Good, Bad and UGLY of Shimano CUES
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- Опубліковано 21 сер 2024
- Review and impressions of our Shimano CUES future.
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…”Cybertruck dropped a turd and left it on your bike.” I laughed out loud at that remark!
It is definitely fugly. Im a Shimano but.....
Yeah true dat.
🤣😂🤣😂
Did exactly the same. Not drop a turd, but laughed out loud! I love these reviews. I work in a bike shop and we are always experimenting on our own bikes. You do the stuff we do ourselves. I ride a ‘96 Klein with Surly forks and run a three by 9, with 27.5 front 26 rear tyres. It’s a mutant, but comfortable as an old armchair on long rides.
shimano mtb stuff has looked like this for well over a decade.
Early in the video, he asked why Shimano couldn't have done this "decades earlier" - but they DID! 5-9 speed MTB rear derailleurs and 5-10 speed road rear derailleurs were all interchangeable with the same cable pull from the 70s until mid to late 2000s (with a few rare exceptions). I'm glad they're re-creating that golden era of inter-compatibility with more modern components. Thanks Shimano.
The difference is that they were progressively increasing speeds over the years while maintaining the same cable pull ratio and cassette width - resulting in smaller cable pull, narrower cassette spacing, and narrower chains for higher speeds, and making for a distinct tradeoff when going to higher speeds.
With CUES, the cable pull amount and cassette spacing is the same for all speeds, and the cassette width varies - but still fits the same freehub design. The only benefit of a lower speed system with CUES is slightly less cross-chaining. The only differences in the actual parts are one or two more ratchets molded into the shifter, and one or two more cogs in the cassette, which is a negligible difference in manufacturing cost.
Basically, there's no reason for 9 and 10 speed CUES to exist. All they will do is add to customer confusion (and pad Shimano's profit margins - which isn't a bad thing on its own, but when a system is created for no reason other than to do so without providing tangible benefit to the consumer, it is indeed bad).
As a result, CUES could not more perfectly fit the definition of planned obsolescence.
The better route for Shimano to have gone would've been to standardize on the original 5-10 speed pull ratio and just one of the new 11 or 12 speed ratios, and discard all the rest. Keep the existing cassette spacing, and update the cassette design.
@@MSUTri YES! Thank you. Very well said. Why not put the electric systems on the high end bikes and give us high quality, affordable and good looking mechanical 11 abs 12 speed drivetrains. Shimano could have gone this route.
But they weren't interchangeable with chains because the wider chains didn't fit through narrow cages, and narrow chains rode of thicker pulley wheels. As the UA-camr correctly states, running 10/11 speed chains was the only really good way around this.
@@marcdavidson3676 What not high end bike has electronic shifting?
@@PePethePedalPusher I've never had any problems running a 9 speed chain on a 10 speed rear derailleur. Nor have I had any issues running a 9 speed chain on a 7 speed rear derailleur.
IME Shimano rear derailleurs have plenty of excess room in the cage to allow for wider chains, within reason.
And there is no issue with jockey pulleys of a different speed at all. The pitch is the same, the internal chain width is the same.
The only area where I have found you need to be careful with mixing and matching is the front derailleur if you plan to have indexed shifting. Higher speed front derailleurs can be very sensitive to chain width, ring sizes, derailleur position, etc. They may work ok, but not perfect in all conditions when mixing and matching.
You also need to be careful with mixing 6/7/8 speed cranksets with 9/10 speed chains. Sometimes the wide ring spacing can result in the narrow chain getting stuck or jammed.
The Stats (since I was interested in all the parts):
DIXNA La Crank - Hollowtech, 110/74 BCD /w 24-40 Front Chainrings
Rivendell S-2 thumb shifter
IRD Sub-C Front Derailleur
Connex 11-spd chain
10-spd 11-39 Linkglide Casette
10/11-spd Cues Rear Derailleur
Thanks man that Dixna Name put me off a bit.
Nice
This is a long time coming and I couldn't be happier about this. It condenses everything and makes it far easier to upgrade, customize, or replace drivetrains. There was nothing more frustrating than explaining to a client that a 10 speed Tiagra 4700 RD wouldn't work with their 10 speed Ultegra 6700 shifters, but a 9 speed XT M750 RD would.
Linkglide/Cues is almost perfect, I just wish they didn't have to break compatibility with every other drivetrain so far.
