantel right now. Ive used both quite alot and I can’t say I can tell any difference, and the SLX is prettier.

Yeah, it’s weird at the moment with a lot of UK shops, XT is already discounted for age, SLX is new so it’s still expensive, XT was cheaper than SLX when I got my last one.

When SLX came out the prices went up alot thanks to Brexit, however alot of XT stock was already in the system bought at a much lower price. When you apply x margin to old XT pricing, and new SLX pricing, XT is working out cheaper or about the same.

Mantel?

Mantel? They ok? Also says up to 40T – that’s front ring, right?

No, cassette…

Have you access to a vice to straighten the old plates?

Mantel is fine yes – ordered off them before. 41T is the max difference you can run, so thats any 1x cassette on the market right now.

Great thanks Ben.

At what point do you choose a long over a medium? 42 cassette and 32 front (oval ring on my ht)? Is it for 2x 3x?

Yeah long cage is for triples in the main. Even on an oval you’ll never come close to blowing up a mid cage running 1x.

A slight after thought but I wonder if yesterday derailleur mash up was due to having a long cage on a 1x system? Unlikely?

Well its more likely to happen as the cage is longer, so more chance of hitting something, but the length itself won’t be much of a factor outside of that.

Ta muchly.