Hey guys!
Have I ever told you how much I love this bike?
This is a Transition Smuggler that's pretty old by any standards,
still rocking an 11 speed drivetrain from Shimano.
Down here it's an 11 speed XT derailleur.
This is a GS version so medium cage,
but as of late a lot of you asked me to try this combination
with the new 12 speed Shimano derailleurs.
I'm actually gonna do a couple of tests:
First trying this 2x12 speed derailleur, the SLX.
and the other one is the RD-M8100, this is the XT.
My gut feeling is that this is gonna work just fine
because when they introduced the XTR
that was supposed to work with an 11 speed 10-45t cassette
with this GS derailleur so
pretty much the same as this with a shorter cage.
We're gonna use this 11 speed drive train as a baseline,
that's an YBN chain, the clutch is engaged and is well greased here'sthe shifting
So first of all no excessive noises on the smallest cog as you can see here.
Here's the shifting, one by one.
On the 46t cog, I can back pedal at will with this setup.
Up-shifting.
And a bunch at a time.
So overall I am very happy with this performance.
Again, this is an 11 - 46 tooth cassette.
First test is with the M7120 which is meant to work
with the 2x or 1x drivetrains using the 10-45t 12 speed cassette.
Same chain, cable and housing, clutch engaged,
B-gap adjusted to the line that's specified on the outer cage here
Here it is.
And multiple at a time.
Alright, so this works like a charm, slow motion or not.
I'm not surprised I kind of expected it,
and I won't be surprised if this works the same, or even bette.
This is the XT RD-M8100.
Do you guys see anything unusual here?
This cable houseing felt a bit short first of all,
so the housing did not feel like it was long enough so it's kind of a tight bend over here.
Also, take a look at the derailleur cage:
On the smallest cog, this being the 11 speed / 11 tooth,
you're used to seeing that a lot more horizontal, aren't you?
Remember, we use the same chain here.
This is properly sized for this bike.
Big-to-big plus of 4 links, so let's see how the shifting goes.
The problem is, first of all, I can't really get to the 11 tooth cog.
Shifting up is a bit of a challenge.
I can make it to the 46 tooth cog
and here I still have a little bit of play in my cage,
so that shouldn't be the end of the world,
but let's take a look at the B-gap.
As you probably know, Shimano is giving us this line on the outer cage
that's supposed to line up with the teeth on the biggest cog.
Well, look at the gap here that I have, so
not only that this is so wrong,
but the problem that I'm having is
if I use my B-gap adjustment,
I can push it further out,
but there's no way for me to bring it any closer to that.
Shimano build this derailleur to work with the bigger cassette like this
so if I superimpose it here,
yes, you will come close to my B-gap adjustment.
However, if you read the 12 speed Shimano documentation,
you're gonna see that they require longer chains,
so I'm gonna add a few links to mine and see if that changes anything.
So with the added chain links, and I ended up with 5 more,
I still have quite a ways to go here to my 51 tooth line, however
if I measured the distance here, let's say 52 mm distance,
between the axle and the bottom of the cassette.
Surprise, surprise here is, if you read the old documentation introduced with the XTR,
you will find that 52 mm actually listed in their manual.
So now I can get to my 11 tooth cog,
you can see the cage is pretty much parallel to the ground.
This is the absolute limit, I can't make this chain any longer.
Clutch is engaged let's see the shifting.
Gong to easier gears, not a big deal.
Harder gears now.
It goes but it's a bit lazier than with the previous two derailleurs.
Let's try a bunch of the time.
I expected this to be the star of the show but as I said
the shifty here on the bigger cogs is not that crisp.
I expect as the chain wears out and has a bit more play in it
to struggle even more to shift down.
And let me show you one more thing:
so this is my 11 speed GS derailleur that worked perfectly fine with my drivetrain.
Look at this... so being installed side by side,
on the biggest cog it will probably come down to here.
5 cm closer to the ground, this is a 29er,
just imagine that being on a 27.5 / 650b bike.
On top of that longer chain means more chain slap,
I am at the very edge of adjustment at both ends of the cassette,
and still don't have proper shifting as per my liking,
and that doesn't really make this the star of the show.
if anything it makes it the biggest disappointment of my little test here.
Maybe if you were to use this
with something like an 11-50t 11 speed cassette,
that wouldn't be so bad.
For this kind of range, your best option is definitely going to be something like this:
the 2x derailleur from Shimano, but this is even longer
and bigger than the one we've tried.
Probably your best bet would be the XTR 12 speed for 10-45t,
which has the shorter GS cage.
But that would make it way more expensive than necessary.
For this kind of range on 11 speed, I would highly recommend considering
a GS derailleur from Shimano.
I usually prefer the XT versus SLX,
you can configure this one for direct mount hangers if the frame requires it.
Also, you can use this with 10 speeds so
for 10 or 11 speed, Shimano GS derailleur is the way to go.
And that's what my lovely Transition Smuggler it's gonna get.
What about you folks?
What are you planning to use for future upgrades?
Are you going to consider any one of these?
Let me know if you have any comments or questions
in the section below.
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and until next time,
I'll see you folks on the trails,
hopefully riding some 11 speed gears.
Cheers folks, cheers!