X01 DH

lawman

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/sram-7-spe ... -ride.html

Just what DH folks have been after for years right? Nice to see a 10spd version as well.

bennett_346

Read the article and still can't see where the advantage over what we already have is.

rockmonkeysc

At last a sensible DH transmission. I don't want 10 speed on my dh bike. Every gear shift is multiple gears and I never use the lowest ratios.
It's difficult to judge how many gears im shifting down while braking, lining up for a turn and slowly spinning the cranks to shift gear and looking good for the photographer all at the same time.

peter413

I've found removing the biggest 3 gears from a 10 speed 11-36 XT cassette to make a pretty good 7 speed setup. Maybe something to consider Rockmonkey?

But I do agree it's good to see a proper DH setup being produced without having to make your own. I can't see myself buying it though, the reduced XT cassette I mentioned above is working perfectly for me and the XTR shifter/Zee mech combo is far cheaper than X0.

The Northern Monkey

Isnt saint 7sp compatible anyway?

I know on my m810 mech I can take a "pin" out and run a road mech..

lawman

For those that can afford it, it's ideal. The 10t cog could allow you to drop a chainring size for more clearance and the gaps between the ratios are more suited to DH, as they've basically been using roadie cassettes for donkeys years whose needs are completely different, so DH folks have had to use/adapt what is available to them. As Peter says, yes you can adapt a current cassette to 7 speed, but like the XX1 bodges you only get some of the benefits. Tbf I think the biggest thing with this is the rear mech and the ratios, I think the rest is pretty trivial given what is already available/bodgable.

peter413

I'm not convinced by the extra clearance. A lot of the DH riders I know run a 36t ring but dropping to a 32t would still loose you a bit and not many guides are 34t specific so there wouldn't be any more clearance unless you weren't running a bash. If you were running a 38t or 40t ring and dropped to a 36t you could gain a bit of clearance by changing guides but those that run rings that size would possibly want to keep them that size anyway. I'm not even going to say anything about those riding without a guide, I just don't see a good reason not too on a DH bike IMHO. The other problem I see with changing ring sizes with a smaller cassette cog is, yes the highest gear might be the same or similar to the previous setup but none of the other gears would be.

The ratios aren't anything new really, the XT has 2 tooth gaps between each gear except the bottom gear which has a 3 tooth difference which is pretty similar to what the X01 is offering. They also have almost the same spread (11-24 and 10-24).

lawman

peter413 wrote:

I'm not convinced by the extra clearance. A lot of the DH riders I know run a 36t ring but dropping to a 32t would still loose you a bit and not many guides are 34t specific so there wouldn't be any more clearance unless you weren't running a bash. If you were running a 38t or 40t ring and dropped to a 36t you could gain a bit of clearance by changing guides but those that run rings that size would possibly want to keep them that size anyway. I'm not even going to say anything about those riding without a guide, I just don't see a good reason not too on a DH bike IMHO. The other problem I see with changing ring sizes with a smaller cassette cog is, yes the highest gear might be the same or similar to the previous setup but none of the other gears would be.

The ratios aren't anything new really, the XT has 2 tooth gaps between each gear except the bottom gear which has a 3 tooth difference which is pretty similar to what the X01 is offering. They also have almost the same spread (11-24 and 10-24).

All true I guess, I'm not sure what size ring most folks use DH, I imagined it would 38/36t or something like that, I know my old LG1 was 32-36t and the next one up was 36-40t IIRC, so maybe if you were running a 38t you would get some extra clearance. I've not seen many folks run cut-down Xt cassettes, most just seem to use road cassettes.

rockmonkeysc

36t is pretty standard for downhill.
People have tried thick thin rings with no guide for dh but it's not quite reliable enough for racing where a dropped chain could mean loosing 20+ places

lawman

RockmonkeySC wrote:

36t is pretty standard for downhill.
People have tried thick thin rings with no guide for dh but it's not quite reliable enough for racing where a dropped chain could mean loosing 20+ places

I think using no guide is silly in DH even with a narrow/wide chainring on my Ibis I still run a light weight top guide just in case, it weighs like 50g so it's worth it. I think something like a MRP AMG could be useful on a DH bike, so you have a top guide and a taco bash as well as the security of an XX1 style chainring, although I think Sram are using it simply because they can, can't see many folks ditching full on guides on their DH bikes, especially racers

supersonic

Don't see the point in the 10t, not when you are only going up to say 20 of teeth on the cassette. Sure you can run a slightly smaller chain ring, but you need a new hub, and 10t cog is not as efficient for a given gear. Which is exactly why they originally dropped 9t, and why roadies rarely use anything less than 12t.

