Shimano M9100 XTR Groupset Review - First Impressions

I have been riding my new S-Works Epic HT frame since October last year. I’ve been enjoying the impressively awesome ride, but the bike has always been something of an incomplete work in progress. The 11 speed M9000 XTR / XX1 drivechain had been starting to show its age, the once bullet proof shifting no longer occurring the instant you clicked the paddle. Also I wasn’t taking full advantage of the frames 148mm "Boost" rear wheel spacing. I have been running spacers so I could use my existing rear wheel and I was in constant fear of losing one of the little red washers while fixing a puncture out in the wild, or of one rolling under the floor boards of the shed during an evening maintenance session.

With the arrival of Spring and with the new race season on the horizon it was time to finish the job and fit a groupset the frame deserved. I spent a long time debating the pro’s and con’s of Shimano M9100 XTR vs SRAM XX1 Eagle. Then just as I was about to commit along came SRAM AXS! Hands-up I ordered an electronic XX1 AXS groupset! I pulled out of the purchase in the end because this summer I have some rides planned that exceed the 10 hour predicted battery life. I could purchase a spare battery, but I know from the occasions when I forget to charge my Garmin or Mobile phone, that one day I would reach for the bike to go out for a ride and realise I’d forgotten to charge the battery. It’s a new world problem I could do without.

I’ve always preferred Shimano shifters to SRAM’s thumb/thumb layout, so M9100 XTR was my preferred option. However, Shimano faced a number of problems with the roll out of the new groupset. Gone was my preferred lightweight and racey 11 speed option. The original chain quick link wasn’t compatible with the two new Absolute Black Oval Chainrings I had hanging in the shed. (No problems with the new link supplied with my groupset.) Also not all the options were available when I came to order, so I was forced to make some compromises. The 12 speed 10-45 cassette was out of stock so I had to go 10-51 with a long cage rear mech. That is 100 g of extra weight right there compared to my current set-up and I don’t feel like I need or will use the extra gear. Also Shimano introduced  yet another new I-Spec configuration with the M9100 groupset so I couldn’t mate the new shifter with my existing Shimano brakes. (In the end I bought the new brakes as well – more on that later!)

First things first though was to sort a 148mm boost rear wheel. Strada Handbuilt Wheels built my existing Light Bicycles rim onto a DT Swiss 240 rear hub. I’ve been running a Stans 3.30 rear hub for the last 8 years and there is definitely a better pick up from the DT Swiss freehub and there is the opportunity of upgrades to improve this further.  Including the center lock adaptor for the disc rotor the 800g weight is only ever so slightly heavier than my original set-up despite the extra hub width. I'd be lying if I said I could feel any noticeable stiffness or performance benefit from the wider hub. 

I enjoyed an evening bolting the new components to the bike. Everything was straight forward, although I spent as long threading the rear brake hose through the internal routing as I did building the rest of the bike! Grrr! The next morning I hit the local trails with the boys for a Sunday blast that included a lot of climbing and fast flowing singletrack decents that would test the full range of gears.

The shifting is instantaneous as to be expected from a top tier groupset like XTR. Each gear is actioned with much more of a definite ‘clunk’ at the lever than the silky ‘click’ of the previous M9000. In fact I would describe the lever feel as quite SRAM like. This is no problem and I soon got used to it. I think the double downshift however does have a much nicer feel. At the other end the chain travels seamlessly up the cassette. Coming back down the gears is noticeably smoother than older groupsets. Shimano have introduced what they call Hyperglide 2 and you can feel when quickly dropping a bunch of gears that the chain doesn’t just tumble to the smaller sprocket, but smoothly purrs its way across the gears providing a much more consistent pedal stroke. It’s very impressive.

The standout feature of the groupset for me however is the brakes! I wasn’t going to replace the brakes, but after a number of issues with my previous M9000’s I decided to invest in the new stoppers. I never found the old brakes to be very consistent. The bite point would vary every time you pulled the lever – sometimes long, sometimes short. I’d bled them dozens of times, but this characteristic had always remained. The lever pull of the M9100 is the same EVERY time you pull the lever. I cooked the pads on one descent, I could smell the burning rotors, but the lever pull never changed.

I finally have that new bike feeling the excellent S-Works frame deserved. Shifting is crisp, the bike is silent beneath me and everything gets on with its job flawlessly and without complaint. Silence is another characteristic of the DT hub with its almost inaudible freewheeling. There is also that massive extra 51 tooth emergency gear should I ever need it! Coupled with the improved handling of the S-Works frame this really is definitely the best bike I’ve ever owned. I can’t wait to get her into her natural habitat – the race track!