Sounds reasonable. One thing though, why would anyone choose 9 or 10 speed in the first place when chains and sprockets all have 11 speed width?! Or am I missing something?
@@tillman5529 11 speed linkglide/Cues cassettes won't fit on certain rear wheels. The derailleur cage can get too close to the spokes.
@@tillman5529 It allows bikes to be on the floor at a lower price point. A Cues 11 speed 11-50 cassette is like $110, while the 9 speed 11-46 is about $45. Add in the cost of the shifters, plus whatever else is specced on the bike (fork, tires, etc) and you have the difference between an $800 bike and a $1200 bike.
@@goldspoketacomathanks. I hate Cues now. 😑
A full episode of pull ratios 101 and compatibility of newer stuff in the cues and 11 and 12s would be awesome
Still waiting for them to release the cues dropbar shift/brake levers
Me too
Seems like a right mess. So the pull ratio is the same but uoh still gave to change stuff. Also why label ghd box 10/11. Meh
I’m fine with friction shifting. Don’t care how the derailleur looks. Do care how it performs, how compatible it is with other components, whether it’s inexpensive/expensive to buy compatible components, and how long the thing is expected to last. My bike is for riding more than for taking pictures/videos or hanging on the wall. I respect that others have different priorities.
Front friction shifting on the front is an absolute no-brainer. Its so simple, robust and trivial that it beats all other possible solutions. modes. I've been using it for at least 10 years now on my 42 year sold steel racer. Initially I maintained the down tube shifter but later switched to (drop) bar end shifters which enabled me to keep the hands on the bars and not having to grab the low lying down tube shifter.
The rear shifter is a ultegra RD6800 11 speed.
On another flat handlebar bike I have a deore rear shifter with index shifting on the handle bar and a modified downtube shifter on the handlebar which also works perfectly and finally on my 3rd bike I have a 1x11 since today! So, lets see how that works out but since outr temperatures are around zero these days that needs to wait a bit to be safe from the highly prevalent black ice around here.
I went 1x so that's no longer an issue.
I went with Microshift Advent X using a friction thumb shifter on my latest build and couldn't be happier.
Cues is going to need more cable-pull because the derailleur is 1:1. So my old shifters won't be able to reach all of the gears that it does now.
Shimano is a mature corporation. No doubt they are now run by the bean counters. Watch for alternatives to appear beyond SRAM and Shimano. Derailleurs have been around a long time. They aren't rocket science but standard mechanical engineering.
please which thumbie are you using with advent x? the geometry of the stock shifter doesn't play well with my bars and arm tendons!
@@dotjade9775 I'm using the Microshift 10-speed thumb shifter. It's indexed for Shimano, so you run it in friction mode. They have a video on UA-cam somewhere about it.. Supposedly they're coming out with a thumb shifter specifically for Advent X indexing, but friction is working well for me.
Can confirm, my old 9spd Campa fd needed several clicks of the lever to shift the chain, it was somewhere between friction and indexed, so it had firm clicks and pull, but much smaller increments. For quite a while i thought this was just how every fd worked, since it was the only bike i owned at the time.
Gripshift was similar. Very early gripshift had 3 clicks for a triple. Then later (X-ray timeframe ~1995ish) it had like 8-12 little clicks to move across 3 chainrings.
Yeah, I had a pair of 9 speed Campy brifters the same system. It was less friction and more a ratchet system that had like 20 trim points rather than 2 indexed shift points. It was great for when all of my derailleurs came out of the $6 bin at my local co-op because you could use whatever front derailleur you wanted
Bike mechanic here. Good job explaining compatibilty of the Cues system. I agree that the looks are not the best, but I'm excited for everything else. Decided to upgrade my 3x7 tourney on my 1994 Specialized Hardrock with the 1x11 cues, so I'm looking forward to installing it and trying it out!
“Cyber Truck Turd” must be one of the most hilarious comparisons I ve heard recently.
Dull dark earth tones, flat black components, this is where we're at with bike styling these days. I nearly rode off the road the other day looking down at the sun reflecting off my early 90's purple metallic road bike with silver components. So pretty. I see some color returning in recent new bikes - I hope it continues.
