New Shimano XTR

Equipment
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Forgive me, if there is already a forum about this here. I looked and could not find one.

What are yalls thoughts? Ill go first.

The normal groupset honestly looks like a compelling argument for anyone in 2018. It seems to be “reasonable” competition with axs. But honestly, I think for most mountain biker’s T-type is a better option. Or just mechanical XTR.

My complains for it on the MTB side are mostly the lack luster release. although the No clutch thing is crazy. Seriously? This is not 2015 yall. I know they claim the double I would rather have a 10h batter life and keep the clutch. Sram learned this too seeing how T type has a shorter batter life but stronger clutch.

I think T type is a step ahead of XTR. The only real argument that XTR has is Shift speed. Wich on a mountain bike I have never noticed, having tried all the major styles. I could see where somewhere in Texas where the trails are very tame and your just bouncing back and forth between the same 4 gears. For MTB I honestly done know any reason I would recommend it. If you do not have UDH, I think a weak clutch is still better then none.

I know that was pretty harsh for shimano. But…

For Gravel I think this may actually be competition with XPLR. the 9-45 option looks very compelling. The lack of clutch is disappointing but not a huge deal. I think that coupled with a place where fast shifting makes a difference could be a consideration for many who do not have a UDH and want a 1x. 9t is small but, hey you have rance and you are probably not spending much time in the 9t anyways. Slap a 46t up front and you have a bike that can keep of with Pogajar (The bike can, not you) and climb at a respectable cadence on gravel.

So that is my view on it. A dud for MTB but a strong competition for non UDH gravel and maybe some people who don’t want 13 speed. I am curious to see how it stacks up after the force and rival 12 speed drop at different price ranges.

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I haven’t ridden a T-type, because I can wrap my head around how slow the shift speed is.

How do you get across a standard creek crossing, where you have to maintain speed/momentum/pedal pressure through the water and then dump 4-5 gears quickly to get up the berm on the other side? Or do all the T-type riders live in the desert?

T-type would honestly work better as a gravel group than a MTB group, given its limitations.

As for XTR Di2, I’m not super impressed, especially for the price. I don’t really care about wireless because my bike is already put together with Di2 11-speed (with a clutch!). Maybe bike shops will appreciate the time saved though.

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I’m less impressed, the gearing is just not great. SRAM’s 10–46 cassette has road gearing for the first 10, 11 gears and then climbing gears on top. My experience with cassettes that have such gearing (Shimano 11–46 11-speed, SRAM 10–33) is that it works great for me, much, much better than tightly spaced gears on the climby end.

However, a SRAM 9–46 cassette would be killer: you could stick to the XPLR rear derailleur and get the same gear range as their MTB cassettes.

Judging by early impressions, the reviewers all noted that the lack of a clutch isn’t as much of an issue or no issue at all. On Escape Collective, they also mentioned another thing I found interesting: Shimano’s clutches are prone to rust, which explains why I have a dead mechanical XTR rear derailleur sitting in my shed. My previous LBS tried to revive it. I might give it a go, but right now I “downgraded” to XT.

Shimano is late to the game. Usually, they compensate for that with quality, polish and all. But I think they waited too long and have too much to catch up on. On the dropbar side, you can make a much better argument for keeping things wired, but they missed the bigger picture (mullet drive trains, mountain bikes, the mixing of categories, etc.) and focussed on traditional road riding. Having lived in Japan, I understand well why. MTBing is much, much less of a thing there.

What baffles me is the brakes: the regular XC brakes seem to be very meh whereas reviewers really seem to like the trail/enduro brakes. Shimano should have just ditched the old XC brake design. That would have fixed another issue: the new XTR brakes look identical to my XT M8100 brakes (apart from the logo), but they need a new brake fluid. How many riders and bike shops are going to mistakenly use the wrong brake fluid?

What I hear (not having ridden T-type SRAM drivetrains myself either) is that riders need to adjust their shifting habits and that this works very well for certain terrain. It seems once you get used to shifting under any load, it opens possibilities and changes your riding style.

SRAM has another ace up its sleeve: it can (and has) trade shifting under load for shift speed. Its 13-speed XPLR drivetrain shifts faster, but hasn’t been designed to shift under full load. It’d be nice if SRAM offered options, e. g. a 9–46 XPLR cassette which has the same range as its MTB cassettes, but faster shifting.

Or it could offer a setting and two types of cassettes (although that might lead to riders and bike shops making mistakes or deliberately combining the wrong shift option with a particular cassette).

