XTR M900 vs XT M739

[mkaavin]

Chainset: M900! M737 are not nearly as good (compact drive and too weak). In fact M900's are among the best cranks ever made!

You're actually trumpeting it being ATB drive as a reason for it being better?

If you are referring to me not liking compact drive.....so yes, I am.

42-11 was never enough for me. 44 made it a little better but my favorite was 46/48-11. I always used the XT cassette. The M900 cassette had flaws (I was told, never used one myself) and had 12 teeth.

Where do you ride? I've never felt a need for 42-11 offroad...

I guess 97% of my riding was and still is on gravel and asphalt. Gravel is by my definition, off road. As for people who mostly ride on technical trails, I can understand that compactdrive can be of use but is the ground clearance really that much of a challenge?

 

[cce]

Chainset: M900! M737 are not nearly as good (compact drive and too weak). In fact M900's are among the best cranks ever made!

You're actually trumpeting it being ATB drive as a reason for it being better?

If you are referring to me not liking compact drive.....so yes, I am.

42-11 was never enough for me. 44 made it a little better but my favorite was 46/48-11. I always used the XT cassette. The M900 cassette had flaws (I was told, never used one myself) and had 12 teeth.

Where do you ride? I've never felt a need for 42-11 offroad...

I guess 97% of my riding was and still is on gravel and asphalt. Gravel is by my definition, off road. As for people who mostly ride on technical trails, I can understand that compactdrive can be of use but is the ground clearance really that much of a challenge?

that explains a lot. You simply dont need ratios that high on more technical offroad stuff. i'd say the majority of my offroad riding is done between 32:14 and 32:26

 

[mkaavin]

Chainset: M900! M737 are not nearly as good (compact drive and too weak). In fact M900's are among the best cranks ever made!

You're actually trumpeting it being ATB drive as a reason for it being better?

If you are referring to me not liking compact drive.....so yes, I am.

42-11 was never enough for me. 44 made it a little better but my favorite was 46/48-11. I always used the XT cassette. The M900 cassette had flaws (I was told, never used one myself) and had 12 teeth.

Where do you ride? I've never felt a need for 42-11 offroad...

I guess 97% of my riding was and still is on gravel and asphalt. Gravel is by my definition, off road. As for people who mostly ride on technical trails, I can understand that compactdrive can be of use but is the ground clearance really that much of a challenge?

that explains a lot. You simply dont need ratios that high on more technical offroad stuff. i'd say the majority of my offroad riding is done between 32:14 and 32:26

Yes, you probably have different needs than I have.

But this discussion started with the M737 vs the M900 cranks and even though I mentioned compact drive as a con, that is not my major concern regarding the M737 cranks. The biggest problem with them is their weakness. This can also be related to me being a fairly large rider (6f 2in) but the M900 feel so much stronger and the metal in 737's are so weak that the square taper got rounded after a while.

I worked as a bike mechanic back in those days and had several customers with the same problem with these cranks. This may of course be a problem with early batches but I never trusted those cranks after that.

 

[MikeD]

Wanna sell?

Looks like it

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... 18#1453718

They're laser-engraved with 2006, but if you ignore that they're exactly the same as the ones that came out around the turn of the century.

(I don't think silver SD Ultimate Vs exist -- the earlier silver Ultimate was for cantis. Could be wrong, though.)

 

[ibbz]

Are these ultimate V brake levers?
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/130831090949? ... 1423.l2649

 

[MikeD]

Edit: No.

 

[ibbz]

sorry, the Link I forgot to post, but just have done

 

[ibbz]

I do like the Black ones, gorgeous, but I think I would rather have Silver to go with my RSP - though I'm tempted to wait if these are around in a couple of weeks, and to snap them up then to replace the SD 7 on my Dynatech.
Or,, the more I look at them the more I think they'll look great on my RSP too!
Ah! I don't know..

 

[MikeD]

Like I say, I'm not at all sure that silver ones for V brakes exist. The previous version for cantilevers came in silver:


1996 Avid SD Ultimate brake levers by SoulRider.222, on Flickr

but I don't think the V ones did. I've certainly never seen any, or even any pictures.

 

[elPedro666]

Compact drive is lighter, has better clearance, better choice of ratios and more readily available rings in my experience. 32/11 will spin up to 30mph, so unless you're regularly banging in the road miles (as it seems Marc was) I really can't see any point beyond period correctness, which of course doesn't apply here. And you can get 50t rings if you ever take it to the Kamikaze!

Also, aren't m739 4-arm? :?

Glad the shifters were useful!

Can't really see the advantage of spending daft money on those brakes, some normal Arch Rivals will be very close in performance and save you a fortune. But of course if you just like them I'm in no position to throw stones, over here in my glass house! Do think you'd get more benefit spending elsewhere though...