I’m going back to a 1×10 setup and can’t decide between the new XT MT8000 and Race Face Aeffect cranks. I’ve had XT before so know it’ll be OK but was fancying something different in the RF Aeffect. Both seem to have good options for rings, probably more for the XT and BB’s are OK as they can use the same.

I was just wondering if anyone has any experiences of either cranks, especially the RF one’s (or RF in general as I’ve never used them) to help me out?

RF Aeffect is lighter (Certainly in SL guise), more resistant to wear on the cranks, and has a the DM option which is great for 1x.

TBH XT M8000 cranks are a bit of a bust for me, too much specific BCDs etc, black that lasts about 10 minutes, and not all that light in the grand scheme of things. A bit off target this year.

Didn’t know the RF Aeffect was actually out yet. I’d seen it appear on the new Orange Five’s and wondered when it would be available to buy for us.

Wiggle RF Aeffect Crankset

RF Website

I’d assumed all RF stuff was moving to the 30mm spindle but it’s interesting to see with that crank that it’s a 24mm spindle so should work with the very reliable Shimano XT BB’s which is nice. I just wonder how they’re setting the bearing pre-load since the other Cinch RF stuff has a new way and I didn’t like the old RF methods.

Good price for it and great weight for the DM version. If I hadn’t recently got an SLX crank I’d be ordering it.

It’s compatible with the Cinch direct mount rings but not with RF’s own Cinch BB (which uses a 30mm spindle and has a bearing pre-tentioner).

I have the Next SL Cinch DM on another bike with the 30mm spindle which requires using and RF BB.

Just watch the chainline on the DM rings – it’s 51mm fixed which means some chain guides don’t fit and the chain is quite far out. There’s no way to adjust it on the 30mm Cinch either. One company, I forget who, has made a compatible N/W ring with a 49mm CL for it.

FWIW the Aeffect runs a 50-52 chainline using the spacers (XT is 50), and the Turbine and Aeffect are both wide enough stance that you can alter the chainline using the BB spacers assuming its threaded.

Got the Aeffect on my new Five with 170mm cranks and RF BB. No issues as yet. Nice NW set up do no issues with chain drops. It’s been hammered in the two months I’ve had it and no signs of wear as yet either.

The cranks are shorter than my previous bike so the number of pedal strikes has dropped as well; a dude issue but important for me

Aefect on rf website is 745g with 32 direct mount

That’s about 100g heavier than SLX with a 32 ring

That includes the bottom bracket, so they are probably about the same weight.

Having gone to spiderless cranks I’m sold for 1x. Simple mounting looks good too 🙂

Fair enough rich, that’ll definitely be an option if they drop to slx prices

Aeffect SL with 32 DM is 643 (Actual weight), SLX with a single is I think 667g,

Website says not inc BB?
Shimano XT triple is 774g, RF double is 785-795g.

Shimano rings shift and last better.

Shimano allows accurate bearing preload, RF doesn’t as far as I can tell.

Heli tape, or clear Gorilla tape to save the finish.

Don’t really get people’s hatred of the Shimano BCD which is now well supported by other brands, while they embrace DM chainrings which cost more and are supported no better than the Shimano pattern.

A BB is about 90-110g.

SLX arms only was 579g.
SLX with 32T N/W was 632g on the kitchen scales.
For £80 it’s an amazing weight. Very good cranks.

If I was buying now I’d be very tempted by the RF Aeffect with the ability to have the Cinch DM rings and the fact it can use XT BBs which are very reliable.

On my big bike the Next SL was 441g with the 32T DM on it. When replacing the RF Respond which came on the bike and weighs 811g it’s very noticeable. The only problem I’ve had with the 30mm Cinch setup is that the pre-tentioner is made of cheese and costs £16 to replace. Other than that, so far, all ok.

benpinnick – Member
Aeffect SL with 32 DM is 643 (Actual weight), SLX with a single is I think 667g,

Ben you don’t happen to know the actual weight of a Turbine do you? My money was going that way but the Aeffect looks good and needs no new tools etc.

