Rear mechs (LX or XT?) and gear cables (XTR or XT?)

JonnyNoStars

Greetings all. After a bit of advice on mechs and cables!

Me rear mech (2004-ish Deore) is a wee bit on the bent and mullered side, so I'm gonna replace the mech with a slightly posher one and also stick a fresh gear cable set on.

Question is, what mech and cables? I've seen the 2008 Shadow M772 XT at about £36, is this worth the extra tenner over LX or the £20 over Deore?

As for gear cables, XT can be had for around £9 a set and XTR for around £15 a set - is XTR worth the difference?


The rest of the bike is a reasonably-specced budget XC hardtail machine. I mainly ride XC and want to speed up the shift action as I keep finding myself in the wrong gear swearing at the fecking rear mech as it fails to give me a higher gear! Shifters are 2004ish LX ones and front mech is either Deore or LX, can never remember which and it doesn't seem to make much difference with the front ones!

Cheers
Jonny

ride_whenever

xt mech, flying snakes (or nox) for cables. best not full outer by a long way.

god1406

My old Kona came with LX, when it wore out i replaced the mech with XT and couldn't tell that much had changed. However, the new bike has X-9 gears, and they are a bit nicer...

As for cables, is there really any advantage from one cable to another? I use Jagwire stuff because it's cheap.

dunker

how about a non-shadow xt m771 (spring clunks down the cassette to select higher gears, m770 for the reverse i think) with a m770 shifter pod and xtr cables, reckon that's what i'd get if i was upgrading.

Jimbob_no5

the XT shadpw is well nice and definatly worth the money, the deore LX i had on my coiler was ok but it never changed smoothly and the shadow clicks through really nicely

god1406

the XT Shadow my mate has feels a lot more 'clicky', in the way that Sram does. And it looks quite nice, but i'm not convinced it will protect your mech a vast amount more than the non-shadow variety.

Mr_Orange

Go for an XT (M770) rapid rise, you won't regret it, once you've reprogrammed your brain about which way the shifter levers work.

zero303

I'd say the XT shifters are a better investment over LX and Deore, the mechs I've never really noticed much improvement.

JonnyNoStars

Ta for replies everyone

Unfortunately I'm a bit of an ignoramus when it coms to these things lol :roll:

What does the rapid rise bit mean? Is that where the spring assists on shifting to bigger gears (i.e. lower ratios) as opposed to pulling towards the smaller gears, and would this require different shifters as well?
(Don't want to change my shifters at this point, can't justify the expense when the existing ones are still in decent condition! Mech and cables need replacing as they're shagged lol)

And what does the Shadow bit mean - I assumed it was just a bit of marketing guff, is there a particular feature that Shadow refers to?


Cheers!

ride_whenever

shadow has a different shape and pivots. really quite good though.

Prints

shadow means that the mech has a much lower profile because of the new positioning of the pivot, this keeps it tucked away from branches and trailside hazards.
My friend has the XTR shadow, which he found a little difficult to set up, but now he has it dialed in it shifts really well. I would expect the XT to be the same but maybe a little heavier.

Mr_Orange

You got it. Rapid rise assists down-shifts (up to larger cogs), which means smoother shifting and shifting under load is possible without lots of horrible chain noise and slippage.

You don't need new shifters, but the levers work the opposite way round to the way they do now.

I run an XTR rapid rise now, but had an XT on my previous Handjob.

JonnyNoStars

Ah, in that case I think I'll avoid the rapid rise for the time being - sounds like a decent system but I don't want to buy new shifters, and reversing the action on my current ones would no doubt confuse me!

Think I'll go for the M772 Shadow then, since it was a tree stump that bent my Deore anything that keeps out of the way of 'em is a good idea

Any other opinions on cables? Second poster mentions the Flying Snake or Nox cables - these are the same price as two sets of XT gear cables so are they worth the expense?

Cheers

Mr_Orange

^^^^^

There aren't rapid rise specific shifters and it will only take you one ride to get used to using the thumb lever to shift up and the trigger to shift down.