Hey everyone! It wasn't too long ago
when I looked at the XTR 12 speed shifter from Shimano,
but today I finally got my hands on an actual derailleur,
so why don't we take a closer look and see what this is about.
I think I might have discovered at least one thing
that is different on this new design for 12 speed.
They use the same size box that was used for the shifter
but obviously on this one you're going to get information
about the three derailleurs that they provide with this new drivetrain.
The one that I have over here
M9100 SGS 12 speed,
this is the only one that should be used with a 10-51T cassette.
You have the RD-M9100-GS, medium cage.
This is for the 10-45T cassette
either 11 or 12 speed.
Finally, the bottom one, M9120-SGS,
this is for 12 speed but for 2x drivetrains.
Just like all the other XTRs, these are made in Japan,
and here you can see the product code - RDM9100SGS.
In the box
you will get the derailleur
and not much else.
The rear derailleur user manual, which is usually kind of useless,
doesn't give you a whole lot.
Name of parts and operation of the clutch, nothing else in there.
Usually they have this cling wrap to hold it together
and this is no different.
And what is my first impression?
Man, this feels light and just shows quality!
Quality of workmanship and materials.
Mind you this is my first ever XTR derailleur
so I have nothing to compare it with.
Lightness must come from the fact
that they used carbon on some bits and pieces here,
definitely the outer part of the cage is made out of carbon.
But before I get there, here on the face of it,
you see the lever here for the clutch.
The clutch that's supposed to work better than before
however if you look here at this cover,
screw number one, two, and three,
also you have the cover here
so you can adjust the tension of that clutch.
If you don't know how to do that,
check my videos on how to maintain and adjust this clutch.
You can see all the cutouts of the pulleys.
These are using the sealed bearings, both of them.
They don't use narrow-wide profile on any of the jockeys,
however these are dedicated for their function.
First of all, the upper jockey
you see here an arrow, a directional arrow.
This says Shimano, nothing else,
but here you can see the G-PULLEY or Guide pulley.
And if you look at the bottom,
you will see T-PULLEY that means Tension pulley
so these are dedicated jockeys for each position,
and yeah, that's SGS or long cage.
Also, if you look in here
you're gonna see the product code
which is RD-M9100.
Also new is the use of the 13 teeth jockey wheels.
This is to be able to manage a longer chain
with a not so long derailleur cage.
One other thing that I want to point out is
you see that line for the 51 tooth,
the largest in their cassette.
Well, that is to be able to adjust the B-gap distance here,
very similar to the way SRAM Eagle provides this tool.
And if I put this on top of my jockey wheel,
and you look at the line from SRAM and the line from Shimano,
you see how the B-gap, all of a sudden for Shimano,
it seems to be about the same size, so close to 15 millimeters,
whereas in the past their B-gap was a lot shorter than that.
And talking about SRAM, I have an Eagle derailleur over here.
Yeah, this is a GX, but it's designed the same way that XO1 and XX1 are designed.
And let's take a closer look at the size of this cage
only because this has been a debris magnet for me.
But looking at the dimension of the actual cage,
on the new XT or I have 93 millimeters distance
between the two jockey wheels,
and also the offset here
between the pivot point and the axle of the top jockey wheel
is 45 millimeters.
Eagle distance
is 92 mm,
so almost the same distance between the two jockey wheels,
and the offset between the pivot point and the top jockey wheel...
SRAM actually uses slightly more offset here
you see it is about 52 millimeters,
so 6-7 millimeters longer offset.
So the cage that the two companies came up with,
for these 10-50T or 10-50T cassettes,
are designed almost identically
No matter how you look at this,
it is very very similar,
and the jockey wheels are almost the same.
There is only one other thing that I notice here on the XTR
that's actually mentioned in the specs:
you see this plasticky, rubbery bumper
that doesn't exist on the Eagle.
It just prevents the chain from slapping into the derailleur cage,
when the chain is on the 10 or the 12 tooth cog of the cassette.
And one last thing that is very intriguing to me.
If you look at this Eagle cage,
you will see how it is straight
and the two jockey wheels are parallel with each other,
there is no angle whatsoever between the two.
Anything but this will indicate a damaged derailleur of some sort.
But if you were to look at the XTR
specifically, let's look at the cage, the back of the cage here.
Look at that, it looks like it is already bent!
And yes, you have a gap here,
so not only that the top and the bottom jockey wheels
are not on the same line,
this one seems to be a bit bent down
or bent out, away from the spokes,
But also, if I angle that one straight to the camera like this,
you will see the bottom jockey wheel having a bit of an angle here,
and vice versa, if I keep this nicely angled towards the camera lens
you will see the top jockey wheel going away from us.
I have called the supplier and they suggested that
all the derailleurs they have right now look like this
so I guess this is not a defect but a feature of the new design.
On the scale this is 243 grams
versus the 237g that's in the spec.
The Eagle XX1 which would be the SRAM top-of-the-line,
is 265g so XTR saves you about 20 to 23 grams.
Have you guys ever seen one of these?
If you did, did you notice this gap
or offset between the two jockey wheels?
I would love to hear from you.
On my end, next step would be to install this
next to my 12 speed XTR shifter,
and see how they perform
with an SRAM Eagle 10-50T cassette.
But for now this is the end of my little review.
If you have any questions let me know
in the section below,
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and until next time,
I will see you folks on the trails.
Cheers guys,
Cheers!