Spin Unobtanium Monobloc Cassette

Our first question about Spin's Unobtainium Monobloc Cassette was, is it really made from Unobtainium? Sadly no. Our second was, £250 for a cassette. What's so special about it?

Well, the main draw here is the weight. Our 10-speed 11-23 tooth test product, including the lockring, is 96g. To give that some context, a Shimano Dura-Ace 7900 cassette (£179.99) of the same size weighs in at about 163g and a SRAM Red one is about 155g. Superlight, then. To give some more context on price, list on a Campagnolo Super Record cassette is over £300 and quite a bit heavier so while the Spin cassette is a lot of money it's certainly not out of line.

This is a one-piece unit that's milled from a solid block of aluminium. Well, that's not exactly true; the smallest two sprockets are milled separately on the 11-23T cassette. The other cassette sizes are each milled from a single block.

The aluminium in question is what Spin call Spindustrial Unobtainium alloy because they have a special name for just about everything; it's actually 7075-T6, which is strong, high-quality stuff.

The amount of work involved in creating this cassette is amazing. Spin reckon it takes half an hour on the CNC machine to make one of these bad boys. We can easily believe that. Everything that possibly could be removed has been removed, so much so that you can see right through to the freehub body underneath the middle sprockets.

In use, the Spin cassette works just fine. I took off a Dura-Ace cassette to fit this one, and to be completely honest I couldn't make out any change in the function. It shifts up fine. It shifts down fine. Um, that's it. If you can discern any difference, you're more in tune with the subtleties of bike performance than I am. It does its job well and that's good enough for me.

The gold coating is titanium nitride, designed to improve the shifting and durability as well as enhance the looks. The looks thing is a matter of taste, obviously, but I likes it, me.

Speaking of durability, that's just fine too. I've been running this cassette through all sorts of bad weather and the drivetrain has been filthy half the time, but the sprockets are looking in decent nick for the amount of use. If longevity is your number one concern by all means go for steel sprockets but it's not as if this lightweight number can't handle plenty of use and abuse.

The one negative point I would make is that if you do get lots of gunk off the road into the cassette, it can be difficult to clean because of all the milled out space in there. I had to take the cassette off the freehub after a few weeks to remove the gradual build-up of waxy lube and general winter debris. That's not a major problem, but it's worth noting (and I probably won't use waxy lube with this cassette again).

This cassette is compatible with Shimano/SRAM 10-speed drivetrains and comes in 12-25T and 12-27T as well as this 11-23T model. A ceramic gunmetal silver-coated version is available £10 cheaper and Campagnolo 11-speed models are available too.

Verdict

Superlight cassette for weight obsessives looking to shave grams and add some bling