Hey folks! After more than a year talking about the SRAM 12-speed drivetrain
Shimano finally arrived at the party and they introduced their XTR 12 speed
and today I'm gonna take a closer look at their XTR 12 speed shifter.
"Almost" textured box, it's only painted that way, but if you flip over to this side
this is where all the information is.
As usual their XTR group is made in Japan,
here you can see the product codes, SLM9100
and in this corner you will see that they use the same box
for the front shifter and for the rear shifter.
Yes, believe it or not they have a 2x 12 speed
and they introduced this RAPIDFIRE PLUS MONO
which means one lever shifting both up and down that's pretty cool.
And finally, what we have here is the same product code, rear
that is 11 and 12 speed. Now this 11s is not the old 11 speed that we've been using
for a few years, is the one introduced with their XTR 12 speed.
SIS, that's their indexing system or the brand name for it.
INSTANT Release and 2-WAY Release, this is the same things they had before,
That's the barrel adjuster, SP41 housing which is pretty good,
polymer coated stainless steel cable
and finally they recommend this for Cross-country and Enduro racing.
Pulling on the tab here opens up the box
and here is the shifter!
I like it how they use cardboard everywhere so you can recycle this.
Put the shifter aside for a sec..
So in the box you are getting the Shifting Lever 2-way release, this is the use manual
that usually provide not a whole lot of useful information in there.
You also get the cable end in here, see that aluminum piece,
a few more seal ferrules for the cable
and the SP 41 cable housing.
If weight is a consideration, the 1.8 meter housing comes out to 59g
Just for the sake of comparison, GX 12 speed shifter
comes up to 134 g, that's with the bar clamp.
And my XTR with the over 2 meter long cable comes up to 131g.
Now this is with the bar clamp attached over here
this is spec'd to be 121g but I assume it is with the new i-Spec EV.
Yes, they did introduce a new one with a 12 speed XTR.
On a closer look, this is how
the polymer coated cable looks like, and it has a different color.
I see the branding over here and my first impression is that this doesn't
look as premium as the 11 speed generation.
The housing here has a texture to it
and it looks like they steered clear of any fancy materials to build the shifter
it's all made of aluminum, painted aluminum.
The product part number can be seen here on the back,
SL-M9100, made in Japan, and you see here
the little switch, that is a flat head screw that allows you to flip between
11 and 12 speed, it's very similar to what they had on the front shifters before.
Over here, remove that plug to replace the inner cable
and... what else we have...
22.2mm - that refers to the handlebar diameter which is pretty standard
and the only other thing that's worth mentioning is this paddle for your thumb.
In the past we had dimples here, and this time they made it look and feel
very similar to the up-shifter.
The way they've done it though, you have this
aluminum lever, but then this is a rubber insert
and you can see a couple of Phillips head screws here
allowing you to replace this.
This should give you better grip on the lever
especially under extreme conditions.
Here it is next to the 11 speed XTR
And you can see the lever with the dimples here, the carbon lever.
This is aluminum with the rubber insert and you can see the
slightly different shape of it.
But the main changes are here in the shifter body
Not only that they moved the logo over here
but they made a lot of changes to give you
35% less force needed to shift gears, which is probably welcome.
Also, on the up-shifts here, or the double up-shifts that we got to love,
on the new 9100, the second click requires more force to activate and I can tell you
that I feel that with the cable connected to nothing right now.
So that would be interesting to try on the trail.
By the way, did you know that the 2-way release
of the Shimano shifters has to do with the ability to push and pull on the up-shift lever over here?
More specifically, push with your thumb
and pull with your index finger to get the same result,
hence the trigger shifter name of these shifters.
And here it is next to an Eagle 12 speed shifter from SRAM.
This is an X01, XX1 is almost identical and they provide the ability
to change the angle here of the down-lever.
Now Shimano doesn't allow for that
but you can see how I have this set up almost identical to the way Shimano comes.
Obviously, the up-shifting here, your paddle it's in a different position
and the Shimano gives you that double up-shift which we all love.
Hard to tell if the feel of the shifting it's going to be different
since this one is not connected
but I am definitely looking forward not only to installing this
but maybe combining some of the XTR 12 speed components with the Eagle 12 speeds
to see what that gives us.
But I'll leave that for another video.
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If you have any questions let me know.
And until next time I will see you folks on the trails.
Cheers guys,
Cheers!