Hey everyone welcome!
Do you guys usually use the original SRAM or Shimano chainring that came with your crankset
or you go for the 3rd party cranksets like this 5DEV or Garbaruk?
We use both and in this video I'm gonna give you my top 5 reasons why you should consider one of these 3rd party chainrings
and towards the end of the video I'm gonna do a close-up between SRAM Shimano and these
to see exactly how they're built and if they're worthwhile.
And one of the main reasons why people stick with the original SRAM or Shimano chainrings
is probably because they came with a bike, they came with a crankset, they're cheaper usually and
they're fully compatible with their respective drivetrain.
Many of these new chainrings are compatible across platforms
and I do have an older video and I linked it up in the corner,
where I talk about proprietary chains, chainrings, and what to choose for what kind of situation
but in this video I'm gonna give you my 2 cents on why I went with 3rd party chainrings
and I would love to hear from you guys your experience in the comments below
and while you're at it don't forget to like and subscribe, it really helps my channel!
My story is simple and that will give us the reason number 1 why you would go with 3rd-party chainrings
and that is options, or availability of different options. In my case
this was the first 3rd party chainring that I've ever used, this is the OneUp 32T OVAL
that was back in the days when we were looking at the OneUp extender 42T for 10 speed drivetrains!
SRAM does have an oval believe it or not, is fairly expensive and is hard to find
I've been using it for the last few years and works very well.
Pretty much all these 3rd parties offer oval chainrings today
and if you're running a Shimano drivetrain the third party is the only option to run an oval Shimano doesn't make any of that
even though they invented the ovals back in the day
and yes, these new ovals are better than the Shimano BIOPACE for those of you that live through that fiasco.
And one last thing about ovals, different companies give you different options,
5DEV is going to give you a 6% and a 12% ovalty
Garbaruk is going to give you a 12%
Wolf Tooth gives you a 10% ovalty,
lots and lots and lots of the options today I would love to hear if you guys use ovals and if it works for you, I know it does work for me.
Second, probably more important reason why you should consider the 3rd party chainrings is the ability to adjust your chain line.
I do have an older video, I'm going to link it up in the corner, where I talk about the different options offered by SRAM and Shimano
but in a nutshell SRAM is going to give us two different offsets, 3 and 6 millimeter offsets for their chainrings.
Shimano though, they only have one offset for all their cranksets
and they are forcing us to use 52mm chainline for a lot of spacing, a lot of bikes,
but if you look at Garbaruk for instance, you're gonna see that at least for the M9100, the XTR cranksets
you have the option of custom chainline!
I haven't seen custom chainlines offered by 3rd-party manufacturers for Deore, SLX and XT,
if you guys are aware of any let me know in the comments below.
So needless to say I prefer SRAM in that regard,
for instance I use the 6mm not the 3mm offset chainring on this Boost bike because I wanted to push that chainring closer to the frame
but I would be very curious to hear from you guys
what chainline issues have you resolved using 3rd-party chainrings? Let us know in the comments below.
Number 3 is size and don't be fulled guys, it does matter!
Especially if you want to use a smaller chainring with something like this:
this is the 9-46T cassette, 11 speed from e*thirteen that I reviewed not too long ago.
SRAM and Shimano usually go from 30T and up, 30T to 38T or something like that.
If you want to go smaller you would have to go to a 3rd- party again.
If you look at absoluteBlack they go all the way down to 28 tooth,
if you go to Garbaruk they go all the way down to 26T chainrings!
What drivetrain do you guys use? 11 speed or 12 speed?
Do you go for a small chainring, smaller cassette?
Do you go for a 30T, 32T, 34T, and the huge mama dinner plate in the back? Let us know in the comments below!
Number 4 or something that actually matters to a lot of people and that is usually colors!
I'm a boring black and gray type of guy so I don't go for anything fancy
but if you were to go for the Garbaruk 10-52T cassette that I reviewed not too long ago, Link in the corner,
and you wanted to go with orange, purple, black or gray, you can get the matching chainring
and God knows, maybe you want to have the same color pedals to color match your bike.
Would you go for a 3rd-party chainring just so it matches your 3rd-party cassette? Let us know in the comments below.
And for #5 and to bring us home I have the weight and overall design of these chainrings.
Having the first 12 speed drivetrain SRAM had a lot of time to develop quite a few designs for their chainrings.
And if you look here, this is the stamped steel SX and NX, this is the 143 grams
some might argue that this is the longest lasting SRAM Eagle chainring that you can get.
This is their Eagle XX1 SL, CNC machined, and you can see it here coming down all the way to 68 grams.
These days unless you're getting XX1 or X01 you are probably gonna get one of these called forged aluminum, still Eagle X-Sync 2,
but the weight is up to about 78 grams.
As opposed to that Shimano gives us two direct mount options, Deore, SLX, XT and XTR,
that is if we don't consider the 4-bolt options that they also have in their lineup today.
If you look at the weights here this chainring is probably in response to what SRAM has with the steel chainring
in that it uses a steel outer ring that is bolted down to an aluminum carrier.
You have all the these little bolts here so this is super engineered compared to something like that.
This comes up to 115 grams so about 30 grams lighter than the pure steel from SRAM.
XTR is the lightest direct mount chainring that Shimano offers, that is at 67 grams for 32T
but this is CNC machined from one piece of aluminum and that is pretty much what all these 3rd-parties are doing with their chairings.
This is an absoluteBlack for Shimano, it's an oval, comes up to 60 grams,
I showed you the 5DEV earlier, this is a 32T round, this is 62 grams
and if I go to the Garbaruk, this is 59 grams so
all these 3rd-party chainrings are 60 grams or around there for a 32 tooth
so depending on the chainring that you have you might save some weight just by using these 3rd-party chainrings.
When it comes to design Shimano and SRAM have very distinctive narrow-wide tooth profiles.
Similar to that absoluteBlack will provide you specific chainrings for Shimano versus SRAM
but absoluteBlack also gives you something else that's interesting:
this is a direct mount chainring for SRAM cranks that can run a Shimano 12 speed HG+ chain!
Garberuk and 5DEV don't have that however what they do have is
the compromise between using the proprietary chain of Shimano HG+ and the 12 speed chain from SRAM Eagle
so their tooth profile here is able to accommodate both.
Garbaruk is the same and their narrow-wide tooth profile is compatible with both SRAM and Shimano 12-speed drivetrains.
So lots and lots and lots of chainring options in the market today. What do you guys use?
What came with the bike or you went for a third party?
Are you using one of the bigger names or you're going for the no-names that you can find on the internet for 15 bucks pretty much everywhere?
I would love to hear from you let me know in the comments below.
Let me know if you found this useful and if you did don't forget to like and subscribe,
and until next time I really hope to see you guys on the trails.
Cheers guys, cheers!