SRAM GX Eagle £410
Not to be outdone by Shimano, the latest GX Eagle boasts a mega-range 10-52t cassette and a mech with a shorter cage. The chain, cassette and derailleur worked smoothly and quietly, with limited chain slap thanks to spot-on clutch tension. However, you have to set the B-tension with the bike’s suspension sitting at the sag point, making set-up tricky, plus we had to shorten the chain by two links more than SRAM’s instruction. The shifter feel was crisp with a definitive click, but not quite as sharp as XT. While the cable-pull paddle can upshift five gears with one actuation, we found that accessing the fifth required extra-long thumbs or a twist of the wrist. This paddle’s position feels a long way astern compared to Shimano shifters, which took getting used to but wasn’t a problem. The shifts themselves were impressively smooth and accurate across the range of gears, even when making the 10-tooth step between the 42t and 52t sprockets. There were no slips when changing gear under power, although shifts were sometimes noisy, especially when doing so just after the cassette’s shifting ramps rotated past the mech. The jump up from the 42t to 52t sprockets is quite large, though, requiring a marked change in pedalling cadence, which meant we found ourselves staying in the 42t cog longer than we wanted. Using a smaller 30t chainring up front helped, but a 44t or 46t second gear would improve the cassette’s usability. Overall, GX Eagle’s performance, weight and durability impressed us, and it looks good, too. While it’s a similar price and overall weight to Shimano XT, it feels more akin to SLX in terms of build quality, though, so seems pricey in comparison. www.zyrofisher.co.uk