Shimano CASSETTE HG400 9 speed 11-32

Product Information

However, as groupset manufacturers have jumped onto the gravel bandwagon, there are now gravel-specific gearing options available on the market. Where an 11-28 would have been considered an ‘easy’ training cassette a few short years ago, the smallest cassette available for a Shimano Dura-Ace R9200 is an 11-28. That might not sound like much but, when you consider pro riders would typically ride on 11-23 or 11-25 cassettes, it’s a sizeable difference. If you are specifically using a Shimano HG freehub, you need to consider how wide the cassette you are buying is. Road wheels have slightly wider freehubs than MTB ones – by 1.85mm – and 11-speed Shimano HG road cassettes are slightly wider than 8- or 9-speed ones, again by 1.85mm. On the mountain bike side, Shimano uses its Microspline freehub standard for its 12-speed Deore, SLX, XT and XTR groupsets.

The most common system is the Shimano 11-speed HG-style freehub, which has 9 splines. Most Shimano groupsets up to the 11-speed era used this style of freehub. SRAM groupsets prior to the current generation of 12-speed groupsets also used the same freehub design, although there are a handful of exceptions with the larger cassette ratios on their 1×11 groupsets. There are new rear derailleurs on the market that are identifiable as being compatible because they have a ‘520% range’ graphic printed on the derailleur cage. SRAM Eagle AXS rear derailleurs are compatible with the new 10-52 cassettes. Finance is subject to application, financial circumstances and borrowing history. Performance Cycling Limited FRN: 720557 trading as Tredz are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. We are a credit broker not a lender – credit is subject to status and affordability and is provided by Mitsubishi HC Capital UK PLC. Terms & Conditions Apply.

Where an 11-28 cassette would have once been considered a large training cassette, it now sits at the lower end of the typical range for road. Simon Bromley / Immediate Media

SRAM introduced its XD freehub standard when it started rolling out cassettes with a 10-tooth smallest cog. It recently ported this design over to the road with XDR, which also allows the use of 10-tooth cogs, but is slightly wider than the road bike standard. Unless you’re running a triple crankset, it’s unlikely you’ll want to use a road bike cassette on a mountain bike. Dave Caudery / Immediate Media Although it might seem straightforward, there’s a lot of engineering that goes into a bike cassette.SRAM XDR road cassettes are 1.85mm wider than SRAM XD MTB cassettes. With a spacer, you can run an XD cassette on a road wheel with an XDR body, but you can’t use an XDR cassette on an XD freehub. Mountain bike versus road cassettes If you are still using a triple crankset, you may have sufficient overall range with a road cassette, but this is a fairly specialist application these days. This saves weight and, since it isn’t subject to wear from the chain, the carrier is often made of a lighter material – carbon fibre in the case of Dura-Ace cassettes Shimano’s HG freehub design was the most common option for many years. Felix Smith / Immediate Media Gravel bikes are best viewed as a crossover between a road and mountain bike. As such, it’s normal to see them specced with either a road or mountain bike cassette.

If you wanted to use an 11-34 cassette, as well as buying the relevant cassette, you would need to buy a compatible rear derailleur. In this example, it would be an Ultegra R8050-GS or 105 R7000-GS rear derailleur. The GS denotes that these are ‘medium cage’ derailleurs. The same rule applies to Shimano Di2 derailleurs. Now that 12-speed road bike groupsets exist, cassettes can have a larger range and the jumps between each gear can be relatively small. The cage of a rear derailleur is designed for a certain range of gears. For example, Shimano’s outgoing Dura-Ace R9100-SS rear derailleur is designed for use up to an 11-30 cassette. For example, SRAM boasts a 520 per cent range with its 10-52t cassettes. How has SRAM arrived at this figure, and how do you work out your gear range percentage? Shimano, for example, uses a system it calls Hyperglide, which is engineered to provide smooth shifting. Its latest cassettes have a newer system called Hyperglide+, which Shimano says reduces shifting time by up to a third relative to Hyperglide, and improves shifting performance under power, up and down the cassette.SRAM also offers just two cassette sizes in its Eagle lineup – 10-50 and 10-52. The 10-52 is the widest-range cassette made by either manufacturer. Although there are currently two options, it’s likely the 10-50 will be phased out in time because it has been superseded by the 10-52. SRAM eTap AXS rear derailleurs can take up to a 33t for road, and this is denoted by the ‘Max 33t’ written on the inside of the derailleur cage. There is also a ‘Max 36t’ option to pair with the 10-36 cassette, as well as an XPLR rear derailleur, which can take up to a 44t. For mountain bikes, 12-speed cassettes are largely the default for higher-spec groupsets, paired with a single-ring chainset. You will need a long-cage derailleur if you want to use an 11-34t cassette on a road bike. Simon Bromley / Immediate Media