I sometimes think my electric/Smurf blue surly preamble frame is too “bright” but then I think it’s better than having some super generic boring looking bike that you can’t even tell what it is
I always liked that seat tube mounted front derailleur shifter. It is a neat, convenient and ingenious front shifter placement that doesn't clutter the handlebar and offers all the benefits of friction shifting for that granny gear! Awesome!
My 1984 Rossin with Shimano 600 is like that with downtube shifters, indexed on the right for the rear and friction on the left for the front derailleur. The best of both worlds
Awesome take on this. I’m on the verge of dropping half of my fleet and just get one that can almost do it all. And would consider CUES to be a decent groupset pick-up.
Adding to the TLDR. Linkglide if you watch the intro video for XT (over a year back) shifting is supposed be improved in the to-larger gear "release" direction.
A note from the way back times. Derailleurs are not entirely agnostic to the systems they operate on. The design of its parallelogram - placement of the pivots and lengths of the arms nets a mechsnical limit to the distance it will travel. Hence old dereailleurs fron 5-6-7 era don't have the articulation range to do 8 speeds and beyond.
The greatest era of derailleurs that where designed for 8-9-10 where displaced with Dynashift in the Shimano world and many got grouchy but I assumed there was a parallogram alteration anticipating future 11-12 speed needs. Could be wrong and started to not care - I too suffered getting grouchy but in Shimano's defense they had been caught behind in their derailleur operating ranges and SRAM was beating them to the punch in those years.
Cues pulls many loose ends together is my guess. I hope it doesn't strand older systems from service parts but it may.
Shimano has usually provided cross-compatible service parts historically but at least now there is a healthy alternate brands market. Sorry about the TL. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Oh, man, that derailleur looks like Terminator Skynet components.
I can attest that Deore LX M-550 from 1992 was a mix of friction for the front and indexed , with a selector to turn indexing on or off.. I used mine (it still works flawlessly btw) on both a 3x7 and 3x8 setup. I didn't retire from my '92 Cannondale M700 until I installed a '05 era Deore LX 3x9 groupset on the bike.
Cues doesnt only use 11 chain. Its 11speed even on the cable pull ratio.
Its a 11 speed drivetrain in a 9, 10 or 11 speed clothes.
And shimano has that same in 7, 8 and 9 speed before split it of to mtb and road system
And MTB m7000, m6100 and m4100, for 11, 12 and 10 speed shares the same cable pull.
Road bike new tiara 4700, rd-7000 gen, rd-7120 gen, and any grx shares the same cable pull.
So you could probably run 11 speed bar end shifters indexed huh? Nice
Wow. That is why I messed up an update of 8-speed shifters on a 7 speed hub in 2007.😮
@@Fetherko I think the hubs are separate
It's not same at all. It's just close to each other. @@user-zu4nl7bm9e
We need a Company which makes aesthetic components in black AND silver.
My dream would be a 10-speed groupset with all the possibilities of shift levers.
Frame shifter, thumb shifter, dropbar shifter, kind of Rapidfire combined with rear derailleur and front derailleur in the classic look.
Cues works ok with sram 11spd mountain can't really comment on the quality of shifts but it felt no slower than with the trigger shifter.
I tested it with a microshift 11 speed sram thumb shifter. (SL-SR-M11-R), link glide cassette and derailleur.
Edit:
My understanding is derailleur and cassette need to match but shifter can change so Shimano shifter sram cassette and derailleur or sram shifter Shimano cassette and derailleur srams derailleur ratio is 1.12 vs 1.2 for Shimano while the shifter ratios are both 3.5
That's quite useful information which means CUES derailleurs don't have yet another different pull ratio. I think it's sensible for Shimano to just use the same ratio.
@@wrcompositi not quite the shifter ratio is the same but not the derailleur ratio it's 1.2 vs the 1.12 for sram. The closest derailleur is going to be microshift 10spd mtb but not the advent lineup.
So you can use a sram cassette and derailleur with a Shimano shifter but not a sram cassette, Shimano derailleur, and a sram shifter.
@@wrcompositi tldr shifter pull is the same, while derailleur pull and cassette pitch are different.
Deore shifters have always been amazing I love them
Thank you for the video, now i will keep an eye on Shimano CUES, i think that what i'll need in the future
I expect they will introduce some Road variations with 11-34 cassettes, shorter cage, softer lines, a bit of shine. The U8000 seems to be less brutal looking which right now is only listed in the lifestyle lineup. That's when this will start to make sense, as you'll be able to mix and match across the categories. I'm looking at putting the linkglide stuff on my emtb, waiting to see how my current Alivio setup fairs after a couple hundred miles.
