New XTR, WTF!

Mampara

To all you mtb nuts (don't mean that in a bad way, I want to try it aswell in the new year). I played with the new XTR groupset at the Cycle Expo yesterday and I must say it does not feel right. The shifting intigrated into the brake lever is fine seeing that we've had that on road groups for ages, but how can you shift up (tighten the cable) and the chain jumps to a lower gear and when you release it jumps back up. It makes more sence to use "force" to go big and "release" to go small, like in ALL the other sets, road and off-road. Where did Shimano fall of the bus?

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Trap, of word getrap.

Rhodent

I think a lot of their reasoning for this was that they were trying to come up with a system which would work under pressure (Changing under full power while mashing the pedals uphill) and came to the conclusion that a hold off system was best under these conditions. Of course it all comes down to reliability, weight and performance. As long as these three features are there (or in the case of weight, not there) I'd still give my eye teeth for XTR

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What do you mean there's no granny gear? How do you go up hills? Ahh, I see, you don't have hills.

Rhodent

Ok, well, got a bee in my bonnet on this one (Ha HA, Fridays, me do proper work, never!!) So here is the blurb from the XTR site, similar to my previous explanation (and probably even more overpriced, I think my dream Santa Cruz Blur is going to cots R50 g's by the time I eventually buy it :'()<br /><br />Why is the rear derailleur only available in the reverse spring action type? <br /><br />Our &amp;quot;Low-Normal&amp;quot; makes better use of HyperGlide cog profiling for inward shift, less &amp;quot;chain skating&amp;quot; in rough conditions, and allows pre-selection of lower gears on rolling terrain. &amp;quot;Low-Normal&amp;quot; is simply a description of the default gear that the spring will locate the chain to. Additionally, the redesigned link geometry, when used with the linear coil spring, maximizes the mechanical advantage to provide even lighter and more consistent shift effort across the cog range. This is most evident when used with the XTR dual control levers. <br />

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What do you mean there's no granny gear? How do you go up hills? Ahh, I see, you don't have hills.

Mampara

hhuuuhhhhh????

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Trap, of word getrap.

Rhodent

What you want them to explain something properly? Come ON, sounds like a lot of words saying that they are trying to make it as easy to shift up or down in any gear under any load

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What do you mean there's no granny gear? How do you go up hills? Ahh, I see, you don't have hills.

roKeMS

Gears and brakes together are as bad as sram I reckon.<br />Too many chances to ghost gear it.<br />Leave it to the roadies. mtb'ers don't need this crap. :'( ;D<br />Spoken like a true poorboy hehe.<br /><br />Don't mind the rest though. Having said that, you're better off with a deore, lx or xt over the new xtr rear derailler too. :P<br />But that's just me....roKeMS :

Mampara

It might sound stupid seeing that I'm not a knobby nut and know which set performs better, but I do prefer the look of the Deore and LX sets tot the XT and XTR. The best looking hubs out there is the black Deore Disc rear hub with that funny looking spoke insertion slots (or whatever they are called).

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Trap, of word getrap.

xavier

Shimano can get al technical and there are people out there that love the new XTR.

Myself, I hate the shifters but love the new hydraulic brakes and crankset/bb combo.

Shimano is simply trying to make you buy more items. So if you want to upgrade you are forced to buy the new shifters. However I hope in the neear future they offer a more conventional approach.

They do this mainly to prevent grey market. So far you cannot buy XTR grey market and that is excellent for consumers. So far shops like PricePoint, Supergo and so forth cannot buy grey market XTR 2003 so yu buy all legit quality parts.

Also, just look at when they went to the SPD-R road pedals. They forced many buyers to buy Shimano shoes for a while. Now they dumped the idea and went with a more consumer friendly pedal.

Bottom line they are able to control grey market and offer the new XTR with veyr nice features like the brakes, crankset/bb combo and shifters.

It is a start for others to foolow. Innovation in a sense.

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Bulltek Sports
www.bullteksports.com
1.888.BULLTEK

Alnamvet

Hate that combo brake/shifter s%$t!

Duckwah

yeah i looked at that stuff when i was buying my MTB and i have to say i didn't like the idea of having to run everything shimano

currently they are flogging XTR which is only compatible with more XTR including new hubs and all that crap

I'll stick to my XT shifters and rear mech with Hayes brakes thanks!!

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Don Stevenson

Strength and Conditioning Coach

Octogen Fitness

www.octogen.com.au

fitness@octogen.com.au

Hecubus

What you are refering to is what used to be called rapid rise shifting and its not new to the 2003 XTR. It came out when XTR went to 9 speed a long time ago. The idea behind rapid rise is perfectly logical and a lot of riders prefer it. The idea is that since shifting to larger geards puts more stress on the chain, instead of having the chain forced to jump by your thumb action, it will be forced to jump at the correct moment by a spring which always applies the correct force and the chain will jump once it hits the right ramp on the cog. The main difference is it will force you to jump one cog at a time towards the large rings and up to 3 towards the smaller ones. In most cases it is more effective to be able to jump several cogs towards the high gears. Usually if you have to jump that many gears towards the low gears during a climb and one click at a time was not fast enough it means that the chain would have done some horrible grinding and even broken. You see, there is no right or wrong way about it. Its a matter of preference and just getting used to it. The only reason the other system felt better its because it was the way it was before. Had it been the opposite and rapid rise style shifting had been the standard before and later switch to high normal most people would have thought it felt funny.