Hey everyone welcome back!
Shimano always covered the needs of the market from the budget-oriented components
to the more expensive, like the current 12-speed drivetrains.
However, with the launch of these, Shimano also introduced a new Deore for 10 and 11 speed.
I have with me a M5100 crankset today, let's take a closer look at this!
And while the m5100 is the 11-speed drivetrain that I'm gonna be covering soon in a series of videos
I called the cranksets 10-11 speed because at the back of the non-Drive arm,
you're gonna see that these are common for m 4100 to 10 speed and 5100 the 11 speed
and by the way these cranks are all made in Malaysia.
Shimano uses this design even for some 12-speed crank sets and they usually limit the crank arm length to 170 175mm
and also limit the options for chainrings.
These cheaper cranks are cast aluminum as opposed to Hollowtech II
and they also come in a 2x version, you can see the prep here for that second chainring
even though these holes are not really tapped right now so you cannot really add a second chainring to this specific crankset.
The SLX, XT and XTR 12 speed cranksets use what's called the Hollowtech II.
You see that the boxier or crank arm here in the back.
These are hollow and that allows them to save quite a bit of weight
so as a result the M5100 cranks will be overall heavier.
How much heavier? The non-drive side crank arm is 290 grams.
As opposed to that the Hollowtech II one, this is 212 grams from somewhere in the range of 70-80 grams difference?
The drive side crank spindle and 32T chainring comes up to 579 grams
and as opposed to that, this SLX comes up to 415 grams.
The SLX altogether comes up to 627 grams
and when I did the review of this you know that if you just replace the chainring with a lighter one
you can bring this down to about 550 grams altogether.
This Deore M5100 crankset with a 32 tooth chainring, the original from Shimano,
comes up to 870 grams, one downside to this cranksets.
Shimano uses a 24 millimeter spindle and that's common between the two.
This is steel, if you don't believe me take a magnet to it.
Also, you have this chainring, is made out of steel.
Also the outer ring of your more expensive SLX and XT Shimano is made out of steel as well.
However these more expensive cranksets use a direct mount chainring that can be made
either entirely out of aluminum, saving weight that way,
or it uses an aluminum spider with the steel outer chainring.
The 5100, again the spider is part of the crank arm and that probably adds quite a bit of weight
and the chainring is made out of steel because they want this to last as long as possible.
Otherwise on the chainring, the only thing you see is 10-11 speed, 32 tooth here
and on the back you're going to see Shimano printed tiny over here.
The BCD for these crank arms is 96 millimeter, this is asymmetrical
and it was used for the M7000 and M8000 cranks so that's SLX, XT of the 11 speed.
I don't have the box for these cranks but if i did you could have seen what's called a DCE that is Dynamic Chain Engagement
that is pretty much their narrow-wide profile.
And by the way, these 11 speed cranks are made for the 11 speed chains
and the 12 speed cranks and chainrings are obviously compatible with the 12 speed chains from Shimano which are proprietary!
So a 12 speed chain from Shimano shouldn't play nicely with these chainrings
and I have a video talking about compatibility, I'll link it in the corner.
And you can see with the naked eye how the 12-speed chainring teeth are a bit taller
versus these 11 speed which seem to be just a standard narrow-wide tooth profile
And in a nutshell, the 12 speed chains are narrower internally so you're going to need teeth that are a bit narrower overall.
The 11 speed tooth profile is compatible with chains all the way down to 9 and even 8 speed if you want,
obviously you can install this 11 speed chain on the 12 speed chain ring no problem.
And while everybody might be lured into the lower weight and new design of these modern cranksets
I can think of at least one advantage that these older cranks bring to the table.
And that has to do with modifying the chainline that they provide.
By default, believe it or not, these new cranksets come with 52 mm chainline which is commonly used on Boost frames.
This is an older frame using 135 QR and even the 142 mm spacing in the back used 49 mm chainline
and that's something that Shimano dropped with the current generation cranks.
But because Shimano has a spider and these mounting bolts, which by the way you need a 5 mm Allen to remove them,
and then install spacers here underneath
and that's going to push your chainring and chainline closer to your 49 mm for non-Boost.
They use 12 mm long chainring bolts that seem to come all the way through the spider arm here
so even if you install a 3 mm spacer I think you would still be fine.
On both 11 and 12 speed cranksets you can also play with that spacer if you have a threaded BB,
I have a video about that I'm gonna link it in the corner as well.
And talking about the bottom bracket, Shimano recommends the MT500 BB that is a cheaper version of this MT800 which is for SLX or XT
and because of all that the installation of these cranks is pretty much identical
so I'm going to link a video in the corner and in the description on how to do it right.
So should you upgrade your cranks from 5100 to something like SLX or XT?
Well, if you were sticking with something like a 10-11speed drivetrain I don't see the reason why.
If you want to upgrade to 12 speed, look for 12 speed Shimano compatible chainrings.
Again, chainrings that have that 96 mm BCD asymmetrical
you will see them listed on their M7000 and M8000 Shimano cranks.
And if you have an older crankset like this with a chainring that works for 9-10-11 speed you can easily upgrade to M5100 Deore, no need to replace anything.
But I'm gonna cover more of that in my videos about the M5100 Deore.
So what do you guys think?
Deore M5100 cranks? Are they good enough for you?
Are you upgrading for the SLX and XT, the 12 speed?
Let me know in the comments below.
Also let me know if you found this useful and if you did
don't forget to like, subscribe, and comment,
and until next time hope to see you folks on the trails.
Cheers guys, cheers!