Friction shifter for front mech is really good thing. I have one old bike, maybe it’s my age (arround 40 :D) with Shimano Positron. I restored it and I ride it sometimes. Definitelly good thing and the rear mech is even better engineered. It has steel wire instead of cable and works perfectly
Yeah... still gonna type this ;D My MTB from ~2000 had microShift Twist Shifters 3x7. The left one had micro index, for precise front derailleur shifting. And the right one, only my wrist limited how many gears I could drop in single turn ;DDD
Recently stocked up on deore parts. Not ready to “upgrade” my drivetrain just yet, when everything works and shifts just fine.
Imo if you already have a higher-end HG and the parts you want, I think it's better for non-electric.
Also the whole "confusion" with Shimano RDs is a bit overblown. For 9 speed and below it was super-easy to just change parts out. 10-speed road if you could run brifters or found the flat bar variants, and literally anything if you like friction. Classic bike enthusiasts really had nothing to complain about, especially in the 2/3x 7/8/9 realm.
It's literally just the 5-6-7-8 freewheel-based even spacing scheme but "shifted" up for a new 11-speed-HG-based standard, because HG kinda had to fudge those incrementally over the years to fit.
I run this same mullet shifting setup on my Rivendell hubuhhubuh (tandem). One of the guys at riv recommended it specifically because timing the pedal stroke with a rear shift is a bit trickier on the tandem, works great!
Hi. If you offset the Captain's cranks so that they're 20* ahead (about 2 teeth) of the Stoker's cranks it provides 2 benefits: 1. It extends the power stroke. That should be self-explanatory. The Captain gets into the power stroke before the Stoker does. It's noticeable on climbs and when accelerating. It can also help with cadence-matching. 2. It reduces the load on the drivetrain and makes shifting a lot easier and smoother. You can basically shift whenever you want, even in a turn whilst pedaling. It's a game-changer.
Thanks Russ, really appreciated the information and clearing up the mystery surrounding Cues. My return to friction shifting is one bike build away!
A few months ago I converted my ultegra based flat bar Giant bike (old) with Cues 6000 series 2x11. Here is the list:
CASSETTE: SHIMANO LINKGLIDE Cassette 11-speed 11-45T [Model No: CS-LG400-11],
DERAILLEUR: REAR SHIMANO CUES SHADOW RD 11-SPEED [Model No: RD-U6020-11],
SHIFTER: SHIMANO CUES RAPIDFIRE PLUS SHIFTER CLAMP BAND 11-SPEED [Model No: SL-U6000-11R]
Chain - 10/11-speed LINKGLIDE Chain [Model No: CN-LG500]
Initial running and tuning took a bit of work but now running extremely smooth with no issues. Shifting a little slower than my ultegra 11-28T 10 speed but this cassette is bigger.
One gripe about the it, is the big steps between the cog ratios which I am not a big fun. If the ratios were closer like the 11-28T I will be very happy.
Excellent system overall.
Re: E-bikes eating cassettes - I worked in a bike shop for a while and I used to see loads of e-bikes come in with extremely worn cassettes, but only in the largest gear. Turns out lots of e-bike riders don't shift at all, they just put the bike in the largest, fastest gear, and then never change gear again. This, along with a generally less rigorous (read non existent) maintenance schedule may be where the idea that e-bikes eat cassettes comes from.
If 9, 10, and 11 cassettes have the same spacing, are there built in spacers to fill out the freehub on the 9/10 cassettes? Would be cool if they made the 9 speed cassette able to fit on the old 7 speed Shimano freehubs.
No spacers are required. All three are compatible with the standard 8/9/10-speed Hyperglide body (not the wider 11-speed road variant). This compatibility extends to every 11-speed cassette with a 34t or larger lowest cog, given that the inboard face is concave.
Some of SunRace 9/10s cassettes use bolts (I remember it's T7 torx head) instead of rivets so the sprockets can be taken apart easily. SRAM 9s cassettes are also not riveted. You can than substitute thinner spacers which are intended for 10/11s cassettes. But the spare spacers of Shimano are not cheap if bought new, I once bought some 3rd party alloy spacers from Chinese vendors and the thickness is spot on.