Sorry for the thread hijack!

I prefer the Shimano bearing pre-tentioning system – it’s by far the best engineered.
The 30mm Cinch bearing pre-load is a big step up on RF’s older system.
A bit delicate though as I found out to my cost. At least it’s a modular system with full spares available.

I don’t know what the RF Aeffect is using. Anyone know?
My old RF 24mm BB lasted only 600 miles.
I’ve had XT ones do 1500miles and still sweet.

XT for me, even with the odd BCD. Some invisfrasme crank skins should keep them looking tidy.

The pinch bolt system is literally so much better than the self extracting bolt system RF seem to insist on using – setting a chain guide up is enough to want to take an angle grinder to Raceface cranks.

At least with this model it has a 24mm axle, so you arn’t tied into replacing BB’s every 2 months 😉

@Fathomer yes I do…

Aeffect SL 32T NW DM – 643
XT M8000 with 32T ring – 688
Turbine Cinch 32T NW DM – 651

(All accurate actual weights)

@gelert – the cinch was cheese, now its slightly tougher cheese with an improved bolt. Should be a warranty issue so ask for a new one for free (or I can sell you an alu one 😉 )

Thanks Ben, top man. So the Aeffect is actually lighter, interesting.

I assume the benefit of the Turbine is stiffness then.

Is the aeffect sl on the rf website?, can only see the standard one?

Can the cinch rings be had in a boost version with wider chainline?

Im not sure that the SL will be imported… however, in DM guise I am not certain there’s any difference between the standard Aeffect and the SL version, I do know that the SL uses Turbine rings and alloy hardware on the 2x versions over the cheaper rings/steel bolts of the standard Aeffect 2x.

@honorablegeorge, yes they make a ring for boost with a 3mm wider chianline. Whether Silverfish are bringing them in or anyone is making an aftermarket one yet I dont know…. however, if you have a boost bike you can probably run a 32T standard ring anyway, which will improve your chainline.

I assume the benefit of the Turbine is stiffness then.

Theoretically yes, although I challenge anyone to tell the difference – Ive ridden both a fair bit and I cant say I can notice. TBH while the 30mm axle is nice (and you can change axles to port from bike to bike etc) I am sure that the lack of BB support (its pretty much RF, Hope or Enduro right now) would put some people off.

I’d agree, there’s very little chance I’d tell the difference.

I like the idea of direct mount rings and the Turbine looks really nice, it was the extra £70 for a Hope BB and another £10 for the tool to fit that was putting me off. The Aeffect look perfect, nicely understated looks and will go straight into the Hope BB I already own, win 😀

The weights you list are with the steel toothed Shimano chainring which should outlast the others. Gamut, Oneup, Wolftooth etc make alu thick/thin rings to suit if you want a lighter set-up and/or thick/thin vs DCE chainrings.

Dropping the Shimano ring saves around 39g which makes it more competitive, but of course you balance that against the Shimano ring being 2x the price of the a cheap alu ring so whether it lasts long enough to make a difference ….

@benpinnick How much for an alloy Cinch pre-load? I can’t see it on your website.

I already bought two spare plastic ones at £16 each but an alloy one would last forever and be worry free.

OneUp are making the 49mm “corrected” chain line Cinch DM rings:
OneUp Oval DM Cinch N/W

They make corrected round ones too.

I’m going to guess the oval rings don’t work with upper chain guides.

I just checked on what we’d received in last delivery, and apparently we got plastic ones (not alu)… doh. Sorry. Looks like Alu is no longer an option. Bugger. If only someone had bothered to tell me!

Oval rings work with some chainguides fine BTW – depends on the guide but for example Blackspire Der Guides and Trail X guides work well.

Thanks for checking the pre-loaders Ben and for the info on the Oval rings.

I’ve got a MRP BB upper guide on the Cinch bike and an E*Thirteen XCX seat tube upper on the SLX bike.

I hope the business is going really well BTW.

