(chain clanking)
(man sighs) - Wait,
let me do the chain around my neck twice
(Upbeat music)
(gears rattling) (metal clanking)
If there's anything that makes you guys angrier
than even the idea of 36 inch wheels,
it's gotta be that the newest drivetrain
has yet one more cog added to it.
But despite all that anger,
here we are in 2020
with 12 speeds on the back of our bike.
I'm Mike Levy and on today's explainer,
we're going to talk all about 12 speed.
Why the hell do we have 12 cogs?
And what's the difference between 11 and 12 speed aside from
just one click and one cog.
(upbeat music)
Should I say let's shift into gear and let's get into it?
(playful music)
Before 2012,
most of us had front derailleurs
and two or even three chain rings on the front of our bikes.
Then in 2012,
SRAM released their 11 speed XX1.
And that was the first time
that a major drive chain manufacturer had offered
a purpose built single ring drivetrain.
Drivetrain, drivetrain.
So many drivetrains.
Why are we talking about 11 speed first?
Well it's because that a lot of the ideas that SRAM used
to bring that 11 speed XX one drivetrain to life,
we're also used to make 12 speed possible.
Stuff like the derailleur that was designed specifically,
or for a single chain ring.
The XD free hub,
that allowed for the 10 to 42 tooth cassette
in the 420% range.
And especially the narrow wide
tooth profile of the chain ring,
that helped to keep that chain on the single ring.
11 speed XX1 was around for four years
when SRAM released their 12 speed drivetrain
under the 'Eagle' name.
Now it offered a crazy for the time 500% range,
from a cassette with a 10 tooth small cog
and a 50 tooth big cog.
That's 80% more.
No,
yeah. That's 80% more than 11 speed XX1 that came before it.
80%. It means it's 80%,
80% of the time It's better all the time,
every time.
Quick mental math.
So what the heck was Shimano doing during all this?
Well, I suspect they were working on their front derailleurs
for a little too long.
It took them until 2018
to release their own single ring 12 speed drivetrain
XTR M 9100.
And just like how SRAM had to come up with
a few clever ideas to make theirs work,
Shimano had to do the same.
They have their micro spline freehub,
the cassette with the 10 to 51 tooth cogs,
rear derailleur made for a single ring drivetrain
and all the other expected bits.
But you do not need to spend $2,000 or whatever
to get 12 speed.
Since then both companies have released far less expensive,
12 speed drivetrains like Dior, NX and others.
So there's other options out there.
Also,
I should mention that there's other aftermarket component
companies out there that offer all sorts of drivetrain
add-ons, derailleur modifications and things like that
to extend ranges. For this video,
we're just going to stick to the two big players SRAM
and Shimano
(Rhythmic music)
So what is the actual difference between 11 speed and 12
speed besides the obvious, which is one click and one cog?
Well, it comes down to two important things range
and some really tiny measurements. Let's talk about range.
First. When 11 speed was released, SRAM's XX one system,
the cassette had a to small cog, 42 tooth big cog,
10 times 42, 420% range without a front derailleur
and two chain rings, your range comes from your cassette
remember, and not 420% couldn't match
what a front derailleur provided,
but along comes 12 speed 10 tooth small cog, 50 tooth
big cog, 10 times 50, 500%, much better.
And for a lot of people that works out.
I know that you guys are just dying
to talk about chain width in cogs spacing next.
First, we're going to go way back to eight speed chains,
Just for some perspective,
they were a full seven millimeters wide at the rivet.
That's the chains widest point.
Now that's two millimeters skinnier than a single speed
chain.
A nine speed chain is six and a half to seven millimeters
wide. A 10 speed chain, that's six millimeters wide.
Chains meant to work with 11 speed drivetrains
they're 5.5 millimeters wide, 12 speed chains,
finally they're 5.3 millimeters wide at the rivet.
So you guys probably know why the chains are getting
skinnier it's because they're squeezing more cogs into the
same amount of space, meaning the cogs have to get skinnier.
They also have to get closer together.
That's really important when we talk about chain widths,
because they're designed to work with a very specific width
chain.
So I know a guy who used an 11 speed chain on a 12 speed
drivetrain.
So that chain should have been 0.2 millimeters too wide.
It only sounds like a tiny, it is only a tiny little bit,
but the drivetrain, it was never quite right.
And it just like,
it always went like in his ears and it eventually made him
a little crazy. He's never been the same since,
but you can mix some things.
I know a guy who you put one of those fancy X dome,
Ceram cassettes on his bike they're super light,
those machine steel things,
but he wanted to shift it with an XDR derailleur
and an XDR shifter. And it worked just fine.
I know another guy who did a similar thing,
except he's an XTR cassette an XTR derailer,
but he wanted to move it with this Ram shifter.
And it worked okay right now,
somewhere in Chicago and in Japan somewhere,
someone important is going,
what's happening, they're getting like a cramp
somewhere, something.
So one final disclaimer again, all of this stuff,
it always works the best as intended when it's together as
one ecosystem. So your swam stuff,
your drive train will work better if it's just all in your
SRAM pile and your Shimano pile is just Shimano pile.
Don't mix them officially.
Maybe mix them a little bit, whatever
(Rhythmic music)
Let's talk about what 12 speed gave us.
Why did they keep adding cogs back there when we all get so
mad when they do that? And why are we up to 12 of them?
Why do we have 12 cogs? The answer?
Well, it's pretty straight forward.
It has nothing to do with planned obsolesce, obsolescence.
I think I pronounced and it's, or a secret derailleur cabal
or anything like that. That would be way more interesting.
So here are the main reasons why we're running 12 cogs
instead of six or three or eight or 10.
The first one we just talked about it,
it's range
because you don't have a front derailleur.
Your range has to come from your cassette.
And that's why they start at 10 and go to 50 something to
give you that 500% gearing range.
But you're probably wondering why can't we have a six
speed cassette or an eight speed cassette
or whatever three speed cassette that has a similar range,
just less cogs?
Well, the answer has something to do with cadence.
Unfortunately,
our legs they're attached to our brains and our brains
want our legs to go around at a certain pace.
Now to make this a little more relatable,
we're gonna talk about cars for a second.
Older cars they had three to four speed transmissions,
new cars, Some of these things have 10 speed transmissions.
The reason they do that is for efficiency.
They want that engine to be running at a certain RPM
for fuel efficiency,
but also for maximum speed and acceleration.
You get in the right gear, you accelerate faster,
and it's the same thing with us. So 12 speed.
You have more gears to select from that means smaller jumps
in between the gears.
And that means that our bodies can be more efficient.
Alright, after all that,
what do you guys think about 12 speed drivetrains?
Are you stoked with how things are going or would you have
pressed pause back when we were running eight cogs out back,
let us know in the comments below.
Like that
(Chain clinking)
(Upbeat music)