Tilting At Windmills – Shimano XT and the Chevrolet Corvette

I just sat down to start typing and there are already key issues with this piece. More than anything, I am imagining a cheeky text message from Cy asking how many more times I am going to try some variation of flogging the same dead glue stick in 2024. I just cannot help it, every time I hear someone talking about how Shimano XT is now a “budget groupset” my left eye starts to tick.

Further, I am not generally a fan of automotive analogies. For one, I know next to nothing about ye olde horseless carriages, so my car correlations always invite cultured criticisms. If you think you know more than me about cars, well, you are right. Also, I have spent my entire life living in an actively car-centric country, on an actively car-centric continent, and I dislike contributing to that. But just as nothing has changed in my lifetime around automobile supremacy, I cannot change my childhood captivation around Chevy’s top people puller.

I imagine that I had seen photos and Matchbox models of Ferraris and Lamborghinis. Growing up in the ‘burbs though, whether a classic ‘60s collector or a contemporary C4, the Corvette is the only luxury car I had seen in person. Even sat in. Someone down the street from me even owned one. A Corvette! If wealth was aspirational, that was aspirational wealth on four wheels.

A couple-or-few years ago, I was sitting with my bike at a coffee shop near my apartment and I sh*t you not, a Bugatti Chiron pulled into the parking lot. All orange-leather interior – ceiling, floors, seats, dash, and doors. I had to ask my friend Aaron what it was, because I had never even seen a picture of one, and he said, “That Andrew, is a four-million-dollar car” (CAD$4,000,000). I remember thinking about Grom-Andrew asking my dad about the price of a Corvette and him saying they cost three times more than our mini-van. Somehow at the time that made sense to me, it was a Corvette . But looking at the Bugatti, I could not help but long for a time when I measured the most expensive car I had ever seen in its relative value in cars, rather than its relative value in condominiums.

Here is the thing that drives me off the road, the existence of the Chiron does not make the Corvette a ‘cheap’ or ‘budget-friendly’ car. The adjustment in the median price of cars sold which is caused by a few hundred ultra-luxury vehicle sales a year does not reorder the affordability of ‘lesser’ automobiles any more than the existence of US$12,000 S-Works makes a US$6500 Stumpy Expert ‘budget-friendly’ for the average rider.

But at the same time, new top-pricing-normals undoubtedly influence the buying habits of folks coming in downstream. Both the S-Works and Expert have carbon frames, SRAM wireless battery-powered drivetrains and four-piston Maven brakes, Fox suspension. For half-price that Expert model is a steal of a deal!

GX & XT

I specifically referenced Shimano XT in my title for a few reasons but for those who are SRAMddicted rather than Shimanophiles, feel encouraged to sub in a GX-cable actuated drivetrain. Just be aware of my key cost-of-ownership-concern with the GX groupset, which is being locked into an XD freehub driver vs. the limitless lower-priced cassette replacement options, for any number of ratios, using an old-school HG driver. Looking at where performance mountain bike shifting starts for you – MicroShift, Shimano Deore, etc. – these two excellent, nae – premium, ShiRAMano drivetrains now sit well below the median price for changing gears.

Indeed, a Shimano XT LinkGlide 11-speed groupset – derailleur, shifter, chain, cassette – will run around $US362. That is less money than just a rear derailleur from the SRAM T-Type AXS GX electronic system. The equivalent parts package in a GX Eagle cable-actuated setup is $US451 and that’s US$100 less treasure than buying just an XX-level T-Type cassette.

That is a lot of numbers, so here are a few more. With a crankset, the way SRAM prefers to sell drivetrains, the regular SRP on a 12-speed GX cable-actuated groupset is US$587. Even discounting the deals everywhere on this setup, you can buy almost four of those GX groupsets for the price of a single SRAM XXSL T-Type AXS setup with the same component coverage.

Expensive Things Are Expensive

And I understand you are probably thinking, “No sh*t Andrew, more expensive things are more expensive than less expensive things.” That is fair. For the record, this is not me asking for some papal bull for the anti-battery crusade I am routinely accused of engaging in. I am simply worried that too many riders, especially new riders or riders who are being encouraged to have XX tastes on an NX budget, are losing the plot when it comes to the question of “What is awesome – better-than-needed – high-performance mountain bike shifting?”

There is not a void between the excellent, but heavy, CUES U6000 drivetrain that would cover 95%+ of mountain bikers' performance-shifting needs and the exponentially more expensive XXSL or, pending, Shimano XTR Di2 options, never mind all the hop-ups available, which occupy the luxury stream of off-road cycling components. There are, indeed, so many component steps in between it is hard to keep track of the options, and that is before product managers start min-maxing component spec to deliver better drivetrain value.

