sunrace wide range cassettes chain compatibility

swod1

I am looking to upgrade my bike to one of these sunrace wide ratio cassettes, I have currently an 11-36 with a 34t front chain ring. It gets me up some hills but feel its a bit limited and a 42 would be ideal for easier climbing

I've got the other bits I'm fitting at the same time radr cage etc.

I just wonder about what chain to use with the cassette?

Has anyone tried shimano, sram and kmc to see which chain works best? I usually use kmc x10-93 or SL with shimano cassettes.

cheers

poah

change the front ring to something smaller unless you regularly pedal out on the 11t off road

Hinaultscrapcousin

I prefer KMC or Shimano chains on all my bikes, I'd go for KMC as a first choice.

swod1

POAH wrote:

change the front ring to something smaller unless you regularly pedal out on the 11t off road

This is something I am trying too, I have a 32t oval to try out but not had any issues with the 34t, its just going up some hills I've found the 36 to be limiting factor, maybe 11-40 might be better.

I'm due a new cassette soon as this one is worn been through a few chains and seen these wide range ones are going cheap on a few places.

Hinaultscrapcousin wrote:

I prefer KMC or Shimano chains on all my bikes, I'd go for KMC as a first choice.

Yeah I thought kmc but just wondered if someone has experimented with a few to find which works best.

Hinaultscrapcousin

I've tried a few, always get KMC if I can.

LimitedGarry

I've had KMC X10, some cheap YBN chain and recently bought Shimano XT HG95.
KMX X10 was absolutely not bad, mileage (as expected) over 1000km on general XC. The YBN was functional, although not exactly quiet and when shifting... yeah, I could feel it's a cheap chain. Can't speak for mileage as this chain saw the worst of autumn and accompanied a used cassette to the end of it's lifespan - the chain and cassette got both ruined in under 400km, mainly due to mud.
Recently bought a Shimano XT HG95. It's the one-sided chain and it shifts absolutely wonderfully. When it's clean and I'm at the right cadence, I press the lever, I can feel that I'm in a different gear, but the transition is seamless and silent. Mileage should be as good as the KMC or better. The one downside is that you gotta buy an easy connection link separately, as Shimano insists on including their connection pin, which is clumsy and sometimes impossible to install correctly (you can buy the links dirt cheap on aliexpress). The Shimano XT will be my go-to chain from now on.

swod1

I've been looking at the gold kmc chains for a bit of bling on my bike as the sunrace mx3 cassette is black, a mate swears by the kmc superlight chains so may just pay the extra and buy one of those.

I've always used shimano chains in the past but they did stretch too easily to make me move on to kmc.