Still, the cassette is bloody light!

The Northern Monkey

Northwind

If it's too expensive for you, I can offer you a 7-speed cassette and top quality altus shifter for only one million pounds.

THe smaller chainring thing is quite funny tbh, 36/11 is the equivalent of 33/10 so the actual size reduction is the width of a bawhair. And then for the promo shots, they fitted it with a bigger chain device anyway. Just an excuse to tie it into their 11-speed driver thing.

All in all, if you buy this, I hereby declare you to be a mong. If you get it for free from a sponsor, crack on.

The Rookie

The Northern Monkey wrote:

I know on my m810 mech I can take a "pin" out and run a road mech..

Why not just remove the mech and run a road mech? Or did you mean m810 shifter?

RevellRider

I think Northern Monkey meant he could run a road cassette, as M810 was a convertable mech

The Rookie

Argh, that makes some sense!

njee20

Does it? 10 speed road cassettes are interchangeable anyway, Shimano are 1mm narrower across the width, but work perfectly. SRAM are identical.

This just seems about exploiting the XD body they've invested a lot in to me. As SS says there's no real advantage to running a 10t sprocket versus a slightly larger sprocket at the other end, but several disadvantages. It makes sense on XX1, but not this. A PowerDome type cassette like XX, in 11-26 or something would seem to make more sense to me as it would negate the need to buy their freehub body.

dusk

I thought it seemed like a waste of time but the cassette ratios do seem a good idea to me but really someone just needs to copy those ratios for a 10 speed cassette

RevellRider

Njee, it wasn't a change due to the width of the cassette on 9 speed Saint but the range of the cassette. The converter made the parallelogram change so it hugged the closer ratios of a road cassette better

njee20

Ah, I see, but your statement still doesn't make sense:

I know on my m810 mech I can take a "pin" out and run a road mech..

You obviously meant you could take a pin out and run a road cassette.

but really someone just needs to copy those ratios for a 10 speed cassette

They do - plenty of 11-25/11-26/11-27 cassettes out there. The problem then is that you have to shift multiple gears all the time, which I can empathise with, I didn't like a close ratio block for XC racing.

lawman

njee20 wrote:

Ah, I see, but your statement still doesn't make sense:

I know on my m810 mech I can take a "pin" out and run a road mech..

You obviously meant you could take a pin out and run a road cassette.

but really someone just needs to copy those ratios for a 10 speed cassette

They do - plenty of 11-25/11-26/11-27 cassettes out there. The problem then is that you have to shift multiple gears all the time, which I can empathise with, I didn't like a close ratio block for XC racing.

Which is what this is intended to do, minimize shifts and remove almost any chance of ghost shifting thanks to the horizontal parallelogram for the mech.

DH riders have been asking for less gears for years, so Sram give them what they want. The whole world then moans about being given what they want. I genuinely think people these days just discount stuff the minute it's released, you could guarantee if XX1 had been launched at the low-end of the market there'd be people moaning it was too cheap and they wanted X-blah-blah level. Sure there have been shitty ideas over the last few years, pressfit BB's multiple BB standards, Giant's overdrive 2 steerer/headset standard... you get the idea, they're some pretty shitty ideas. Now I'm not saying this is ground breaking, but it's giving a small section of the market what they've been asking for years, and where is the harm in that?

Northwind

lawman wrote:

DH riders have been asking for less gears for years, so Sram give them what they want. The whole world then moans about being given what they want.

Who wanted the 10-tooth for DH? The rest of it makes total sense to me but all it really needs is a cassette and a slightly modified shifter to make it work, not all the other expense.

lawman

Northwind wrote:

lawman wrote:

DH riders have been asking for less gears for years, so Sram give them what they want. The whole world then moans about being given what they want.

Who wanted the 10-tooth for DH? The rest of it makes total sense to me but all it really needs is a cassette and a slightly modified shifter to make it work, not all the other expense.