This sounds a lot like my experience with Sensah. Meh. If they want more than $100 for the rear shifter and mech it’ll be a though sell for anyone. I like the idea of condensing the number of groupsets, and standardizing the pull ratio is something that should have occurred 20 years ago.
That 2x that you're using is such a good idea. It should be so much more popular!
I definitely appreciate the inexpensive aspects of Cues. If you don’t have a parts bin, and are just starting to get into bike building, it’s a score. I don’t like the that the cranks have riveted chainrings. And I agree about the backwards compatibility being a negative.
Been running a 1x with a Cues 9-speed rear cassette (and chain) with a sun-race 9 speed clutch derailleur and Deore bar-end shifter (friction) for around 8 months now. Pretty happy with it so far and it has been a kind of set and forget experience. I'll see after a year or so if you can in fact replace the chain and not the cassette as Shimano claims should be possible. Great to see this video! Bonus of using the Cues is that durability I think and it does do well under high torque shifting. Can happily cut out the ugly rear derailleur and use one you actually like the look of if you use friction for the rear. Great content as always Russ - I shall have to buy some stickers soon (if you ship to the UK?)
Need to get one of those cranks! My 30 year old Serotta Colorado frame has been living as a fixie for over ten years but it’s time to go mountain climbing again. The 50/34 Shimano 105 crankset sitting here probably won’t be low enough with an 11-34 out back, plus I’ve become accustomed to 165 cranks so lots of options there as well. Front shifting? Down tube friction, of course. Nice 10 speed Dura-Ace levers so index in the rear. I wasn’t even aware that was a “mullet”. Yeah, I’m old. Thanks for the interesting videos!
Thanks for the rundown CUES was always going to be controversial but it makes perfect sense with Shimano looking at better profits and less parts to keep in stock with the ability to mix and match a huge range of parts in the future.
I would definitely consider a CUES 10-11 speed upgrade with no front derailleur on my hardtail MTB....
😎🇦🇺
I'm glad it's finally become cross compatible. I wonder if SRAM will follow 🤷♂️
Ordered upgrades for my Mongoose Switchback Sport 2019 with Shimano Cues U6000 goupset (6 pcs 10-speed), along with Shimano's MT200 hydraulic brakes set (F+R) and SR Suntour XCR32 RLR Air suspension fork. Hoping with these upgrades I am good for another 3+ years. I am not at extreme ends, rather cross country with some mounting. All these upgrades cost me less than USD350 + another ~USD75 or so for service.
Hi,thanks for the review. I jumped on the cues bandwagon and ordered a 1x10 complete set for a steal :) One thing that I noticed was that you like those wide gap front cranks.. And looking at the cues Lineup I found a 40-26 crankset.. Its the FC-U4000-2 unfortunately it has riveted chainrings.. so if they are worn down you would need to replace the whole crank... The other cranks that I looked at were not available with 40-26.. Maybe this helps some people out there :)
Thanks for your review Russ! Thoughtful and well crafted per usual.
I have no interest in Cues for any of my bikes, but super interesting to see the direction Shimano is headed with this line.
Bet you’re ready to put your old setup back on the Sam!
I totally agree about the aesthetics. Even the top of the line Dura-Ace looks cheap to me. My old 600 group looks way better.
indexed right friction left... worked quite well for 20 years on all shimano road and mtb bikes...
I have a retro road bike set up with Campy 10s. I found some NOS Campy 8s down tube shifters. Was able to change the index gear in the rear lever to operate 10s (bar end and DT shifters of this era were identical). The front lever was not indexed, just friction. Front shifting is fast and smooth. I would say actual shifting all around is best of all my bikes. Very direct and immediate feel. Just not the safety and convenience of the integrated brake designs.
Yeah friction in the front and index in the rear shift was the norm for quite a while. Used to have a friction mode on the rear shifter in case the rear derailer was damaged and wouldn’t index properly. Yeah Campy used to have a ratchet type shifter for the front road shifter. Campy stopped making atb parts probably in the very early 1990s . It just didn’t work well:-). Love the content. Love old school stuff!!
Thanks, Russ! I have been wondering about CUES. Thanks for the explanation. I guess I'm not excited about having to buy 11 speed chains for everything, and you are so right about it being ugly.
Awesome review!
