The European market may still favour the triple ring drivetrain – and I would too if faced with climbing the Alps – but many Aussie mountain bikers are choosing to run a single chainring up front. Eliminating the front derailleur creates a simpler, lighter and cleaner looking bike whilst leaving more free space on the handlebars for dropper post remotes and other gadgets. That’s all well and good, but you still need an appropriately wide spread of gears for your trails.
Last year Shimano launched their first wide range 1X drivetrain as an option within the XTR group, delivering an 11-40 gear spread from the 11-speed cassette. Whilst this was an improvement over the stock 11-36 range of a 10-speed cassette, it favoured close-step gear ratios over all-out gearing range—a valid choice given the ‘R’ in XTR stands for ‘Race’.
This ‘R’ may also stand for rich, as Shimano’s flagship XTR group is also extremely expensive. To get a hold of Shimano’s latest and greatest you either need to be a sponsored pro, financially flush or getting it at mates’ rates within the industry. That’s all set to change with the introduction of the M8000 group.
The new XT delivers all of the design updates that were introduced on the latest XTR components plus more. In addition to the regular 11-40 cassette, Shimano now offers a 1X specific option with an even wider 11-42 spread.
While the new XT is only just becoming available in Australia, we’ve been lucky enough to have it on test for some time. So let’s take a look at the details of this much-anticipated group and how it performs.
GETTING CRANKY
As with XTR, the cranks are convertible between one, two or three chainrings. Rather than using titanium teeth on the main drive gear like XTR, XT has steel teeth to keep the cost down. In either case, the harder material promises better durability than aluminium. In case you’re not up with the Shimano terminology, the ‘main drive gear’ refers to the chainring that you’ll use the most; the big ring on a 2X setup, the middle ring on a triple and the only chainring on our 1X setup.
XT now shares the same unique asymmetric 96mm PCD four-arm spider with its more expensive XTR cousin. Initially I thought this could have been handy for those who already have an XTR 1X setup. As a regular 1X user, I like the option of swapping chainrings to suit different situations. I’ll run a 32 tooth for general trail riding but fit a 30 if I’m heading off to tackle some big hills—I may even swap to a 34 for a gravity enduro event. The spare chainrings may only see occasional use but it’s nice to have the options on hand. At $186 for a single XTR chainring, keeping an assortment is a pretty extravagant proposition and it’d be nice to have a more affordable option. Unfortunately Shimano hasn’t made the XT and XTR rings line up but the mounting systems differ enough to ensure that it won’t work without modification.
With the new XT cranks, the chainring bolts thread directly into the spider—it doesn’t use separate nuts like the XTR setup. It’s tidier and looks better in our opinion but our 30T chainring wouldn’t fit over the spider without half removing the cranks from the frame. One-by users who like to swap ratios regularly may find this to be a hassle that detracts from the XT setup.
There’s been plenty of speculation about the tooth profile that Shimano has used on their 1X chainrings. Where other brands have opted for alternation wide and narrow teeth, Shimano uses a comparatively regular looking profile. Each tooth is the same width and they don’t stand as tall as the teeth found on some other 1X chainrings. They do however have a very broad squared-off profile at the top that appears to offer excellent engagement with the chain.
We didn’t take it gravity enduro racing but we did ride it hard through technical terrain on our trail bike and we didn’t drop the chain once. Obviously there’s more to chain retention than just the tooth profile but even with the rear derailleurs clutch mechanism switched off, the chain stayed in place when trail riding—something that surprised us.
Both XT and XTR 1X cranksets have a 50.4mm chainline. That means the centre of the chainring sits 50.4mm out from the centre line of the bottom bracket. We found this figure to be a little excessive when mounted to our short chainstay equipped test bike—the Pivot Mach 4 runs 428mm stays. In the 42-cog (first gear) the chain ran at quite an angle and would drop off the cassette within half a turn if you backpedalled.
Some will say this is a non-issue—after all, bikes aren’t designed to be ridden backwards! True enough but I found it irritating on technical climbs; I’d stall and dab partway up and need to backpedal a little to get the cranks in the right spot to take off again. Doing this derailed the chain and the first pedal stroke would begin with a crunch as the chain went back into the 42 cog.
This wasn’t an issue in the second cog down the cassette and I feel a 49mm chainline would have largely eliminated this trait. Some brands use a 49mm chainline on their single ring cranks while others are closer to Shimano with a 51mm chainline. The wider chainline used by Shimano and others should work fine on bikes with longer chainstays – most 29ers for example – but you may encounter similar issues on short chainstay bikes.
With a 30T cog, our XT cranks weighed 688g (plus an extra 70-90g for the bottom bracket). That’s 90g heavier than the XTR equivalent but these cranks will sell for around $400 compared with $835 for the XTR option with its titanium encrusted 1X chainring. XTR also offers a narrower ‘Q-factor’ or pedal stance. The XTR Race cranks have a 158mm Q-factor while the Trail version is 168mm. XT is 178mm but this sort of figure will only concern XC racers who may want their MTB to have similar pedalling ergonomics to their road bike.
The XT cranks look great, offer more than sufficient stiffness, possess good chain retention and utilise a more affordable but still hardwearing chainring. Unless you’re particularly concerned with Q-factors and gram shaving, it’s easy to see why the XT cranks will be the go-to option for most.
TAKING IT TO 11
As with the cranks, the XT cassette lacks the exotic materials but loses nothing in terms of functionality. In fact, with the 11-42 option XT really gains versatility as a 1X groupset. With XTR, seven of the cogs are titanium and they reside on a carbon carrier. XT is all steel with an alloy inner spider. Weight wise this adds 83g (412g versus 329g in the 11-40 option) but it takes the price from $390 down to $169—I know which I’d prefer given this is an item that will wear out. It was also whisper quiet from the outset, unlike the XTR cassette, which made a few clicking noises when it was new (see our review in the Feb/Mar/Apr 15 issue).