Review - New MT Zoom MTB handlebars. How wide?

When upgrading to Shimano M9100 XTR the brake clamps are much further inboard compared to my old M9000’s. This revealed the slightly marked surface underneath so I also decided to upgrade the handlebar.

I knew my existing 680mm bar was narrow by today's standards but the 760mm MT Zooms looked ridiculous when I unpacked them and held them up against the old bars for comparison! I'm old enough to remember cutting my bars down to 580mm on my old GT back in the ‘90s.

Old skool vs New!

I’m slim build and not particularly broad shouldered. I also don’t possess monkey like arms, so there was no obvious bike fit benefit to be gained by the extra width up front. Wide bars are definitely the current trend, but despite searching online I couldn’t find any substantiated performance advantages of going wider. The only problem I’ve ever had with my existing bar width has been bashing my hands on trees during races or when twisting through wooded singletrack. Occasions when extra width definitely would actually be a disadvantage!

In the end I spoke to some other local riders and cut them back to 720mm to start with and we’ll see where we go from there. There are very clear markings every 10mm on the outside of the bar to ensure that you cut evenly and straight!  

Despite being wider the impressive 131g weight (once cut to 720mm) was still lighter than the bars I took off. I opted for the 9 degree backsweep option as I like the added comfort this provides by slightly angling the wrists.   

The extra width was noticeable and felt slightly odd when I first set-off. Having my arms wider definitely pulled my body weight forward, which is probably not a bad thing, when it comes to weighting the front wheel in corners. If it does prove to be a comfort issue longer term I might consider a shorter stem. The new position did feel uncomfortable on my hands while I got used to it, but once off road I completely forgot about the bars as I moved my body position around to manoeuvre the bike. By the end of the ride I felt completely at home with my new set-up and despite the extra width I hadn’t ridden into every tree I passed. To me the handling of the bike wasn’t noticeably different.

Actually one advantage of wider bars I did notice only became apparent on the 5 mile road bash back to my house from the trails. There is more room for your hands to hold the center section of the bars next to the stem to adopt an aero tuck!

In summary the MT Zoom bars are extremely good value for the money (£99 – xcracer.com) They are very lightweight compared to the majority of the similarly priced competition. The matt black finish and stealth logos suit my frame and they are fashionably wide if you want to follow the trend.

2019 Southern XC Regional Championships

I’m not sure if a 6 mile family trailer bike ride is perfect preparation for a race in the afternoon. However, it was a beautiful morning and I didn’t have to leave home until after midday given the afternoon start time for the Veterans races nowadays!

Crow Hill was the scene once again for the Southern Regional MTB XC Championships. Although I drove through a couple of rain showers during my drive to the New Forest, the sun was shining when I arrived and the course was dry and extremely dusty on my exploratory warm-up lap.

There was a very large field of close to 50 Veterans at the start. Unfortunately I was gridded near the back after skipping the previous race and a DNF at the first round of the series. Through the sea of helmets I could barely see Marc Chamberlain and Paul Hopkins at the front!

At the starters whistle we screamed off around the starting loop. The start of a XC race never fails to astonish me! Even at the back the sheer brutal shock of the flat out sprint from a cold start had my legs and heart screaming for mercy! Initially I barely held my own, but then I began to fight and made up a few positions. After all the frantic sprinting 50 riders eventually had to funnel single file into the wood, almost coming to halt and then cruising through the first section of singletrack as things settled down!

Having narrowly beaten me in my most recent races sticking close to Stefano, riding for Beyond Bikes was my target. He was a couple of riders ahead in the line as we swept through the trees. As he picked off one or two places I fought to keep pace, but always a position or two behind. Then suddenly in the loose dust he lost his front wheel and was down in a shower of dirt. I squeezed past, but he was quickly up and hot on my heels.

I like the Crow Hill course, mainly because it has some decent elevation gain which plays to my strength. This year however, the route was run in reverse to previous years. This meant that the climbs were tight rooty and technical and not the usual wide open trails. So passing on them required going off line and having to squeeze through between the trees.

During the first lap the pace was relentless, but you couldn’t give an inch or the riders behind would pounce. There was a long fireroad section ¾ of the way around the lap and I tucked in to get a slipstream, trying to take the pressure of the pedals slightly and reduce the lactic in my legs.

