icemilkcoffee 

Bad news for all the die-hards who have hung onto the old 7-10 speed road and 7-9 speed MTB groupsets and enjoyed the interchangeability of these groupsets. Shimano is terminating all these existing 8-10 speed groupsets and replacing them with a unified 'Cues' groupset which uses 11 speed cassette and 11 speed spacing, and new pull ratios. There will also be 9 and 10 speed variants of this Cues lineup- but they will all use the same 11 speed spacing, chain and crankset- just omitting cogs from the 11speed cassette and reducing clicks in the shifters.
https://www.bikeradar.com/news/shimano-cues/
Oh well, there is still the good old Tourney 7 speed groupset- so that will be the last holdout of the righteous.

Troul 

surprised it went thus long. 11spd is the new soon to be obsolete stuff.

mstateglfr 

There are some cool things about this.
- reduced confusion about groups. The 3 A level MTB components need to just converge at this point.
- easier to swap components between drivetrains.
- possible drop bar mullet drivetrains, which SRAM has owned exclusively up to now.
- 7 years until current style is phased out.



In 7 years, who knows what the bike industry even looks like.
They haven't even actually announced how this will impact road groups.

TiHabanero

Gotta assume after the drop from production repair parts will run out in about 2 years, maybe 3. In steps Microshift or some such company to take up the slack.

wolfchild

Next thing to become obsolete will be anything that's cable actuated.

squirtdad

my crystal ball: will be wireless electronic shifting only in 5 years, as at some price point it will be cheaper for bike manufactures to put one of these on than run cable

Garthr

I'm too much into what's now considered "vintage" or "classic" frames and parts to be bothered by this news. I haven't messed with "groups" since the 80's Campagnolo. Besides, this is an opportunity for other manufacturers to fill in the gap. I've only purchased a few Shimano parts recently and won't be doing it any more. There's an huge chasm apparently between the single and 5-9 speed "that's all I need" riders and those who are a slave to whatever the latest products are. I'll keep riding and buying parts and technology from the 60's to the 90's , thank you very much ! My new custom steel road frame is for rim brakes and cantilevers, Suntour ones at that. Andel crank, Specialized FW hubs, CR18 rims, Campy post and some Zipp drop bars. The only thing Shimano may be the rear derailleur, though I have other brands of those too.

Bike magazines have always been product mouthpieces, with a few genuine articles sprinkled in between to give off the appearance of legitimacy.

Troul 

I think that will put up a bigger fight in sticking around as it is used across a much larger scale of setups. It's "which style will be dropping off 1st?" of the cable shifting configs.

shelbyfv

Those group prices are certainly attractive. $450 for what they describe as XT equivalent.

sjanzeir

An even simpler approach for the road side of things would be to make Tiagra/Deore the entry-level groupsets, drop everything below - including miserable old Tourney - and be done with it. Tiagra RDs are already capable of running 11-speed, so it's a simple matter of choosing brifters. For anyone who'd feel content with anything with fewer gears than 10, there's always L-twoo.

icemilkcoffee 

That’s basically what they are doing- unifying the road and Mtb 11 speed groupsets and doing away with the groups below.
Woah! Don’t you talk bad about my precious 7 speed Tourney. That is a lifeline and a direct link to the old freewheel hubs. Right now you can slap a brand new 7 speed Tourney freewheel onto your 80’s classic bike and shift it with brand new 7 speed Tourney brifters. Or a 6 speed Ultra freewheel onto a 70’s classic bike and shift it with the same Tourney brifters. This is why Tourney is such an important link to the past. And the Tourney derailleurs are compatible with the classic Shimano derailleurs from the beginning of SIS all the way to the 10 speed groupsets.

ARider2

On a slightly different subject the basic Tourney 7 speed freewheel has been out of stock from Shimano for almost 2 years. I have turned away or delayed chain and freewheel replacement on many bikes because of this. They are supposed to be back in stock in March. I have a back order for 40 of them since May 2021.

Gresp15C

Coming soon: Hydraulic derailleurs.

icemilkcoffee 

You can buy that Tourney freewheel all day long on Ebay. There is something very screwy with Shimano's American distribution center. There are a lot of parts that the local dealers somehow cannot get through their official channels, but anyone can buy right off Ebay and Amazon all day long.
Anyways I've had good luck with the Sunrace 7 speed freewheel.

sjanzeir

I know, but why call the newly consolidated groupsets something new? In fact, why come up with new Cues groupsets at all? Just keep the well established Tiagra and Deore subbrands and move on away from 10> speed altogether.