I don’t think that matters. On all of my bikes, the smallest gears are used as overdrive gears, i. e. I’m going downhill and could use a very hard gear. The second- and third-hardest gear get much less use out of them.

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Same for me. Shimano 9-45 has the same 2t gaps just like 10-50, 10-52. I don’t see the appeal for gravel either where there are more steady state efforts and cadence matters more to me compared to the trail. That leaves a shorter cage and probably a bit less weight for the 9-45 xtr casette. The only bike I could see the 9t make sense in my stable is the dropbar MTB where I‘m limited to a 36t chainring.

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Hyperglide+ allows shifting under full load, it was released whenever Shimano did their mechanical 12 speed (8 years ago?) and carries onto this group since it’s the same cassette. Hence why I can’t see the use case for T-type transmission.

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I currently run Shimano XT/XTR. My drivetrain gets exceedingly unhappy when I shift under bigger loads. My gears would crunch and shifts would be delayed and uneven.

What I have heard from everyone who has tried it is that with Transmission drivetrains you can shift under load and the shift quality is the same or even improves. (For instance, you cannot judge shift quality on the bike stand with Transmission.) Shift speed remains unaffected by load, i. e. shift speed is slower, but predictable and you do not need to let off the gas.

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Have you tried it in a Di2? My road stuff is 12 speed Hyperglide+, MTB is still 11, but I haven’t had such issues. I’m not trying at 1000w either though.

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They also missed the ecosystem angle. Now that I have an AXS bike and some extra components laying around, I’m way less interested in non-AXS stuff. The AXS stuff all works together in whatever dumb way I want. Meanwhile Shimano wants to have input into what head unit I can use…

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They should imho team up with Öhlins or DT Swiss to bring a Flight Attendant competitor that uses the same batteries as their derailleur. And perhaps a wireless dropper with another company.

Imho that’s what‘s so enticing at SRAM. They created a nice ecosystem with cross compatible batteries which is a huge draw for me.

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MTB Di2? No, I have only had loaners with Di2 on road bikes. (Didn’t like the ergonomics of the levers.)

I currently have M9000/M8000 mechanical (i. e. 11-speed) on my mountain bike (XTR trigger shifter, formerly XTR rear derailleur, now XT). And I have had Shimano XT drivetrains on my mountain bike going back till 2005ish.

FWIW, I have been super happy with mechanical Shimano MTB drivetrains. Just saying that in my experience, I can’t shift under full load without the drivetrain complaining. Sometimes shifts simply won’t be actuated until I let off power, other times, the chain “snaps” to the next gear (but it doesn’t snap, of course). Since I have been trained for decades, I simply let off for a small moment when shifting.

On a mountain bike you often need to spike power to overcome obstacles (e. g. roots and rocks), so power spikes are more common.

I have never needed to do the same on a road bike, so that was never a concern of mine on Shimano (Ultegra/105) or, currently, SRAM Force D1 AXS eTap drivetrains.

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The AXS battery is one of the unsung heroes. AFAIK it hasn’t changed since its first iteration, at least not externally. Even though it seems as if corrosion and water ingress might be an issue, in my experience (4 years and counting), it simply hasn’t. The battery has been flawless. Ever since getting a spare, all worries about battery life are completely gone.

It strongly pushes my in the AXS direction for my next bike build.

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I had Shimano XTR on my previous MTB and have SRAM Red XPLR on my gravel bike.

I find any comments about ‘slow shifting’ or slow ‘shifting under load’ on the Red XPLR to be unfounded. It can dump/climb gears in either direction insanely fast. Especially because you can hold down the shifter and it shifts faster than you could even click the lever.

The only downside is that I think it could use an even broader gear range. If they had a cassette with 10-50 or 52 that kept the close gearing down low with slightly larger jumps in the top 4-5 gears I would be a happy camper. This would allow me to run a bigger ring up front. Or I could just get stronger.

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Wait… Are We Talking Gravel or MTB Here?

There’s a lot of crossover in this thread — just want to clarify:
Are we talking gravel setups or MTB?
Because if this is MTB-focused, I’m not sure Red XPLR even belongs in the convo.

Shimano’s New XTR vs SRAM T-Type

XTR is priced pretty close to GX T-Type. XT should land even cheaper. They also made it backwards compatible, which is a nice touch for folks who don’t want to overhaul their whole setup.

