Air Bikes and their SRAM XD Cassettes

SRAM XD cassettes are really well made and last ages. These are only a little bit cheaper, but weigh 30 more and I very much doubt they'll last as long as SRAM. I wouldn't.

Which model of 12 spd SRAM cassettes are you looking at when you say only a little bit dearer and weigh less? They all seemed massively dearer to get near this weight?

You've linked there contact us page.on there site it doesn't list a 12 XD cassette although I know they do them
There heavy as hell
Id personally get a e13 before this which can be had for well under a 100 brand new on eBay
Merlin were doing xg1295 for 175 but not sure if that is still going

The air bikes cassettes are aluminium throughout.

sram cassettes are steel apart from the largest cog.

those air bikes ones won’t last I suspect.

Took me a while to navigate the site too (never a good sign)

https://airbike.uk/collections/12-speed-cassette/products/copy-of-12-speed-9-52t-xd-cassette-fits-sram-xd-gx-eagle-mountain-bike-mtb-freewheel

GX - about £100 below, compared to £80 for the Air Bike - and 450g versus 525g

https://www.bike-discount.de/en/sram-gx-eagle-xg-1275-12-speed-cassette-10-52t

I put one of the 11 speed ones on my lads Scale when we changed the wheels to a set that happened to have an XD driver, it seems well made enough, bolted up nicely, shifts well and at the time was way cheaper than any 11 speed XD SRAM cassette I could find.

goldfish24

The air bikes cassettes are aluminium throughout.

They're not

The air bikes cassettes are aluminium throughout. SRAM cassettes are steel apart from the largest cog. Those air bikes ones won’t last I suspect.

Nope cassette is steel

Cassette Size: 12 Speed 9-50T
Aluminium Spider: Top quality 7075
Cassette Material: Steel
Weight: 510g
Ratios Ratios: 9-11-13-15-18-21-24-28-32-36-42-50T

They’re not

Oh, apologies. And my links broken! Dear oh dear…

https://airbike.uk/collections/12-speed-cassette/products/sram-xd-12-speed-9-50t-cassette-gx-eagle

Yep steel cogs and weight of 510g which seemed a v good weight for the price. Coming from an OE 700g cassette so not going to worry about 40g difference!

I hadn't priced up non uk shops for Sram.

So fair to say a mixed opinion of these. Any other users ?

I don't mean to slag them off, they may well be fine - just that SRAM do a really really good job with their cassettes in terms of longevity and quality, and saving a few quid on the Air ones is most likely a bit of a false economy

Same as others, ime sram is expensive to buy but lasts ridiculously well. To the point I don't even really know how well, I've lost track.

Someone mentioned E13, I picked up one of their cassettes during the lockdowns when everything was expensive and it's been great, and is also lasting really well. RRP is too high but I think they're one of those products you can never buy at RRP, Orange has them for £115 right now frinstance.

The actual fitting process is kind of a faff and I would not want to ever try and do it in a car park or similar, though. And I doubt many people actually do the "replace half a cassette" thing. Especially not at £115 for a whole one.

Some people claim they do not notice poorer shifting with mismatching chain and cassette manufacturer. I do not know how that is possible, in my experience any mixing of 3rd brand stuff does affect shifting. Worst ones imo have been Garbaruk cassettes with any chain.

Though some people mix and match Shimano chains with Sram 12 speed cassettes too and vice versa, they seem to shift really poorly when test riding these customers bikes. Personally I would not do that, especially Shimano systems really do work poorly if the chain and cassette do not match. But this is all based on other peoples bikes, I do not like to mix on my own bikes - only time I did was put a Wipperman chain on a Shimano 11-cassette, and that has also been the only chain I snapped in years. I suspect the shift ramps on the cassette did a number on the chain not shaped to work with those, as it also was not shifting up as smoothly as a Shimano one.

As an aside, Sram chains on the top end last a lot longer than any other mtb chain.

Garbaruk cassette and chainring and a kmc 12-speed chain - all over 2 years and no proper signs of wear from any of them. Shifting works well and it has been so long that I can't recall how good the all-SRAM shifting was, but I don't think I noticed much difference.

Bought as the only bits I could find in Europe that weren't full price SRAM XX prices...quite happy with my purchases and that was just about the summer of 2021.

Been very happy with the Garbaruk on my gravel bike

I bought the "12 Speed 9-50T XD Cassette" from Air Bike is Sept 2022 for £78. The cheapest I have seen the SRAM GX Eagle is around £130. I even looked at bike-discount.de which seems to be good value until you realise you have to pay tax as it is imported into the UK and you get stung by additional custom processing fees.

The spider is Aluminium and quite soft (as designed) and easily damaged. I ride my bike quite hard, every weekend throughout the year and all conditions. I often go to the Peak District or the occasional trip to a trail centre as from anywhere between Llandegla to 7 Stanes in Scotland. I also freely admit that my maintenance is a bit lacking as I often have not got time to both ride and maintain. I have 5 SRAM GX Eagle chains that I rotated every 100 miles so they all wear evenly into the cassette otherwise from past experience by the time I'm on my third new chain it's slipping as the cassette is too worn. The cassette lasted 12 months and I think about 1800 (hard) miles; the big 3 gears got bent when the chain slipped (probably too much torque) and although I tried to hammer them back into shape they soon bent back.

I ended up buying a part used GX Eagle Cassette from ebay for £30 that looked in reasonable condition to use for 6 months or so to use the remaining life of the chains. Now I'm considering whether to buy the after-market air-bike  cassette (again) or the much pricier SRAM GX.

As others have said, proper SRAM Eagle cassettes from GX upwards last forever so it's a false economy buying cheap ones.