And I happened to do just that as recently as this December: got me a pair of Shimano M315 trigger shifters to work with the 600 FD/RSX RD that happened to be handy and that I hung on my old hybridized roadie. Everything works like a charm with the new SRAM 7-speed cassette (yes, cassette; I had already swapped the spin-on rear hub and 5-speed freewheel to a then-still-new Shimano freehub and 7-speed - in 1996!)

Thing is, would I have done this if those components weren't handy and as easy to obtain? Probably not. If I were starting from scratch with a bike that won't take any more than 7-speed, I'd probably have gone the L-twoo way and forgot that it ever happened. I would not have gone with Tourney at all.

jaxgtr

Groupsets seem pretty affordable in the big scheme of things. The top tier U8000 1x for $450. Now the question will be, how long will it take them to show up for purchase. Remember people looking for the 12 speed road stuff and could not find it for months.

Maelochs

Why due Cues? Because the older system ... actually, two systems, and in fact multiple systems within those systems, with many different cable pulls and spacing. As anyone who liked to build bikes (before parts tripled in costs) and wanted to mix and match ... what a headache. Now everything fits everything, and apparently prices might come down too.

All those old systems are a couple decades old. Shimano is making a sensible simplification. This is a smart move.

Not sure what I will do with the crazy range of cobbled-together drive trains on my fleet, but I am not worried. Microshift and Micronew and whoever else will be glad as can be because now they will own the lower-geared/older tech drive train parts. No reason for them to stop producing what they already produce, until people stop buying.

Also, this supposed to be phased in across seven years? I might not even be here to see the final roll-out. Plenty of time to freak out about progress tomorrow.

icemilkcoffee 

Microshift/Micronew are camp followers- they will follow wherever the big dog goes. If Shimano ditches 8-10 speed drivetrains, it's just a matter of time before Microshift does the same.

Maelochs

I disagree. It is all about how business works.

Microshift set itself up as an alternative to Shimano, starting with the lower-level groups, because most of the people who were shopping for Ultegra/105/or even Dura-Ace would mostly be willing to pay for the real goods .... but people building lower-end bikes, and particularly, manufacturers producing bikes using seven-and eight-speed groups, could save money knowing that people buying at that level weren't much swayed by the name and (well-earned) reputation of Shimano's higher groups.

As I recall, Microshift didn't even start making 11-speed until Shimano started planning for 12-speed.

Microshift is not trying to compete with Shimano. Microshift is trying to pick up the low-hanging *(lower-level) fruit. And since Microshift already has the tooling for the (now) old-school Shimano parts, Microshift will soon own the cheap 7-8-9 market. Shimano won't keep making its old parts---t would be stupid to undercut and compete against its own new lines, but Microshift can keep cranking out the stuff ... and people here are already wondering where they will get the old Tourney-level parts.

Microshift will eventually stop making the old stuff, sure ... but not for a long time. It has finally on the brink of totally owning a part of the drive train market .... why would it quit?

However ... whatever. Possibly I will have to totally replace some of my drive trains once they wear out, and I would rather not have to buy a complete drive train just get a cassette which is compatible ..... but i will do whatever I need to.

Russ Roth

I just wish they'd get around to finally getting rid of freewheels all together. I get them being available for repairs, but its an old and inferior design that should have been abandoned with 6sp, not still found on new bikes nearly 40 years after the design was made obsolete. Everything else I'm not worried about, I also think microshift will be expanding into the void shimano leaves and their parts are the lower end are much better than shimano's for a better price.

mstateglfr 

Microshift had 2x11 back in 2017 for sure and I believe earlier. It actually had a couple models of 2x11 at that point, and shift cables were routed under the bar tape too.

Maelochs

Thank you for the facts and the correction. I still feel the same about Microshift's plans ... and we all know feelings trump facts around here .

Pretty much .... but I don't know.

vespasianus

Not for the MTB world. Especially not when a full mechanical 11 speed group is $450.

Herzlos

It really sounds like a good move; leave the lower end stuff to Microshift and start over with a new range that's entirely cross compatible.


A LOT of folk aren't going to want a bike that needs to be recharged, even in the West. I, a cycling geek who's spent far too much on bikes and barely uses them may be able to justify wireless shifting on my nice bike, but I'd never dream of having it on my commuter or the kids bikes.

The most common bikes in the world will be the lower end utility stuff, with 6/7 speeds that anyone can repair at the side of the road with a screwdriver and hammer. Electronic anything isn't going to be maintainable in the same way, or yield any notable benefit.

PeteHski

I don't think the next generation will care either way. Pretty much everything else they use daily is electronic with batteries, so why not their bikes? The only thing they will care about is cost, so it just has to be cheap enough. I guess that depends on the cost of the motors. I know quality RC servo motors are relatively expensive, so that could be an issue at the low end of the market. But then again you can get some really cheap, crappy RC servo motors too!