Late comment. I had 2000 era Campagnolo centaur . It was not friction shift, but it did have a lot of index points For the front derailer. Really nice for trimming the front end especially with that early 10 speed chain line.
"To change number of speeds you don't have to change everything, just the shifter and the cassette." So, only the most expensive parts, right? Brifters are breathtakingly expensive. Even Shimano's mid-range STI trigger shifters are far from inexpensive. Quality wide range cassettes are expensive as well. The rear derailleur is among the least expensive components unless you're in some high-end component group. I think Cues is a dud in this respect. It's an advantage for Shimano and bike manufacturers, but if you're upgrading an existing Cues setup you're every bit as screwed as you are now. I do like that they're "standardizing" the cable pull, but you know that the second they have these in full production for a couple of years they're just going to change it again.
Well for curly bars yes. For flat bars shifters are $20.
Sensah will come out with some decent cheap ones.
As a seemingly budget friendly option for an upgrade from what I currently have, I’d be willing to give it a go. Although as the cranks appear to be riveted I think the La crank looks more appealing up front. It is nice that there is a 40/26 2x option in the cues though
My old touring bike, a 1986 Fisher Prometheus, (which I sold, like an idiot) had the old Sutour XC pro thumb shifters that had both friction and indexing options that actually worked. On tours I would find myself turning off the indexing so I could fiddle with the adjustment of the gears. So there's that.
I am sitting here at midnight in my flat, watching your video and being presented a take on the aesthetics of a rear derailleur and I can see what Russ means, I live an extraordinary live 😂
friction shifty folk - would you happily use friction shifters on a 1x gravel bike? my gravel bike is mostly a commuting bike, but I do occasionally remove the panniers and do speedier off-roadier kinds of rides... I think friction gears would solve lots of problems i seem to have created by building the bike out of random parts, but am slightly worried that they wouldn't be quite as good for the speedier sportier times. thoughts appreciated.
It would work well once you get used to it - with 11 on the back the shift increments are quite small and it will take a while to nail the shifts without thinking about it.
thanks. i've got 9 speeds at the mo. i might give it a go.@@davidmurphy9151
Transparency is uncommon these days.
Good video.
Does any of it appear maintainable/repairable in the slightest?
Campagnolo first generation Syncro, down-tube shifters, were friction front and 6/7 speed rear shifter. I have just set up a retro bike that is a mirror to my first road racing bike, with all friction shifters down tube shifters. It has qualities I like but I loose on my click shifter bikes.
For me running with a bafang bbshd with 42 tooth aluminum offset front ring and cues 11 speed 50 tooth in rear .. i am totally blown away with the shifting under load . I have installed a shift detector but my first couple test runs it was disconnected.
Wow, feeling like formula 1 compared to all my other setups last used xt 36 9 speed and lx rear
Was not even close to this ..for ebike this is the ticket ..
In the 80's it was common to see a lockout on the rear shifter, which would switch from friction to indexed; with a turn of a dial.
6:09 no, you can't, a linkglide shifter/derailleur performs pretty poorly on a Hyperglide cassette and vice versa. the only thing you can mix and match is the LG Chain with HG components
i wonder why can't they just make 1 single derailleur, accomodating 3 speeds, and selling just 1 shifter with user replaceable rachet part, that would be either 9,10 or 11 and so truly making it cross compatible and simple, and then all the user needs is to change the cassette and there they have, from 9 to 11 speed and back easily, to me, it seems like i should just go straight for the 11 speed derailleur and shifter, and then change to 9 speed cue cassette if i want 9 speed, 11 if i want 11
Sounds like a great possibility for a third party product.
@@daniellarson3068 Sensah be looking over this way, coporate greed is why we cant have nice well engineered things
The sad truth is the real customers are bike manufacturers, it won't help the business if Shimano makes the parts modular and swappable to general cyclists. SRAM is even more blatant in this strategy of discouraging servicing old parts by reducing the availability of spare parts or make the spares very expensive.
It kinda is that way. The main differences, besides minor quality upgrades the farther up the range you go, are that the derailleurs are sized to the range of the cassettes offered with the speed count. So the “9 speed” derailleurs can shift across 11cogs, and index properly with an 11 speed shifter, but may not clear the larger cogs offered on an 11 speed cassette, or have enough capacity to accommodate an accidental big-big cross chain with a CUES 2x11 crank and cassette.
