cyccommute 

You do realize that we have been here before, don’t you? Shimano had an entire line that was cross compatible from 6 speed to 9 speed (with a few rare exceptions). I have bicycles that are running 9 speed mountain rear derailers with 9 speed…and even 10 speed…road shifters. I never went to road derailers with mountain shifters but it would not have been impossible.

Then Shimano decided to screw us by introducing a new drivetrain line that was incompatible. They will do it again, just watch.

boozergut

I was happy with a good set of friction shifters with levers on the downtube :-)

mstateglfr 

Yeah, I agree that Microshift will likely continue to make the Shimano compatible components for the indefinite future. Its probably super easy at this point since they arent innovating anything, so its low cost too.

I listed to a podcast a couple years ago with the head of Microshift Sales for North America- it was a really cool interview that I think was part of Nerd Alert, though not sure. Anyways, he addressed the external routed shift cables and said that they cant get around design infringement that would either violate Shimano or SRAM, so they routed the cables externally. I would be curious to know how they got around the obstacles with their 10sp and 11sp groups that route under the tape, but regardless- apparently design limitations wont allow them to route under bar tape for all the 7-10sp Shimano Legacy style shifting.
He talked extensively about Microshift's own product- Advent. Advent and Advent X have made their way to a lot of budget MTB builds and the drop bar Advent X is OEM on even Cannondale Topstone. It is its own system, so it isnt Shimano compatible. I could definitely see them continuing this route- budget, quality, in-house design.

mstateglfr 

Yes, for over a quarter century it was almost entirely interchangable. God forbid a company change. Its been nearly a decade- move on.

Atlas95

If this ever comes true I will be very sad. I thoroughly enjoy the "clunky" feel of (even very smooth) mechanical shifting :[

Nyah

This eliminates the durability benefit of the <11spd setups. Yet, Shimano is planning to offer 9spd and 10spd versions of it. Who do they think will be interested in that?

Maelochs

Like Cyccommute, I remember the days when any Shimano shifter paired with any derailleur. Good stuff for amateur bike assemblers, because the range of options was so wide.

However, when it became clear that there were better designs available, and at a time when except for the rare low-dollar garage mechanic, people weren't widely mixing systems, so that Shimano had divided strongly into Road and MTB components ... well I don't know why cable-pull rations had to change, but again it was only as Issue to a very, very few people.

Will Shimano change the new system (which once again integrates all of its drive train options)? Most likely, After some number of years, metal gears might become passe, as CF or 3d-printed parts take over the market. Who knows? Who knows what new tech will be developed in the next decade or two which might radically change or just offer significant upgrades to existing drive train options?

A quick web search indicates that Dura Ace was introduced in 1973 and Ultegra in 1987, So ... thirty and fifty years ago. And we are complaining because Shimano is moving on? (Maybe some of us should too?)

And sure, all those systems were updated many times down through the years ... and we all survived. This is just another update.

Chill out, folks. The world is ending, but not because or brifters and cogs.

icemilkcoffee 

The new 9 and 10 speed will have the same cog spacing as the 11 speed. So they will use the same cassette (minus 1 or 2 cogs), same chain and same crankset as 11 speed, only the shifter has 1 or 2 fewer clicks.
Basically the durability problems and expensive chains of 11 speed without the benefit(?) of added gearing.

icemilkcoffee 

Some more news from Shimano:
https://bikerumor.com/new-shimano-hu...ar-affordable/
For the Cues groupsets, Shimano is moving away from cup-and-cone bearings and going to cartridge. Unlike other diehards here though- I have never been a big fan of cup and cone- because your bearing adjustment is ruined the moment you clamp the QR on. Anyways, even Shimano is beginning to see the light and move away from cup and cone. The most interesting design is the QC400. It retains the original Shimano stroke of genius- the outboard bearing location for the DS bearings, and the versatility of the threaded rod axle, while using cartridge bearings. Best of all worlds. Most other cartridge bearing designs currently on the market move the DS bearing inboard, and get away with that with a larger diameter fixed axle which doesn't have the versatility of a threaded axle.

All hope is not lost for the cup-and-cone die-hards though. The lowest end QC300 retains the traditional cup-and-cone. Another encouraging bit of news is that the 7 speed short freehub body continues to live on!!!! So in theory you can still get a brand new 7 speed hub for your 126mm frame

HTupolev

I'm not sure that I've found Shimano's narrower higher-speed stuff to have any real durability issues compared with their wider stuff.

However, there's always been an implication that the durability and function of the narrower stuff leveraged designs that relied on pricier manufacturing. If they've managed to get around that, and everything is going to use the same spacing and pull ratios, it's not obvious why you'd keep <11-speed groups at all. It's not like a few clicks on a ratchet and a couple of cogs on a consumable item represent a big manufacturing cost difference. I suppose lower-speed groups could get away with a narrower freehub body and wider hub flanges, but introducing a whole bunch of hub standards would seem to violate the whole premise of this thing as well.
Which suggests that either the lower-tier stuff will compromise on functional behavior or durability (not very Shimano-like), or is being artificially restricted to lower cog counts purely for tier differentiation (conceptually annoying).

