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Just wondering if anyone has built up a Cues drivetrain yet?
My beater bike is slipping gears and overdue a bottom bracket, so was considering trying a 1x9 speed set up out. I could be an ultra cheapskate and wait for Essa to come out and just replace the bits that I need but fancy something cheapish but a bit nicer than what I currently have (3x8 acera I think).
No, but have a look at the Microshift Acolyte 8spd groupset (1x8 with 12-46 cassette)
Not sure on availability, but last year I got a mech, cassette, shifter and chain for under £70. In quality it feels like Deore level kit.
I’ve got LinkGlide 11 speed which is part of that system. It’s really good, just works, last ages, very tolerant of being just ridden and ignored bar oiling the chain as needed (and I did vaguely clean and lube the mech pivots after about 1500 miles). That’s on an ebike which destroyed a Microshift cassette in 200 miles!
Thanks - my first thought was Microshift but heard it doesn’t last and heard good things about link glide. Will check both out then and see what’s available.
Thanks – my first thought was Microshift but heard it doesn’t last
Just looked at my emails it was actually 2 years ago I bought it (bloody hell time flies!).
Anyway, I've been running it on my rigid MTB for that time, got through 2 chains - changing them at 0.75 - and probably done 2000km on it with no issues.
+1 on Microshift being more durable and workable than the slightly plastic shifter suggests.
“Anyway, I’ve been running it on my rigid MTB for that time, got through 2 chains – changing them at 0.75 – and probably done 2000km on it with no issues.”
That’s good to know!
With a full power ebike being ridden hard I think there’s just too much load on the teeth for the Microshift cassette to handle it - a normal 11 speed SLX cassette was good for 600 miles and tolerable for 600 more (poor shifting but otherwise ok), the LinkGlide cassette is 1600 miles in and still working well, whilst the Microsoft cassette was causing the chain to skip at 200 miles, which was awful.
My other half has it on her full fat ebike, seems ok so far, second chain everything still seems in good condition.
I would probably look at a KMC chain next time just for the rust prevention coatings
I've tried quite of a lot of the 10 speed stuff and ended up giving up on it. There is a myth that it is all interchangable but it is quite the opposite. It's really finicky and needs to be set up exactly as the Shimano compatibility chart says otherwise it doesn't shift well - you can mix and match. I confirmed this with LBS who said they'd had a lot of issues with it.
It is aimed at e-bikes or bikes where you really don't care about weight. Everything is very chunky and overbuilt. It's also very low geared. If that ticks your boxes then it is probably very good.