Maybe not many wanted the 10t, but when Sram have the product there to do it, the XD driver body, why not? Who's to say that in the next 2-3 years that Sram move exclusively to the XD driver? If you've got to change a couple of things like you say, cassette and shifter, all that's really left is the mech so they may as well redesign that as well, given they already have the tech from XX1, it would have minimal development cost, but they can make money from a new product. At the end of the day they're a business and they want to make money, which is no different to you or I, if you could make more money, you would.

rockmonkeysc

What would be ideal is a 7 speed cassette and shifter with 11-24 tooth cassette all compatible with 10 speed chain, mech and freehub.
No one wants or needs a 10 tooth on dh bikes. 11-36 or 11-38 is plenty for just about any track. I have spun out with 11-36 once and it was scary fast on a dh track.

Northwind

lawman wrote:

it would have minimal development cost, but they can make money from a new product. At the end of the day they're a business and they want to make money, which is no different to you or I, if you could make more money, you would.

Which is all fine, but a long way from "giving us what we want"

peter413

RockmonkeySC wrote:

What would be ideal is a 7 speed cassette and shifter with 11-24 tooth cassette all compatible with 10 speed chain, mech and freehub.

And that's almost exactly what the cut down XT cassette I was on about is. It's just not a 7 speed specific shifter but the limit screws on the mech stop you shifting more than 7 gears so you wouldn't know the difference except on models like my XTR that usually have no resistance in 1st gear but obviously isn't like that with the 7 speed cassette. And you don't even need a Saint/Zee mech to do that, I was running a normal XT perfectly before I got my Zee.

So I suppose you could technically argue that Shimano have been giving us what we want all along.

rockmonkeysc

I have an X0 DH mech at the moment because thats what my bike came with but usually I use a Sora mech because they are cheap and work perfectly well. No need for a dh specific mech.

The Northern Monkey

RockmonkeySC wrote:

I have an X0 DH mech at the moment because thats what my bike came with but usually I use a Sora mech because they are cheap and work perfectly well. No need for a dh specific mech.

Cheaper to replace when thing inevitably go tits up too.

I never understand why some DH/FR bikes come with high end XC brakes either.. A couple of lads have had gentle crashes, snapped a lever and its been cheaper to buy a set of SLX or Deore brakes than get a replacement lever!

Northwind

peter413 wrote:

So I suppose you could technically argue that Shimano have been giving us what we want all along.

Aye. It's a bit like reinventing the wheel, except they've come up with a worse, more expensive wheel.

Thewaylander

Been looking at the first looks and preveiws on bikemag, Pinkbike and so on. The pro's seem to think its awesome so who am i to argue, it all makes alot of sense to me coming at it from a fresh perspective, its not a revolution but it seems to give them what they want, and at top level who cares how much it costs the pro's dont pay for there kit anyway!

Any home user will be like those buying XX1 well off and dont care what other people think. Alot of people think XX1 is silly but its proving to be hugely popular with lots of people trying to make there own bodge jobs on a smaller budget! i think this will turn out similar.

njee20

lawman wrote:

njee20 wrote:

They do - plenty of 11-25/11-26/11-27 cassettes out there. The problem then is that you have to shift multiple gears all the time, which I can empathise with, I didn't like a close ratio block for XC racing.

Which is what this is intended to do, minimize shifts and remove almost any chance of ghost shifting thanks to the horizontal parallelogram for the mech.

That was my point...?

lawman wrote:

Northwind wrote:

lawman wrote:

DH riders have been asking for less gears for years, so Sram give them what they want. The whole world then moans about being given what they want.

Who wanted the 10-tooth for DH? The rest of it makes total sense to me but all it really needs is a cassette and a slightly modified shifter to make it work, not all the other expense.

Maybe not many wanted the 10t, but when Sram have the product there to do it, the XD driver body, why not? Who's to say that in the next 2-3 years that Sram move exclusively to the XD driver? If you've got to change a couple of things like you say, cassette and shifter, all that's really left is the mech so they may as well redesign that as well, given they already have the tech from XX1, it would have minimal development cost, but they can make money from a new product. At the end of the day they're a business and they want to make money, which is no different to you or I, if you could make more money, you would.

That was also my point. The use of the XD body and the 10t cassette adds nothing, but brings a number of disadvantages, it's SRAM doing exactly what people moan about Shimano doing!