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TECH NEWS
shimano xtr 121Could Shimano Dura Ace 12-speed be coming soon to a bike near you?
If you have any interest in mountain biking, you’ll know that Shimano recently launched the latest version of its flagship XTR groupset. The headline news was the jump to 12 sprockets, providing a whopping 510% range when used with the new 10-51t cassette and marginally besting SRAM’s Eagle 1x12 groupset.
That leads to obvious speculation that Shimano’s road bike groupsets could be set to follow suit and gain an extra sprocket. How likely is this to happen? We've no idea, but we've asked Shimano...
- Campagnolo first to launch 12-speed road groupsets
Our reason for wondering if Shimano Dura-Ace could go to 12-speed is because road bikes have been borrowing an increasing amount of tech from the mountain bike world in recent years. Disc brakes, single ring drivetrains, disc brakes, thru-axles and wide tyres are just a few of the things that have been adopted by the road bike market.
That and Campagnolo recently launched a 12-speed version of its top-end Super Record groupset. So we could say it’s highly likely, but probably don’t hold your breath because it could be a while.
Can you fit a new 12-speed cassette to an existing cassette? Campagnolo does with its new Super Record 12-speed groupset. But with its new XTR groupset Shimano has focused on the needs of mountain bikers and that means wide range is key, and pivotal to 1x groupsets is the use of a tiny 10t sprocket. Such a small sprocket won't fit an existing freehub, it's simply too small.
So Shimano, like SRAM, has developed a brand new freehub. Shimano was never going to license SRAM’s XD freehub, so it developed its own. It’s called Micro Spline and is the first update since Shimano introduced its familiar Hyperglide (HG) freehub body some 30 years ago (the only change has been a 1.85mm width increase to accommodate the 11th sprocket when it was added a few years ago).
It’s also made from aluminium, a first for Shimano, and features 23 rectangular shaped splines (compared to 13 on HG), a design apparently inspired by its Centre-Lock disc brake rotor interface.
This new design allows Shimano to fit a cassette with a 10t sprocket. It’s actually attached to the next sprocket and sits outboard of the freehub body. The whole thing fits in a standard 142x12 axle. So you'll need freehub bodies and possibly new wheels, but not a new frame. Phew!
Obviously, the 10t sprocket, and the wide range cassette, in general, is aimed at 1x road bikes and would be appealing for gravel, adventure and cyclocross bikes, many of which have ditched the front mech. There’s also a few 1x-specific road bikes like the 3T Strada and Whyte Glencoe which could make used of this new setup.
- Is the front mech dead? Is there a future for the front derailleur on modern road bikes?
But there’s probably no need for a 10t sprocket on a conventional road bike set up with a double chainset, so it should be relatively easy for Shimano to develop a 12-speed version of Dura-Ace using the current freehub design.
Dura-Ace was last updated only recently and isn't due for a refresh just yet, but it can't be long, given the pace of development in the road bike market at the moment.
Do we even need 12-speed on our road bikes though? With the increasing size and range of cassettes, with 11-30 and 11-34t becoming common on bikes from Tiagra to Dura-Ace level, an extra sprocket would smooth the cadence transition between certain gears.
It’s funny that people point to the gaps on a wide range 1x cassette without acknowledging there are also jumps on these new generation road cassettes. Adding an extra sprocket could provide greater flexibility for smoothing some of those gaps between certain gears, especially at the top-end.
What do you think? Could you see Dura-Ace going 12-speed, and do you want an extra sprocket or are you happy with 11?
David worked on the road.cc tech team from 2012-2020. Previously he was editor of Bikemagic.com and before that staff writer at RCUK. He's a seasoned cyclist of all disciplines, from road to mountain biking, touring to cyclo-cross, he only wishes he had time to ride them all. He's mildly competitive, though he'll never admit it, and is a frequent road racer but is too lazy to do really well. He currently resides in the Cotswolds, and you can now find him over on his own YouTube channel David Arthur - Just Ride Bikes.
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29 comments
It hasn't been since 9 speed days have Shimano users have had off the peg opportunity to mix and match Shimano drop bar shifters with MTB deraileurs/cranks/cassettes (eg. for commuters and bicycle tourists) I STILL fondly recall using drop bar shifters with the XT rear der. and a 11-34 cassette! That with the 30, 42, 52 front Ultegra was a super versatile combo!
Ten teeth are inefficient, and quick wearing, but hey I can live with it (unlike the Capreo 9 tooth, which was just too inefficient and quick wearing). I sincerely hope Shimano has the MTB engineers meet with the road engineers to make them compatible. If Shimano continues to just treat bicyclists as primarily as 53x11 roadies and/or Red Bull MTB competitors; but only offer the CX/RX to gravel/All road/bikepacking as a transient side show, they will loose out greatly.
It would be typical of Shimano to launch something that is not backwards compatible. New wheels, hubs and frames anyone?!
Because they do? They used to be the same, until we realised that they could be better optimised for their intended use. That was what we refer to as improvement
How about we stop pretending that mountain bike derailleurs and road ones have to be different?
2 things, 1 being the most important;
1) those of you that keep coming on here trolling every article that road.cc work hard to produce, just p*ss off somewhere else. I for one love this website and dont want the people who do the site to get so cheesed off with the negative comments, that it affects the quality of things.
2) 1x 12spd for the road, but WITH the 10t sprocket, going thru 12 well chosen increments up to a 34t, would be basically lovely. That plus a ultegra rx mech (saw one other day, ace thing) and a 44t chainring would be boss. Thats my 2p worth.
