Hey everyone, welcome!
Is anybody still using an 11-speed drivetrain? What about 10-speed? What about 9?
Well, according to Shimano in 2024 they want to equip 1 in 5 bikes with something like this
Shimano CUES, based on their LLINKGLIDE technology.
The cassette seems to be the secret sauce for all this so why don't we take a closer look see what it brings to the table
and while we're at it we're going to talk about chains as well, so let's do it!
And if in my previous video I talked about this, their new CUES cranksets that kind of borrowed some ideas from SRAM
in this video I'm going to have the CUES cassette right next to one of the old 11-speed HG cassettes or Hyperglide
because from a durability standpoint Shimano CUES is supposed to be 300% more durable compared to something like this.
And by the way, thanks to Paul at Bikecomponents.ca for providing me this CUES groupset to put it in front of you
and he also provided a discount code, make sure you check the description of the video!
This is the LG400-11 cassette, the widest range cassette in the CUES lineup.
This is an 11 speed that goes all the way up to 50T, it is definitely based on LINKGLIDE,
9 of the cogs are riveted together with the 11T and 13T being loose.
By the way, these are common among all their CUES cassettes!
The back of the cassette doesn't show us anything different other than the many, many rivets used to hold this together.
As for the lockring, this is the usual steel based that requires 40 Nm just to tighten up the cassette.
What's special about the cassette and you will see that right away is the coating that they have applied.
This is Nickel plated and it looks very very nice, looks better than the previous DEORE cassettes.
Nickel plating also provides corrosion resistance, and is supposed to make the cassette harder to wear.
But that's not the only trick that they have up their sleeve with this new Shimano LINKGLIDE.
They're talking about taller teeth and also a wider base for the cassette teeth.
And here we have old Hyperglide cassette 11 speed versus the new CUES LINKGLIDE 11 speed cassette
We start to look at the cogs and this is where we can take a look and see if the teeth are indeed taller.
On these smaller cogs I don't really see any difference.
The only difference that I see is definitely machining of some of their new cogs
and also what you're going to find is that the shift gates or shift ramps that they involve with the LINKGLIDE are quite a bit more sophisticated
than what they've used for Hyperglide.
Also the shift gates here seem to be deeper cut into the metal
but remember, the other thing that they say is that the new base of the teeth is quite a bit thicker than the old HG.
Indeed, here we are measuring the base of the teeth on this 13T LINKGLIDE,
and in comparison you see this 13T cog of the old HG cassette.
Again, this comes up to pretty much 1.5 mm as opposed to the LINKGLIDE that's close to 2 mm
so about 30% thicker base for some of these teeth.
Interestingly, that 1.9 mm thickness of the base of the tooth
is to be found here on the aluminum cog, this being the largest cog on the old HG cassette.
Here it is, 1.95 mm so they've already had that, they've already used that thicker base on this aluminum cog, obviously
the new LINKGLIDE cassettes don't use any aluminum whatsoever so it's just steel with a thicker base
and, as you see here on the cassette, way deeper cuts on the cogs for the shift gates.
And all this stuff is LINKGLIDE specific, not CUES specific,
LINKGLIDE being their technology launched last year with their DEORE 10s and XT 11s that were e-Bike groupsets.
Now they're expanding the use to mid level bikes, pretty much used by anyone
and the idea is to just use a Shimano CUES drivetrain and only select 11, 10 or 9 speed.
The trick to all this is that even though the cassette is the secret sauce, even though the cassette involves the new technology,
they do not need a specific or a new chain that is proprietary.
Any 11speed CHAIN that you might have in use today will work just fine on these new LINKGLIDE based cassettes
and it will still provide you with the LINKGLIDE Tech as per Shimano.
And not only that, all their CUES drivetrains, so that includes the 9 the 10 the 11 speed, use the same 11 speed type of chains
which means that the spacing between between the cogs it's pretty much the same.
So imagine this 11speed cassette, how do I make this a 10 speed cassette? I just eliminate one cog and I got that.
What about the 9 speed? I eliminate two cogs from here and I got a 9 speed cassette.
Obviously that's not exactly what Shimano is doing when producing their 10 speed and 9 speed cassettes
but if you look at this table on their website, you're going to see that the maximum range for 9 speed is 11-46T,
the maximum range for 10 speed is 11-48T and then you have a few other options for their 2x drivetrains
with this 11-50T cassette being offered only in the 11speed version of The CUES drivetrains.
All these cassettes, all of them are compatible with this- the good old HG driver from Shimano introduced in the 80s
so that should guarantee backwards compatibilities with any wheel sets that you might have.
But for high torque applications like e-Bikes you should seriously, seriously consider a steel freehub body similar to this one
because otherwise those loose cogs on these cassettes are going to just rip this apart.
But if you can get a steel freehub body, an alternative to this LG400 cassette would be the LG700 cassette.
That one uses an aluminum carrier and 4 loose cogs.
And with all the cogs being made out of steel, thicker base and all that kind of jazz there's got to be some penalty on weight!?
Indeed, we have 680 grams for that big cluster of the LG400 cassette
and if we add the first two cogs and the lockring that's 720 grams.
Now in comparison with the M5100, the 11-51T 11s DEORE that this one replaces
that one as you can see is 620 grams so the penalty is 100 grams for this cassette but this one provides you with LINKGLIDE shifting.
And if you were to go with that LG700 cassette instead, you would save again about 100 grams bringing it down to about 610 grams.
And guess what? You can drop this cassette into an M5100 drivetrain
and you are provided with LINKGLIDE right away with no other changes to the drivetrain whatsoever!!!
But with all this talk about durability and weight, let's not forget that the new LINKGLIDE as a technology
brings smooth shifting up and down the cassette.
This would be, let's say similar to HG+ that we have on 12-speed, that means less vibration transmitted through the drivetrain.
You're also going to see, most probably, slower shifting again from the larger cogs to the smaller cogs.
Is it smoother than before? Yes, it should be.
Is it slower than before? Yes, this should be slower
so don't kill yourself when installing something like this, slower shifting is normal!
Do you guys remember the "shifts better the harder you pedal"???
That's something that SRAM Transmission talks about,
remember they are talking about that in the context of electronic shifting, cassette mapping, and all that kind of mambo jumbo.
It looks like Shimano managed to pull off just by being smart in designing their cassettes.
So I don't know about you but I think LINKGLIDE is actually pretty cool,
and it might even be compatible with your existing drivetrains, but I guess I'm going to have to talk about that in my next video
when I am covering the shifter and the derailer, both of which are different than what we have today.
So what do you guys think about these new CUES cassettes?
Are you going to get one for your existing 11 or 10 speed drivetrains?
Do you have any questions for me? Do you like this video? Let me know in the comments below.
Remember, you have a discount code that you can take advantage of,
don't forget to like, subscribe, and comment,
and until next time hope to see you guys on the trails.
Cheers guys, cheers!