If you stick with smaller (gravel) Shimano 11 speed cassettes, the 9 speed derailleur should work as long as you have an 11 speed shifter. That 11 speed cassette would even work with the 9 speed shifter, you just wouldn’t get two gears.
I don't remember exactly when it changed but yeah, Campagnolo front shifters had a ratcheting friction system which allowed you to trim the FD as you saw fit, because of this, you could use a wide range of front derailleurs. It was beautiful. IIRC it was right around 2008 that Chorus and everything above it went to the indexed left shifter. Somebody correct me if my dates are wrong.
My 2001 Ergo-9-speed shifter has about 12 ratchet-stopped positions, IIRC. Trim on stop at a time.
@@Fetherko that's what I'm talking about🍻 Isn't it great? The newer stuff works great but I wish Chorus 12 had that same front shifting.
253 represent. Old ergo brifters are on all my bikes. Triples and old ergo's -> bliss. I use friction for the rear.
Love Love Love old Ergo's on Triples ~11 clicks of goodness. I'm hopping my hands will like the soon to be released grotac shifters.
Going to a Cues training event this week. We'll see how it goes
Shimano 600 downtube 7 speed shifter set to friction. XT M8000 but reverse pinch the cable so the shifter's amount of cable pull is fine. Cues 10s 11-39. This is clearly a road bike with 50/34 at the front.
In year 2030, if I break my 9 sp Deore Rear Derailleur, what options will I have? New Cues rear derailleur + new rear shifter to maintain compatibility? That’s not terrible. Even so, I think I’m going to horde some nice 9 sp ‘mega 9’ parts such as Deore and up.
Shimano changed cable pull starting with mtb 10 speed. 7,8,9 and road 10 rear derailleur are interchangeable (except tiagra 10 for some reason).
The Cuse rear derailleur is not connected correctly. The cable must pass to the lever on the left, and bend around the lever.
Design cues straight from Gotham.
I love my Acera derailleur with friction shifter.
If you set up your derailleur properly and use sensible gears, you don't have any chain rub, never, chain rub only comes into play when you try to youse stupid chain lines.
Its rumored CUES is the road 11sp/4700 10sp pull ratio. That's how Shimano is going to bring it to drop-bars. Has anyone tried CUES yet with a Tiagra 4700 right shifter, or a 105 R7000 right shifter?
Great video Russ! Curious, what is the logic behind using a 11 speed chain? Is there some advantage? Isn’t 11 speed chain more costly than 9 or 10?
Derailleur jockey wheels and cage can be the same width on 9, 10, and 11 speed. Use the same Derailleur on economy bikes with fewer speeds.
From the standpoint of manufacturing, thinner chains are not more costly to make, so it's more beneficial to simply the inventory.
Best video on cues 🎉❤
Are there any good, nice-price friction options for the front shifter? If Cues is lower to middle tier, your solution with a few high end components mixed in helps get to answer your questions but probably won't be a common setup.
Tldr at min 9:40, you could've marked it at a chapter into the vid :)
great content as always!
Good stuff.
I have to say I'm not sure all is what it seems though. At one point you said it is compatible with a standard HG cassette. Presumably given the 11 speed chain it uses, that will be 11 speed HG cassettes? It can't be all HG cassettes because as I understand it Cues uses the same cog pitch across all speeds but HG cassettes get a narrower cog pitch with each step up.
If true this has implications. It means you could in theory run an 11 speed non cues group with an 11 speed linkglide cassette, so long as the derailleur can cope with the size of the cassette ... it also begs the question as to what the pull ratio actually is. They don't advertise it but 10, 11 and 12 speed Shimano MTB derailleurs all use the same pull ratio ... which is "almost but not quite 1:1", you can use the derailleurs on any of those speeds with the right shifter and cassette, so long as the geometry is right. It begs the question whether Cues (at least in 11 speed guise) is in fact a Shimano 11 speed MTB groupset with a different name.
This sounds like a bad idea to me :)
I like modern, subtle looking black components but dear god do i love silver/chrome parts. Same for cassettes.
Case in point: 105 R7000 in silver/gray.
Anyway, Cues might be a good option for my commuter bike that i use in all sorts of conditions, including snow. Just sucks that all their cranks except the hollowtech ones look like ass.
