Originally Posted by
v8powerage
I've been always buying this cassette because it's very solid and lasts long but this year I can't find it anywhere and on some websites it says that it's been discontinued, anybody has got information is that really so? I think this is really terrible because it means only very poor quality 7 speed cassettes will be available, this was the only one that was well made, I guess they decided that people on 7 speeds don't ride much and will be satisfied with models that last 2 months.
Yep, I started noticing the supply drying up about a year ago. I had standardized most of our bikes on 7-speed and thankfully bought a few spares when HG50s were $22 or so.
Shimano will probably keep making the wide-range HG41/HG200 variants, but they probably didn't see enough profit from the Japanese ones to bother anymore. If you see any in the gearing you like for less than $35 or so, now's the time to snap up a few!