Cassette choice

andi1363

I shall be replacing my MTB 9 speed cassette pretty soon and have been thinking that an Ultegra 12-25 is a far better choice than 11-32 or 11-34. Never use the 11 so the 12 makes sense. I reckon a12-28 would be ideal but cannot find one. Any reason not to do this? The only thing is the Ultegra is designed for road but I doubt this matters :?

Edit;: think this will do nicely

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shimano-SLX-9 ... 483cb7f17c

Chunkers1980

SOunds a b it crazy to me.

What are you running on hte front?

No reason why it would not fit if your shifter matches.

More info needed really on your exact setup

Chunkers1980

Since the edit you seem to have changed your mind!

You can get an XT one for that - what are you try to achieve?

andi1363

Yes exact set up :oops:

Well I want to race more XC events. Chainset is SLX 660 with 44/32/22 rings. I seem to spend most of the race in the middle ring too with occasional use of thr granny ring for the steepest climbs. Bike is an oldish Gary Fisher hardtail with new reba's 8) .

Northwind

What do you think you'll achieve by reducing the gear options? If you're spending lots of time in one ring that's good, but will you still be able to do that with a narrower range or will you end up shifting up and down more?

andi1363

I was going to buy an 9 speed 11-32 but thought this might be a good idea.

This is my thinking. If I go for 11-28, I only lose the 32 as the next one down on a 11-32 is a 28. So I save 50gms :roll: . The gears are closer together so it will be easier to keep a constant cadence. By the time I am in the 22 x 32, it just as fast to walk. The only issue is cassette choice. It will have to be SLX as far as I can tell. I wanted to post the idea to see if there was some obvious error that would stop this from working.

Northwind

The trick is though, that you'll end up with a smaller range in the middle as well, so times when you might have used the 32/32 combo you'll need to drop to the granny to achieve the same. You could gear up in the granny and middle, if you're not using the lowest cog on the 22?

supersonic

I'd think about going 38/24 up front and getting an 11-32

.blitz

Not exactly the same kind of riding as you but I have an 11-28 with a 34T chain ring on my Voltage and the close ratios are a definite improvement over the normal trail bike ratios.

Chinley Churner

I'm with Supersonic on this one... the 38/24 and 11-32 set-up is becoming more and more popular. For lots of courses you can stay in the 38 ring for most of the time and have the 24 as a handy bail out. I'd always look to minimise chain-ring shifts in a race situation as that's when you'll lose most momentum and potentially your chain... this set-up does that.

njee20

Yep I'd echo SS and CC on this. I went to a 12-27 cassette (for XC racing) years ago with a standard triple, but found it annoying how often I had to do massive shifts across the block and shift on the front. Few courses necessetate the small gaps that a close ratio block provides, it's just annoying.

I changed to a double, tried 32/44, 30/42, 28/40 and 28/42. Personally think 28/40 was best for me, although I've now gone to a 36t single ring, and that's even better.

The fewer shifts you do on the front the less time you spend easing off on the power, and that matters when you're racing!

lostboysaint

supersonic wrote:

I'd think about going 38/24 up front and getting an 11-32

I've gone from triple to double with 39/27 and 11-34 and there's very little I haven't been able to get up or down. Great spread of ratios.

Anonymous

SRAM 2x10 and I've got 26/39 up front with 12-36 on the back. Wasn't sure at first but now find it gives me everything. With this set up there's no such thing as a granny as both rings get much use and the small ring is far more than just a granny. Used to have 22/34 with 11-34 9 speed and the granny was redundant to me.

But that's on an AM bike doing AM things. No races and climbing isn't my thing at all, but this makes it nice to climb.

1x10 on my 456 with 34t up front 12-36 on the back and similar really just with some loss on the climbing options. Goes low enough to still climb, just with a bit more effort but a lighter bike. A little less on the top end but I rarely go road speeds off road to need such speeds.

I found playing about with ratios in this a handy way to decide what I want by comparing to what I've got - http://sheldonbrown.com/gears/