As an entry level mountainbiker/gravel rider/commuter I'm sad to see that Shimano is phasing out Deore. I've found Deore to be very reliable and sturdy (I've run Deore in both 3x8 and 1x10) and am not looking forward to have to deal with clunky shifting in comparison from a CUES replacement should my Deore components break.
Would the CUES system work with a triple on the front (using a friction shifted front derailleur)?
It should.
I tried 9s RD u3000 + 10s CS11-39 + 10s Shifter . It works amazing
Cues is a real deal🎉🎉
I have newer gripshift with indexing FD. It just has 15+ clicks so you can get a good trim still. I have never constantly shifted from big ring to small ring. Just seems ridiculous to me. I ride similar to you where on mtb rides I stay in the 32 80% of the time and shift to the 22 when it's super steep. 42 is for the road ride to the trail or when the bike get's converted to road/dirt path mostly.
Not sure I am going to cue up for this since I like 8 speed still, but I like the idea.
Happy I got my Acera M-3020 this week.
First rock or twig and that derailleur cage is toast.
I would really like to see if it really works with an HG cassete sprocket, since it is the most available/cheap component as of moment
That would be a great thing to test if we had the resources.
HG compatibility is limited to 11 speed cassettes. 10 and 9 speed CUES have the same spacing between cogs as 11 speed, which is different than the spacing on legacy HG 10 and 9 speed cassettes.
@@garypatrick3001 thanks, I was planning to buy either cues or m5100. This helped a lot 👌🏼
I like black bike components for stealth camping reasons.
Armstrong would ride friction in the front with a downtube shifter.
if i had the means i'd make a copy of campag rally, 8 or 10 sp, 11-40 cassette, 45 capacity - well, loved the looks of rd-m960 too
I hate the look of it too, but I think any derailleur that can be capable of wide range double is going to have to be huge. The nice classic looking derailleurs all had max sprocket sizes of lower 30s and not much in the way of max capacity. It's too bad there can't be a new component maker that was classically inspired, but with modern trends. But, according to Nolan's (Bike Sauce) rear derailleur explanation video, it sounds like making one that can handle large max sprocket and max capacity and still shift reasonably well is not an easy engineering task, let alone designing it to look nice.
Yeah, the cage is gonna have to be long to cover all that range. I just think the upper part is awfully bulky and angular.
Why can't derailleurs be orange?
Hello I've been told that a 105, 10 speed drop bar shifter will work with a 9 speed derailleur? Have you looked into this? Loved the video too.
Brutalist Cybertruck Vibez ⚡️
I thought I need thuraxles for Cues, good to know as I stopped the planned obsolescence at 10sp kind of like when I began all drop bar bike were called 10 speeds (2x5).
so would you say it would be stupid to switch from an SLX derailleur to a Cues U8000 derailleur? Asking because that is exactly what I'm doing. I'm also switching out my Deore 5100 cassette with a Cues LG400 cassette so that I'll get all the benefits of a full linkglide groupset. After buying the new derailleur, cassette and shifter (I currently have an XT shifter but unfortunately, it's not the Linkglide XT shifter so I had to buy another XT shifter that is Linkglide indexed) it looks like this switch is going to cost more then my current groupset, coming in at $224.00. I really wish I had the patience to wait 3 weeks and spend about $100 less by buying the entire Cues U6000 groupset from Aliexpress but I'm an impatient guy lol.
My campy 10 speed front shifter has several micro-adjust positions. The old Campy 8 speed integrated had micro ratchets too. I'm very interested to try the growtac levers with integrated friction but they're $$$
Linkglide cassettes and hyper glide are not interchangeable, different cog spacing/pull ratios.
So with 1:1 pull ratio is it tiagra compatible?
Probably not.
Tiagra 4700 needs a derailleur with 1.4 ratio. Shimano GRX and L-TWOO GR7/GR9 rear derailleurs can mix with Tiagra shifters.
Oh, my bad. So 11s Shimano MTB should work then with stated 1.1 shift ratio? Pretty close it seems. One could then benefit from Awesome deore xt shift quality/ Derailleur engagement
i use cues u6000 1x11 11-50 and the shifting its supper smoth (is like the HG version of hyperglide plus)
11 speed chain works with other speed components. Derailleurs probably work well enough on the wrong number of speeds cassette, if the shifter is right.
Mind blown!