Chainrings... chainrings for 12-speed drivetrains.
We have the Eagle, we have the proprietary Shimano 12-speed
and a whole bunch of 3rd-party chainring manufacturers these days
but not all of them are compatible with all the drivetrains.
So which one is compatible with what?
Can I mix SRAM and Shimano?
Let's take a closer look at the 12 speed chainrings in the market today!
There is four or five scenarios we're going to be covering today so make sure you stay till the end
and if you find this kind of content useful don't forget to give me a thumbs up
it really helps with the algorithm.
And yes, you heard me right, I called the Shimano 12 speed proprietary because it uses a proprietary chain.
Nobody else has one like it
and that is different than the SRAM Eagle 12 speed
or any other 12 speed chains you're going to find in the market today.
Here's next to an Eagle 12 speed chain, Shimano on the left, Eagle on the right.
The outside dimension of these chains is actually the same, so I'm talking about this dimension here
it's the same for the 12 speed chains.
However the internal dimensions and design is different.
SRAM chain was built with these internal plates being flat, no edges whatsoever.
SRAM believes that that provides a longer lifespan of your chainrings
and also smoother shifting.
Shimano's inner plates are actually longer
and they are extending here into this bigger opening of the chain.
You see it better here in the picture that Shimano used at launch.
That proprietary chain was needed by the Shimano Hyperglide+ (HG+)
that provides us with smoother shifting overall.
And Shimano says that this chain is capable of staying engaged with two cogs at once
making that up shifting a bit smoother definitely under power.
So you're gonna need their proprietary cassette with the special shift ramps
and also their proprietary chain,
you see it here next to the SRAM chain, SRAM at the bottom, Shimano up top.
And take a close look at the shape of this large opening in the chain
you will see the corners pretty much cut by those elongated inner plates.
And that is why in the early days of Shimano 12 speed many struggled to use their existing chainrings
because the Shimano chain was just a bit too tight on it
especially here on the wider tooth of the narrow wide (NW) profile.
Here's two Wolf Tooth Components chainrings
this one was made for SRAM 12 speed and the second one is made specifically for Shimano 12s.
And if you put the teeth here, side by side, SRAM chainring at the bottom
Shimano chainring up top
and just look at that wider tooth profile, and you will see that the Shimano one it's a lot skinnier
there's a lot more material removed, and that's very similar to the Shimano original chainring for 12 speed
even though on this one you will see the wider teeth being a bit taller as well
something that is not replicated in this aftermarket chainring.
In comparison, Eagle introduced this X-S-sync 2 tooth profile which they say it was refined after their 1 x 11 drivetrains.
It has a lot of cutouts here to minimize wear and they do last quite a bit.
They have a distinctive shape compared to any other chainring
they do a really fine job of holding the chain in place and they do last quite a bit like I mentioned.
And one last piece of info here, both Shimano and SRAM provide you with quick links, they're both directional,
but if you look carefully here you're gonna see that the Shimano quick link is absolutely flat,
the SRAM quick link has that indent here so you can fit a slightly wider tooth between those two plates.
Okay so what does that mean for you and me, let's say you are trying to upgrade to SRAM Eagle GX,
what options do you have for that chainring?
You can look at SRAM Eagle 12-speed as being the easiest one to find chainings for.
That's because the 12-speed chain from SRAM is not much different internally from the previous 10, 11, even 9 speed drivetrains,
which means that any one of those chainrings will be compatible with SRAM Eagle drivetrains.
So from any cheap chainring like this one all the way to the expensive oval from SRAM
they will work perfectly fine with the SRAM 12 speed.
But with some Shimano cranksets being a lot cheaper than the SRAM ones
you might be tempted just to pick a Shimano crankset and to use it with SRAM 12 speed.
Can you do that?
And the simple answer is yes for sure, you see this SLX crankset,
I first used it with this original chainring from Shimano.
Now has an absoluteBlack that is Shimano 12 speed compatible (HG+) so it has the skinnier teeth
I've used it with the Shimano chain originally with that e13 Helix (cassette) and the GX AXS.
I've used it with the Shimano cassette, by the way you guys have probably seen that video
and what can I say? I haven't dropped the chain with the Shimano HG+ chain,
right now this is a SRAM GX 12 speed chain and I haven't dropped it yet.
So for me this worked very well,
I know this SRAM chain with the HG+ compatible chainring is not supposed to be used
at least based on what these 3rd party manufacturers are saying,
but in my case it worked just fine.
You can even expand this to say that if you are using a chain that is compatible with SRAM 12 speed, think KMC
so every time you use those you can settle for whatever chainring you want,
from 9 speed, 10 speed, 11 speed or 12 speed,
but you would probably want to settle for a half decent narrow-wide (NW) profile, 1x specific chainring,
they're pretty cheap these days.
Overall the street price for Shimano products it's a bit lower than SRAM
so what if you want to upgrade to Shimano 12 speed drivetrain?
Because of that proprietary chain,
the convenient answer would be just get their cranks for 12 speed and call it a day!
However these new 12 speed cranks provide you only with the 52 mm chainline
which is usually for Boost bikes, and they kind of force you to use that if you have 142 or 135 mm spacing.
I have all this explained in detail in a video that I'm going to link up there
So if you want to use an older crankset, what options do you have for a chainring?
And the answer would be keep your older crank and look for 3rd-party manufacturers
that provide HG+ or Shimano 12-speed compatible chainrings today.
But what if you have one of the cheaper SRAM Eagle like SX or NX you, got sick of it
and you want to upgrade to Shimano 12s? Can you keep those cranks and chainring?
In principle yes, you could use these chainrings with the Shimano HG+ chain
and you can see how it meshes apparently okay (w/ chainring).
One thing to keep in mind is that Shimano Quick Link,
it doesn't really work well with these non-HG+ chainrings including SRAM.
So you can use one of these SRAM Quick Links with that Shimano HG+ chain and alleviate the issues.
I showed you earlier in this video what's the difference between the two Quick Links.
What if you have other (than SRAM) chainrings that are not Shimano 12 speed compatible? Would these work?
I have done that when Shimano launched the XTR,
we actually raced that kind of configuration a couple of times
and overall it worked okay-ish even with that Shimano Quick Link,
however I noticed increased noise coming from the chainring
obviously increased friction and if you look here carefully you're gonna see the points where
the chain was rubbing onto the wider teeth of this narrow-wide profile
just like I explained it to you throughout this video,
So try it out and you probably have a 50- 50 chance of this non-HG+ compatible chainring to actually work.
But wait there's more!
3rd-party manufacturers, the innovators, they created tooth profiles
that work on both Shimano and SRAM 12-speed so for ultimate flexibility
check them out! I know of at least Garbaruk, OneUp and an E13 that have chainrings compatible with both.
So what kind of chainrings do you guys use for your 12-speed drivetrain?
Is it SRAM, is it Shimano, is it a 3rd party?
Let us know in the comments below.
as usual I hope you found this useful and if you did
don't forget that thumbs-up and until next time
hope to see you guys on the trails.
Cheers guys. cheers!