Hi everyone!
So what do you do these days
if you want to get into the 12-speed game
and you don't have an XD driver
or the Shimano Micro Spline that they require for the new 12 speed?
We're fortunate to have at least a couple of options
that use this good old splined Shimano freehub body,
and in front of you today I'm gonna put
the SunRace version of their 12 speed 11-50T cassette.
I've used their 10, 11, and this is a 12 speed wide-range cassette.
Now, these are made somewhere in Taiwan.
On the back you can see where their headquarters are,
in the States, Holland and Taiwan.
And here on the side, on that little sticker you're gonna get
the details of what this is:
the MZ90 cassettes, this is the more complete description.
The 12 speed 11-50 tooth, black chrome,
and they also have the metallic silver finish.
Box looks identical with the one for their other cassettes, it is just larger,
and here is the cassette!
As usual, there's nothing else in the box
and if you look at the cassette it was installed upside down.
They usually do that because they have this fancy looking spider here,
that is the red anodized in this case.
Here, the locking ring, the 11T is the smallest cog
which is actually here as well.
Obviously SunRace, and you see the 40 Nm recommended
when locking this onto the freehub body.
This is an aluminum locking ring to save weight,
that is your 11 tooth cog on this side.
The rest of the cassette is installed on this little tube.
So then you have 13T,
this is 15T and a spacer,
see that the oily surface over there.
17T, 19T.
Those are all the loose cogs
and then the rest of the cassette is installed on these two aluminum carriers
which are red anodized.
Now, when you look at the size of these other cogs,
I think we stopped at 19T, 21T, 24T, 28T.
And then you have the 32T, 36T and then 42T and 50T are made out of aluminum.
All the other cogs are made out of steel.
Usually you want to have the fewest number of loose cogs as possible,
you can see on this aluminum freehub body
how the loose cogs end up just biting into the surface of the splines.
Compared to something like SRAM NX 12 speed
which is very similar to this cassette,
The big difference is that
the NX cassette only has three largest cogs on an aluminum carrier,
and everything else is loose on that cassette.
And also, the NX is a bit heavier
but is made entirely out of steel.
The stated weight of this cassette is 586 grams,
but if you look here on the scale, this is 528 grams, very nice surprise.
Eagle NX is 615 grams but that one, again, it's an all steel cassette.
To install the cassette all you need is a simple cassette tool,
because that is usually used for this Shimano freehub body.
And ideally you would have a torque wrench to tighten this up to 40 Nm,
torque specified right here on it.
Obviously the cassette requires a 12 speed drivetrain,
and these days you can get a SRAM Eagle 12 speed,
you can get the Shimano 12 speed or,
SunRace has their own drivetrain, 12 speed drivetrain.
Another thing that I didn't mention is, the 42 and 50 tooth,
so the aluminum ones,
do not have any sort of narrow-wide profile teeth,
like a SRAM Eagle cassette would.
So let's give this a try, and see how it works on the SRAM Eagle drivetrain.
So no problem there,
and let's grab a whole bunch of gears at a time.
So no problem whatsoever over there!
Now, if you want to just look at the back pedaling on the 50T
it's not bad, so no narrow-wide profile teeth over there,
and no chain dropping on the 50T which I think is great,
I don't know how they accomplished it but this is great news.
Same cassette, this time with the Shimano 12 speed,
works perfectly fine just like the Eagle drivetrain so,
a very good alternative to the more expensive cassettes,
definitely good if all you have it's a Shimano freehub body
and with that 454% range,
that is definitely better than what you can get with most of the 11 speed these days.
And that's about it guys!
Hope you found this useful.
If you have any questions
let me know in the comments below.
Don't forget to like and subscribe,
and until next time,
I will see you guys on the trails.
Cheers guys,
Cheers!