You’re confusing me now. XT rings are cheaper than Cinch rings, are likely to outlast the alloy Cinch, and are easier to adjust chainline on. Struggling to see the benefit that you see?

Struggling to see the benefit that you see?

To be honest I am struggling to see the benefit you think I see either. I was just pointing out that Shimano original rings will be 2x the cost of the aftermarkets, so whether you get the extra wear per pound is unclear.

I’d buy SRAM X1400 DM cranks in any case 😉 Lighter, nicer looking and much harder wearing. Better chainline for 1×11 to boot.

XT rings are ballpark with most comparable rings and cheaper than DM.

On the Srams – you must be mental 😉

Comparable to what though? XT are £45 even at the box shifters. A decent alu ring is £25? Anyway thats not the point… as soon enough there will be cheaper XT compatible aftermarkets too…. I am confused.

SRAM cranks for the win though. Until you have had a set of X1400 DMs you wont appreciate how good they are 🙂

So much the muchness between them then apart from the Shimano pretensioning being better?

@Ben, what version if the X1400 is direct mount? I’ve seen a few ie GX and X7. Also, what chainline should I be looming at on my Zero with a 10 speed XT cassette?

So much the muchness between them then apart from the Shimano pretensioning being better?

Sort of. I think the only positive to the Shimano is the pre-tensioning system (there’s nothing else really notable about them otherwise), which I would probably not buy cranks for. Having run RF cranks on XTR BBs I’ve not really noticed a wide variation in BB life between them. I think most people’s dislike of the RF system is more down to RF BBs than the way they work – Shimano BBs are better, its a fact. That said, the latest XT BB uses yet another tool size, which is annoying in its own right.

The version of the crank is the X1 X1400 DM – They are on special at the distro this month, so there will be deals to be had I suspect. I would imagine price will be about £150. Little more than an Aeffect, but you are mainly paying for the ring I guess. GX 1400 would probably be the same arms with a spider that you could convert to DM later when the ring wears out, saving a boat load of money…. when the X1s are not on special. Personally I like GXP bbs too. I think its a very good fixing system (I actually prefer it to shimano) and the life is ok – its no Shimano XTR but its ok. Our race team bikes will do a season on one bb (they get a good pasting). Not stellar, but acceptable. Theres plenty of compatible BBs from other manufacturers too of course.

Chainline, technically we modelled the Zero with a 50mm Shimano triple crankset, but thats not really important as chainline is a function of the crank not the frame (well assuming the BB is in the right alignment to the wheels).

What should you get? Well my view is narrower is better on 1x chainsets. The bias towards using the larger rear cogs more of the time means that 1x runs better the narrower it is. One of the reasons I prefer SRAM cassettes and chainsets even if you run XT 11 speed shifters and mechs. Collectively the SRAM runs a much narrower chainline than Shimano as the cassette is farther outboard while the chainline is inboard. Combined it makes a difference worth having. Even better if you can find a GXP bb that runs no spacers, as this shifts it again a little, but I think they are OE only… maybe.

For 10 speed, I would still go narrow as you can, thats going to reduce wear and noise on the larger cogs, although if you go for something like an Aeffect you can just swap the BB spacer round to get a 48.5 which is pretty good.

Cheers for the info Ben. I hadn’t thought if sram cranks so i’ll give em a look too.

Does anyone have info on how the Aeffect cranks take up bearing play?

There is no mention of it in the installation instructions on the Race Face website (that I can work out).

Aeffect Crankset Fitting Instructions

Make sure you fit the spacer, then crank them up tight until it ‘stops’. The cranks use an elastomer (the red bit on the spacer) for taking up width variations.

Thanks. Do you know if it is a good fitting system?

I’ve only ever had Shimano or GXP.

100g heavier than SLX, more expensive and marketed as trail/xc vs the indestructibleness of SLX? They do look very nice though…

I use RaceFace cranks on my fatbike. There was a bit of fiddling with shims at the outset (very different after years of Shimano/GXP experience) but after that it’s pretty straightforward.