That said, I’m still not sold on the UDH derailleur design. Letting a carbon chain stay/drop out take the hit? We moved to replaceable hangers for a reason. But to be fair, the new XTR derailleur moves out of the way on impact, so maybe it’s not any more fragile than UDH.

Trail Reality Check

I don’t ride in the mountains — my local trails are steep punchy climbs and tight switchbacks. At race pace, T-Type struggles. You’re flying in the 10T, then suddenly need to be in the 50T to grind back up. Around here, T-Type riders are definitely feeling it.

Classic Shimano Move

This is typical Shimano: not trying to reinvent the wheel, just refining what already works. It’s not flashy, but it’s smart. Solid performance, good pricing, and reliable.

I know a few people already ditching XX for XTR. I’m tempted too try Di2 over T-Type — might wait for XT and do a mix build. I’m guessing the shifter and derailleur will be super close in weight, so the cassette might be the real difference-maker.

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MTB group sets are used frequently on gravel bikes, and I’m sure the new XTR will as well. Comparing to other similar group sets for the same usage seems applicable to this discussion.

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We are talking all things shimano XTR di2 and our thoughts.

I was saying that compared to Sram T type on MTB, it dose not really hold any water. Just get AXS or T type and save money and or weight.

For Gravel, it seems to be interesting competition with XPLR. Idk how it fairs against 13 speed. I would guess it is a little behind 13 speed and 12 speed XPLR but a easy sell for anyone who wants GRX Di2 1x.

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UDH is not putting the stress on the chainstay, the load bearing structure is the through-axle (which is supported by the entire rear triangle). And while the RD is strong, it will break/bend before the axle/triangle does (and has replaceable components). I’ve put the bike down on the RD in a couple races (one time very hard). The RD (and the scar on my right leg) still looks like they were hit with a belt sander, but the RD didn’t miss a beat. If that were an old school RD hanger, I might have been able to bend the hanger enough to get rolling again, but it also might have been a DNF if the hanger snapped. The UDH is a great design in my opinion. Not just for durability, but for the precision it allows for RD placement and setup.

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I’m not seeing that? Slightly cheaper than XXSL but probably comparable to XX

Derailleur
XTR - 665
XXSL - 650
GX - 400

Cassette
XTR - 500
XXSL - 600
GX - 250

Chain
XTR - 85?
XXSL - 150
GX - 50

Shifter
XTR - 220
POD Ultimate - 200
POD - 150

Full groupset prices (non PM since Shimano doesn’t offer)
XTR - $2030
XXSL- $2199
XX - $2049
GX - $1099

Maybe cheaper if you’re already on Shimano and keeping old parts, but for new cost of groupset it seems in line with the high end SRAM stuff.

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Gotta sat, my “cheap” t type gx setup shifts amazingly well up and down under load or not. So smooth! I also have a Linkglide bike….thats super smooth too.

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I completely butchered the pricing for some reason - I have no idea why, but I thought that GX was $1800 (not around $1100). I was way off on the pricing - like so off wtf was I looking at (which I look at number all day, so who knows).

Has it been announced yet that the XTR RD can sync to the current ecosystem (like the GRX)?

I appreciate the explanation on UDH interfacing and was aware before, i must be one of the ones that still likes/thinks a replaceable hanger is a good choice and that UDH can cause stress on the dropout area.

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At this point, this is a theoretical argument that hasn’t been borne out by the experiment. T-type rear derailleurs have been out for quite a while and I haven’t seen a wave of broken derailleurs that could have been saved had there been a sacrificial RD hanger.

The idea of the RD hanger as a sacrificial part hasn’t proven better than a strong RD hanger and RD, especially one with replaceable parts. Moreover, a weak RD hanger (as is necessary to make it a sacrificial part) negatively impacts shift performance in more ways than one.

I love that SRAM’s RDs are serviceable and parts are by-and-large interchangeable. (Shimano, did you hear this, interchangeable. Seriously, this is one of my biggest gripes as I was unable to source (affordable) chainrings for my 1x M9000 cranks, which are different from the M8000 and M9000 2x cranks by adding/not adding some cutouts.)

Yes, it is compatible with all wireless shifters, including wireless Di2 dropbar shifters.

Since MTB rear derailleurs are also used on mullet setups, gravel cycling should be IMHO taken into consideration when judging how well a drivetrain works. I think that’s completely fair.

Offroad cycling these days exists on a huge spectrum, which covers everything from tame gravel that’s better than some supposedly paved roads to downhill MTBing.