I relaxed too much and Stefano coasted past me just as we re-entered the singletrack. I sucked onto his wheel and on the final climb to the line re-passed him again. We were both still slowly but steadily making up positions and working ourselves forward in the race. Back into the singletrack and Stef was through on the inside and I was chasing again, drifting through the loose corners and bouncing over the roots.

Half way around the lap we caught a long line of 6 riders.  It was like a convoy on a busy country A road. Slowing us down but still moving fast enough to make passing difficult. As we hit one of the narrow inclines I tried to sneak up the inside. The roots bounced me wide and into the path of Stefano, I apologised and conceded the position again as he had the momentum. Gathering myself I surged a second time up the left passing Stef and the rider ahead, but was then trapped on the outside of the next corner and with no way back into the queue had relinquish both positions.

I was frustrated and had to coast behind Stefano at the back of the crocodile for a few more bends before I could try again. This time I was in the long grass sprinting up alongside the queue of riders. My unorthodox line meant I was squeezed up against the fence. The rider in front didn’t know I was there and cut across, to avoid taking us both out I had to brake and swerve violently across the track. As I swung across the path I collected the rider next to me, our bars interlocked we rubbed shoulders both trying to shake ourselves free and maintain position.

Separated at last I chased the rest of the pack and through the next section of fast sweeping corners finally fought my way to the front of the line. This however, was only half the job, now I had to try and break clear. For the next lap I tried to create distance between myself and those behind, but every time I teased out any sort of advantage one of those behind would close it down and drag all the others with him. We continued like this for some time, until I began to fatigue from my efforts and let some riders through so I could shelter behind them in the group and try to recover.

We continued to swap positions as sections of the course played into each other strengths. Some would surge through the sweeping bends or make up ground on the descents, I’d pull back time on the climbs. Each of us fighting to hold our ground. Eventually by natural selection we began to shell riders out the back of the group one by one. Stef was still behind me, but as we started the penultimate lap he attacked and surged through. It was an intentional concerted effort to make the split and I couldn’t go with him.

I chased and chased but the gap hovered at 10-15 seconds. I was tantalizingly close but unable to bridge back to his wheel. It was now that the rain arrived. Under the trees it initially remained dry, but the open sections became treacherous and the dusty surface became a paste. I glided wide with little control through corners we’d been railing flat out a lap earlier. Riders were constantly having to test and reassess the levels of grip under their tyres at every corner or wet root. I admit that conditions like this do not play into my hands.

As we began the final lap Stef was creeping away, but there was nobody behind me now. With little to loose I put in some big efforts on the first couple of climbs and got Stef back into striking distance. Into the next descent, I threw caution to the wind, chucking the bike through the corners, when suddenly the front wheel washed out from under me and BANG! I was down in the slippery mud.

In such situations you don’t think about the pain, you just leap back on the bike and go, go, go! All you can think about is not losing time. Cursing myself I bashed the brake levers into position, amazingly everything else seemed to be pointing in the right direction!

There wasn’t enough time to close the gap to Stefano now, but still I chased, in case he made a mistake similar to my own. The nerves began to jangle slightly because I could now hear and see the rider behind. When I glanced back he was out of the saddle and in full pursuit! He closed on me towards the end, but I had enough time in hand, finishing 23^rd, 30 seconds down on Stefano.

As I chatted to Stef after the race I became vaguely aware of the pain in my knee. By the time I went to bed I could only lay comfortably on one side! The final lap accident had been quite hard.

It had been a truly awesome race. One of my most enjoyable in recent memory. It had been close with battles from start to finish. The weather had mixed it up, the changing conditions definitely spicing up the final couple of laps as things went from fast to treacherous. 23^rd is about par for me at the Southern Champs over the past 6 or 7 years. I consider myself a pretty competent rider, so that I can race as hard as I did and still finish 15 minutes down on the winner just shows the level of those guys at the front. I must take heart that I was mid pack in a large and very experienced and skilled Veterans field with some good riders behind me. I was around 1 minute from the top 20 which was my goal before the race. Most of all though, it was damn good fun!!

The future of XC racing in the UK?

I do worry about the future of our sport.

Yesterday while I jostled with fifty eager over 40's on the grid of the Veterans race, they called up the riders for the under 18 youth category. Only TWO lads came forward! At the Regional Championship!!

The trouble is where is the motivation for those two to stick around? I enjoyed one of my best days racing yesterday. Not because of the result, but just the sheer pleasure of racing. The adrenalin fueled enjoyment of shoulder to shoulder competition with those around me, plus the chance to share experiences of race with those same opponents afterwards.