Put median pricing aside, in the amazing days we live in there is nothing average about an average-priced drivetrain. I would love to upgrade my U6000 setup with a Deore M5130 shifter. Not for any performance reason, but because that 10-speed Deore shifter has a significantly nicer fit and finish and the shifter is the only part of the LinkGlide drivetrain I physically interact with while riding. Focus on touchpoints* – grips, bar, pedals, saddle, brake levers, dropper remote, and shifter.

*{I extend this thinking to my tires and rear hub as well.}

With all the LinkGlide parts being inter-compatible, at some point, I will hook up an XT M8130 shifter I have and just ignore the extra click of the 11-speed indexing. By the same stroke, upgrading the shifter on a SRAM NX drivetrain makes it feel like a different system. In a rare case of an upgraded rear derailleur being more than a cosmetic win, a GX-cable shifter and derailleur mated to an NX cassette and crankset (with a steel chainring) is worthy of consideration for the right price.

So, I am seeing Red and thinking to myself that whether you are just getting by or Bezos, US$600 is an insane amount of money for a cassette, a wear-item, for a bicycle. Yes, Cy, you are right, 13-speed is coming , inevitably, to a mountain bike near you . You and every other person test-writing about super-luxury bike-builds, me-powered or e-powered, on the biker web. But like the three G-Wagons and a Bentley Flying Spur that drove by me whilst I was pedaling errands the other week, let us treat this stuff as high-end curiosities rather than a new normal.

To be clear, if you, the reader, want to trade in your EVOC bumbag for an LV Ski and have the cash or credit to make it happen then good on you, this is not a judgment of folks spending their hard-earned money on nice things, luxury-level things even. Just be clear that you ride nice things because you like nice things and can afford nice things. Our buddy making mountain biking happen who scored a barely used Dakine Hot Laps 2L for $15 will be a lot better served by upgrading their contact points, servicing their suspension, refreshing their brakes, buying fresh rubber, paying for lessons, etc., etc., etc. before throwing down US$2290 on a hip-pack. The same is true for a shifting setup.

XT & GX, Again

Mountain Bicycling. The act of riding bicycles in the forest, for fun. Okay, yes, some percentage of mountain bikers also race but you must be at a fairly high level to where a bike is making a difference to performance versus who is riding it. Put another way, if you trade bikes with Nino Schurter, he is still going to spank you up and down the hill.

I like nice stuff, you like nice stuff. I can fully justify the price of a Project 321 hub, some carbon-levered Hayes Dominion brakes, or a Chris King headset even if on a tighter budget I know I would be min-maxing myself into a Spank Hex Drive, plastic-levered Magura MT5 brakes, and a Cane Creek 40. And on a truly tight budget, I would be riding some old Shimano cup-and-cone spinners, a rebuilt pair of used Code R brakes, and a heavily greased FSA Pig. And, the key point, still having a ton of fun in the process.

Yes, relative to any SRAM AXS T-Type, pending Shimano Di2 groupset, or even the current Shimano XTR cable, buying complete groupos or even components for an XT or GX-cable build is relatively inexpensive. And heck, with the price increases in foodstuffs the last couple of years one could maybe be excused for thinking US$122 for a rear derailleur (M8130) or US$130 for a cassette (LG700) is inexpensive but let us remember they are mass-produced bicycle components for having fun in the woods.

I am not saying those prices are not completely fair for the performance and longevity of the products – and factoring in development, manufacturing, marketing, and support costs I am not saying otherwise about even the fanciest drivetrains – but relative to totally rideable components that cost less, I think it would be better if everyone writing about bikes, and talking about bikes, would recognize that the super-premium groupsets that have been added over the last handful of years are nice-to-have and certainly not need-to-have.

Shimano XT and GX-cable are still, by cost and performance, premium products. Mountain biking has not become exponentially more expensive, the same way the same way that thousand-dollar rain jackets and half-million-dollar SUVs have not necessarily made staying dry or driving more expensive. But median price creep does seem to lead to average price creep, and that is not a net benefit for most of us.

Whatever makes you happy – or, as my friend Glen says, “You can afford what you can afford.” A US$70,000 Corvette is still a heck of a lot of car. More car than most of us could ever use, or even access a space to safely use. Let us not keep the presence of half-million-dollar luxury machines from keeping the majority of us from seeking the best values in our getting-from-A-to-B realities.