See how easy it is to be positive and open to new stuff?
An extra cog on a mountain bike cassette may affect wildlife in a "butterfly's wingbeat causing a hurricane" kind of way. But I would suggest the biggest existential threat to US National Parks and the wild creatures that live therein is from the policies of the current US administration.
Oh crap. Anyone want to buy my CX bike?
The only point to 12 speed is the same as the point of 11 speed: money. It won't make you any faster, it won't improve your strava times, it won't turn you into Chris Froome, with or without salbutamo. If you couldn't win with 8, 9 or 10 gears, you aint' gonna win with 12.
Marketing crap designed to sucker in the gullible, and there are plenty of them around. Buy now, so that I can hoover up your barely used 10 and 11 speed kit, while riding my 3x7 bike and laughing all the way to the bank.
If Sunrace and SRAM can make 12x Cassettes that fit a Shimano hub so can Shimano and I expect both companies to come out with 12x road cassettes within a year of lauch like they did with Eagle.
Imagine a 12-24 cassette with only 1t difference between each sprocket...
I am. It's hell.
You mean 12-23
I believe you need to rethink your math on that one
And that means a completely different frame & wheelset/s, just what the manufacturers want so that everything becomes obsolete if you want to move up to the next gen of groupset.
this is a perfect scenario for manufacturers, build something totally different so that that forces punters to have to buy or be left behind, be left with tech that will be gradually less supported/hard to get parts for. You only need look at tyres/tubeless to see how this is going, more and more tubeless specific tyres which are crap with tubes in them, are heavier and more expensive (and fiddly) than non tubeless specific tyres. We have the same with disc specific road frames too.
It's brilliant marketing and proves that it is indeed the manufacturers are leading things not the buyer as they keep saying it is.
Get help, you always sound so desperately unhappy.
i made some pertinant points, I also gave reasons why 12 speed might be useful.
You on the other hand are totally irrelevant to the discussion and you added nothing to the debate over the subject matter, why don't you piss off elsewhere if you don't like debate.
I think this is a good idea in principle. Kludging extra sprockets on the old freehub caused the need for very narrow chains and other fiddly bits. It's unfortunate that Shimano didn't license it freely, though. It would be much better for consumers if this was standardized between manufacturers. Then people could use the same wheels with different brands of groupset.
You forgot the brief Dura Ace Hyperglide freehub body for the first 10 speed incarnation which had a different spline so only certain cassettes fitted.
IF needing to have yet another change of the freehub body to accept 12speed then I simply won't be going there. I'm still able to use early 90s hubs on my daily with 10 speed and my 2001 Mavic SSCs with 11 speed plus also filed off some meat from an FRM freehub body to accept 11 speed cassette.
Do we 'need' 12 speed, nope, there was never a 'need' for 2 speed/flip flop, it's a want, the only good reason to 'want' 12 speed is to reduce those bigger jumps when you get above a 30T sprocket.
Interestingly (or possibly not), the Campagnolo Record/Super Record 12-speed groupsets are described as “12x2 Speed” on the Campagnolo website. Might there be “12x1” groupsets on the way from Italy?
All Campag did was slot an extra sprocket in there, not actually increase the range. So an 11-28 still does that but with one less jump. Missing a trick really, most people (especially those new to the sport) will simply adapt to whatever they're using and a 2T or even 3T jump at certain points in the range won't actually matter too much.
I've got a 10sp 11-36 XT cassette on my CX bike which gets used equally on and off-road (and it's my default winter winter road bike) and even on club road rides it's incredibly rare to find I want something "between" the available gears. That's a double chainset and on-road it lives in the big ring 80% of the time (48T chainring so 48:36 low gear is exactly the same as the low gear on a standard road bike of 36T chainring and 12-27 cassette) while up at the top end 48:11 is virtually no different to a 52:12 or 53:12 that you'd get on a normal road bike.
So based on that, a 48T single chainring with 11-36 10sp is pretty much identical range to a semi-compact chainset and 12-27 (no matter if that 12-27 is 8sp or 12sp) albeit with some slightly bigger jumps at the lower end. But really, how many people have such a narrow cadence range that they require a 1T jump all the way up??
I agree wholeheartedly! The extra cog Campagnolo has squeezed in seems like an almost academic exercise - a 2 tooth ‘jump’ mid-cassette is now a 1 tooth step. As you say, people adapt to what they are using. I have a bike with SRAM Rival 1x and rarely curse the jumps in gear.
In my previous comment I was merely speculating as to why Campagnolo was referring to their new groupsets as 12x2 and not just 12 speed.
I really want to see Shimano release a 1x12 road groupset just to see how outraged all the traditional roadies will be
I don't know why Shimano hasn't already released a dedicated 1x, particularly for commuter bikes - there's plenty of bikes using Shimano 11 speed but with a (Sram or other OEM) 1x 44t chainrings, very popular with commuters and adventure bikes.
I guess I can see into the future (re: my previous comment)
In fact they already have (1x11 that is), although I've never seen a single bike with it fitted...
https://bike.shimano.com/en-EU/product/component/metrea-u5000.html
I might start stockpiling cassettes before the new freehub standard starts an apocalypse.
Like the Daily Mail.
Just posing a question as a headline.
But without Dianna
yeah i think that's literally the only other news outlet that's ever done that.
Try underlining a word for emphasis, too.
Go on then, might as well....