The last generation 11 speed groupsets were never firm favourites here at Evo as we just felt the shifting was really stiff (unless it had brand new top end Shimano cables or polished Jagwire inners). Any wear or dirt and the shift just felt vague and stiff whereas the 12 speed Sram Eagle systems worked lovely so we were recommending Eagle to everyone who asked.
We had high hopes for the new generation 12 speed Shimano as we know Shimano are really good quality with excellent durability and reliability but we didn't want to sacrifice performance or get sore thumbs.
I built up the First XT M8100 12 speed on an Ibis Ripley and immediately found it a massive improvement. Shifting is back to smooth, light but with a positive click. The chain glides across the rings and it all has a lovely finish.
Shimano have changed the I-Spec mount (yet again) but the new brake lever is neat so we can live with that.
So it's all great and you should rush out and buy it immediately, right? Well there is one fly in the ointment. The new 12 speed cassettes use a new freehub body design Shimano call Microspline which is compeltely different to the old established HG or evens Sram's XD design. It is a really nice design and they needed to change to fit a 10t sprocket I guess but the porblem is they didn't release the license to many hub manufacturers so at the moment choice is very limited to Shimano, DT Swiss, Industry Nine and Onyx Racing whcih are all premium options.
Because of this we offer a traditional HG fitment 12 speed 11-50T SunRace cassette if you don't or can't get a microspline freehub body. The sunrace cassettes are a lovely bit of kit and on the last generation 11 speed Shimano actually vastly improved the shifting performance over the Shimano offering!
On the wheel and hub front Hope will have availability early 2020 so we will be able to offer that (you can backorder them now if you like) but what we are offering right now is custom hand built wheelsets on Shimano hubs onto DT Swiss, RaceFace or Stans rims from as little as £274.70, all hand-built in store by our DT Swiss certified master wheel builder.