Also, are they seriously calling this "CUES"?

curbtender

I watch a lot of new riders struggle shifting out of one gear. If they are going to make 11 the standard then it might as well be the 11 tooth cog, lol. I'm not sure why they even make a multi speed electric bike. Guess this means the vintage crowd needs to horde some more parts.

freetors

Honestly I think this will be good. I can't even imagine the sheer number of SKUs on of all the components that cover at least a dozen different groupsets across road and MTB. At the end of the day I think a more focused product line will help keep prices lower and interchangeability high. Most of shimano's components have pretty trivial differences between groupsets anyway. In a perfect world, I don't really see the need to have more than four groupsets per product line.

icemilkcoffee 

You have to remember how Shimano got to this place to begin with. They didn't just wake up one day and decided to make groupsets in 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 speeds simultaneously. The 7 speed groupsets started when Shimano introduced the 7 speed Dura Ace with freehub/cassette and SIS indexed shifting. This was the groupset that propelled Shimano past Campagnolo and Suntour. With time they started making 7 speed groupsets in their lower ranked 600 and then 105 range. And so on and so forth, until today, when 7 speed still survives in the very humble Tourney groupset. It seems pathetic today, but it is the direct spiritual descendent of the world beating Dura Ace 7 speed groupset of yore. Likewise 8 speed got its start when Shimano managed to get the bike makers to widen their frames to 130mm to accommodate 8 cogs in the back. This was combined with the revolutionary Dura Ace brifters. Another blockbuster for Shimano. This time Shimano swept the pro tours leaving all doubters behind. With time the 8 speeds and brifters filtered down to 600, then 105, etc groupsets. Until now when it lives on in the modern Sora groupset. Again- a humble groupset that traces its lineage back to the old master Dura Ace of 1990. So all these lower groupsets are just continuation of older technology, when the upper groupsets goes on to chase the latest and greatest technologies.

speyfitter

Any idea when we will realistically see CUES components on sale ?

veganbikes

Already been here with Acros and still around with Rotor. It is different from a brake system as it is completely sealed so you should never need to bleed and it eliminates all the issues one could have with tight cable bends. Rotor designed it with the help of Magura who know's hydraulics pretty well and from what I hear it is good stuff.



In terms of CUES good for Shimano, make more affordable but higher quality parts. Some of that low end stuff is bad to pretty bad so improving it would be excellent. If I had a vintage bike I would either stick with my vintage components or modernize just putting lower end components on it just isn't my jam. My XT-M737 rear derailleur is pretty bombproof and it can work with 9 speed stuff and plenty of that available used as needed or just go friction and all good. Plenty of decent modern friction stuff and again plenty of used stuff or NOS as well.

It will take a long time for Shimano to get rid of all their cheaper stuff so it will be around a while but CUES I think is an excellent step forward. It is sort of like Advent is for Microshift and I mean that in a good way. Plus I do think it actually looks pretty good I happened to be on Shimano B2B looking up some stuff and saw a couple cranks and thought wow that actually looks good. Budget stuff doesn't need to look like crap anymore and hopefully if performance is what they are talking then it doesn't need to work like crap either and maybe we can get back to some decent quality long lasting bikes under $1k and that would be excellent.

In terms of when we will see it probably next year. Shimano is screwy right now due to a lot of pandemic related closures and being one of the largest OEM groupset manufacturers. SRAM did really well where Shimano faltered on production.

Racing Dan

Is this confirmed by shimano or is it simply bikeradar making assumptions or conflating pull ratio with cog spacing. Off the cuff Id say its likely not true. Im betting there will be a new unified pullratio for all 9-10-11s speed groups, just like tiagra 4700 adopted 11s road pull ratio, - but cog spacing will stay the same as ever.

Maelochs

I read that as Shimano will use a different pull ratio then the old groups used .... while most of the lower groups had been upgraded (int eh latest variant) to 11-speed ratios, as I recall, Tiagra was still out on its own, and older versions of lower groups might have been too. Also, MTB stuff had a different ratio. As I read it Shimano will use a single new ration for all groups of the CUES line ... at once making CUES non-retrofittable, and making it much easier to mix. match and upgrade withing CUES.

Racing Dan

If CUES was to adopt current 11s road pull ratio, then CUES, tiagra 4700, both 11s 105, both 11s ultegra and all GRX would all share the same pull ratio. Seems like a smart move, but who knows. - I still cant imagine shimano would break compatibility between 9s and 10s CUES cassettes and current 9s and 10s cassettes, by altering cog spacing, as suggested in the OP.

tcs

Pity the LBS with a showroom full of bikes 'with the old stuff' and the spring sales season moments away.

tcs

Shimano component 5- and 6-speed freewheel drivetrains are alive and well worldwide, and if you're in NA, available for viewing at your local big box store.

tcs

Fun fact: the Kindernay 14-speed gear hub has hydraulic shifting.

tcs

...covered up with patent protection.

cyccommute 

If by “it’s been nearly a decade” since Shimano caused this incompatibility problem, I fully agree. But since Shimano caused the problem in the first place, what makes you think that they will stay the course for the next 5 to 9 years, much less a 25?

seypat

Same, but barcons instead.

seypat

Where there's a will and possibly a way, people will figure it out. The only Shimano components on this one are the hubs and RD. Despite having the triple/LC RD/big cassette, special attention was paid to the weight of the drivetrain. Shimano fell short to other components in the cost/weight department for what was required.