You won’t need a proprietary hub to fit the 11-speed cassette; it’ll mount to any regular 10-speed freehub body—a bonus for anyone planning to upgrade an existing 10-speed equipped bike with the new gear.
WIDE RANGING 1X
Is the 11-42 gear spread sufficient on a 1X setup? Well that depends on your leg strength, the trails that you ride and whether you’re willing to compromise your top-end speed to get a lower climbing gear. Some will be content with the 11-36 range that you get with a 1x10 drivetrain and question why you’d ever need more. On the other hand triple chainrings are still popular in Europe because they have big mountains and often ride raw natural trails rather than the IMBA standard stuff where nothing is steeper than a 10% grade. There are no right and wrong answers to this question.
Shimano’s 2x11 option offers a massive gear spread that’ll take you just about anywhere without running out of gears. Move to 1X and even with the new 11-42 cassette, Shimano’s options don’t quite match the gear range offered by SRAM; they use a special freehub design that allows them to offer a 10-42 spread. Going from an 11 (Shimano) to a 10 cog (SRAM) mightn’t sound like much but it makes the top-end gear 10% higher. If you’re not concerned about high-speed fire road pedalling, you can opt for a smaller chainring on the SRAM system and 10 cog will still give you a reasonable top gear (see the ‘1X11 Gearing’ to compare).
The flip-side to SRAM’s wider gear range is that it has some bigger jumps between gears. This is particularly noticeable at the upper end of the gear range where there’s a 20% jump in gear ratio between the 12 cog and the 10 on an XX-1 cassette; this can be pretty disruptive to your pedalling rhythm at times. By comparison the 11-42 Shimano cassette never exceeds an 18% jump between gears, so you’re less likely to find yourself wishing for an in-between gear when slogging along a fire trail. In practice, I found Shimano’s 11-42 range sufficient for 98% of my riding. When combined with a 30 or 32 chainring, I had plenty of low-end hill climbing gears for our local hills and only ever ran out of top-end on the road. I was more than happy with the total gear range and think that the majority of Aussie trail riders will find it sufficient too.
SUPERLATIVE SHIFTING
Once again taking design cues from M9000 XTR, the rear derailleur has an externally adjustable clutch mechanism and the clutch release lever has been tucked neatly out of the way. At 273g it’s 52g heavier than XTR but will sell for around $199, which is far kinder than the $320 sticker price for the flagship model.
The new 11-speed trigger has textured paddles and either clamps to the bar mounts via the brake lever on their i-Spec II mount for a tidier finish. As with the previous generation XT, you can shift up to two gears with an extended throw of the forward trigger while the main lever will do up to four gears in one long push. A right hand trigger for a 1X setup will sell for around $130; again it’s far more affordable than XTR, which is in the vicinity of $210 for a single shifter.
The tweaks are more than aesthetic and the new 11-speed system offers a smoother, more consistent and tactile shifting feel. The lever effort is the same whether you’re down the bottom of the cassette or shifting up into the 42 cog. While the actual lever effort is light, it’s backed by an assertive click that leaves you in now doubt when shifting. As with the XTR group that we reviewed previously, the shifting was very robust too. The shifting remained accurate even when the cables were in less than perfect condition— there was never any vagueness or miss-shifting. There may be a very slight difference in lever feel between XT and XTR, and in theory the XTR internals should be more durable, but overall I’d be equally happy to have either on my bike as both performed without fault.
SLIM STOPPERS
The final piece in the puzzle is the new brakes. In recent years XT brakes have gained an enviable reputation. This revamp sees the lever slimmed down with a narrower clamp and a sleeker master cylinder— again they look a lot like the new XTR. While they ‘look’ lighter, they’re only 10g or so lighter per end than the previous XT brakes and 65g per end heavier than XTR Race. Price wise they’ll be somewhere around $450 a pair which is approximately $250 less than XTR.
Performance wise they retain the fantastic bite and outright power of the M785 brakes with minimal lever effort. The new textured lever blade feels great and they were very easy to set up, offering heaps of pad-torotor clearance for drag-free running. They were smooth and silent too—our review brakes only became vocal in the wet.
On longer descents that required constant braking, we did notice some variability in the lever free stroke. As the brakes heated up, the lever seemed to ‘pump up’ and not pull in as close to the handlebar. When this happened, there was no reduction in stopping power and the lever feel returned to normal once you let the brakes off for a few seconds. Initially I thought there must have been air in the hydraulic system but a thorough bleed didn’t really change it. This certainly wasn’t a deal breaker for us but it was definitely something that we noticed.
XTR FOR THE MASSES
Having jumped straight from our long-term XTR review bike onto the M8000 XT, I can confidently say that this groupset performs every bit as well. The gear shifting is on par with XTR, the cassette runs quieter and the chain retention offered by our 1x11 setup was faultless. Our XTR bike had the Race version of the brakes, so moving to the Servo Wave equipped XT stoppers provided a welcome increase in power. In our opinion the understated black finish of the XT parts also looks better than the shiny XTR bits too—it certainly seems to hide the knocks and scratches better.
While we’re not saying that XT is cheap, it gives mountain bikers XTR level performance at a substantially lower price point. It will also give SRAM a nudge as thus far they’ve had the 1x11 market all to themselves.
Yes, it’s heavier than XTR – roughly 360 to 400g more depending on the options you select – but it’s more versatile and sensible choice for trail riders. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more bikes coming with Shimano thanks to the new XT group.
