7/8/9 speed rear mech/cassette Vs good old MUD

Megatron-UK

Having only recently moved onto a bike with a 9 speed rear I'm amazed by how much difference they make to being able to select just the right gear that you want at any time (e.g my new 11-34 XT cassette compared to a mid 90's 11-30 7 speed STX).

However...

It may be my imagination, but these very fine 8/9 speed cassettes and modern rear mechs do seem to be somewhat more susceptible to the ravages of mud and other cack.
With my old Kona the gears just seemed to continue working without a problem despite the cassette and rear mech getting caked in mud - yet on my new steed it will spit gears out, hunt up and down a gear, and generally misbehave once it gets covered in the stuff. Once washed down, cleaned and WD40'ed it's back to being smooth as silk, even under heavy suspesion movement!

These 10 speeds coming along will probably be even slimmer and be effected more!

Does anyone else find the same, compared to the older, more widely spaced 7 speeds?

nicklouse

Mmm 7 and 8 have the same spacing. it is only 9 that is norrower (at the moment).

Megatron-UK

Really? Hmm.. I did miss some 13 years of MTB developments between the time when I bought the old bike and the new one
Still, I can put up with it becuase of the vastly improved shifting performance

stubs

I ran my old 7 speed shimano XT shifter till the ratchet mechanism died and I had to buy one of these newfangled 9 speed shifters . I still miss that old 7 speeder and I have never noticed any difference between the 7 speed and the 9 speed apart from grass and mud clogging the 9 speed cassete and the chains wearing out quicker.

I read somewhere that even though you have 27 gears you only have about 14 or 15 gear ratios because of duplication of ratios. For example middle ring and 1st cog feels to me exactly the same as granny and 3rd I did try to work out gear ratios once but my abacus caught fire