Hey everyone welcome!
I know we're in 2023 and everybody is just waiting for the unreleased SRAM AXS 12 speed drivetrain
but if you are like me and you plan to continue using your Eagle 12 speed or Shimano 12 speed drivetrain
you might be looking to refresh that drivetrain.
That's exactly what I'm trying to do with this,
this is a Garbaruk 12 speed cassette that I've been trying to get for ages
and in this video I'm going to take a look at this compared to SRAM Eagle 12-speed cassettes and the Shimano 12 speed
see how the construction is and more importantly whether this can be a viable alternative.
And the reason why I wanted to try the Garbaruk is because somehow these guys from Poland
managed to outsmart both Shimano and SRAM and came up with a cassette that
not only offers that 10-52T so 520% range
but is somehow cheaper and is lighter than both XX1 or XTR from Shimano.
If you look for reviews on these cassettes you're mostly going to find reviews versus the SRAM alternative, XD driver.
The one that I have is the Shimano Micro Spline version let's see what I got!
And what I got is a cassette that's 2% better than the Shimano 12speed, the 10-51Tooth.
This is 10-52T, nickel black is the color and is a 12 speed cassette using the Shimano Micro Spline.
And they're mentioning the Micro Spline because now they also have a cassette that's compatible with the old HG driver from Shimano.
This one would be 11-52T but otherwise uses a very similar construction with what you're going to see.
Box is a bit smaller than what Shimano or SRAM would use
and on the back you're going to have a whole bunch of URLs to their website where I bought my cassette from.
Here's another layer of cardboard
and that's a little baggy...
This is the Shimano Micro Spline lock ring.
The cassette seems to be one piece, very similar to what you would find with SRAM Eagle cassettes.
That's very interesting because if you look at let's say my Shimano 12-speed installation video that by the way
has surpassed 1.2 million views thank you guys!!!
I'm going to link it up in the corner,
and if you watch that video you're gonna see that all this Shimano 12 speed cassettes
have an aluminum spider and then a whole bunch of loose cogs
that you have to line up properly before you tighten up the cassette.
So I guess learning from all that Garbaruk managed to give us one cassette, one lock ring,
very similar to what SRAM is giving us with their Eagle 12s.
With both of these cassettes using a similar construction we're talking about 11 cogs here made out of steel, this is nickel plated,
and it's been machined from one single large piece of metal.
And then you have the largest cog made out of 7075 aluminum alloy that is bolted onto the rest of the cassette.
52 tooth and MS I assume that is for Micro Spline.
As opposed to that SRAM is pretty much identical aside from the design of the largest cog which is pretty distinctive.
This is an X01 cassette, XX1 would give you more colors obviously but otherwise if you look at the machining of the teeth here
it's very similar to what Garbaruk has done, actually it's way more visible from this side.
It's very very similar, it looks like those crosses are in a different direction
but aside from that this is very very similar, I don't know what kind of patents SRAM has on it assume Garbaruk didn't infringe on any of those.
Inside the materials carved out probably to save weight
you see that big spline, the indexing for your Micro Spline freehub,
you're gonna have of this big cone that says Garbaruk on it, that's the only branding on the cassette,
and one interesting thing to notice here all the Shimano cassettes have here what's called a low spacer
it was loose on the XTR and is embedded on all the other Shimano cassettes.
Well this Garbaruk doesn't have it whatsoever, that's used on the Shimano so they don't make any noise they don't creak,
curious how this is going to work in comparison.
Garbaruk gives you just tiny little teeth here on the edge of that 10 tooth cog
and if you go to manuals there is no specific instructions on how to install this cassette maybe because it's so simple.
Obviously you're going to slide it in, then you tighten this lock ring.
If you look carefully here there's no information on the lock ring itself
so I would assume you use the same 40 Nm that are clearly specified here on an original Shimano lock ring.
So the construction of the set is very similar to SRAM, the installation of the cassette is very similar to a SRAM cassette as well with the XD driver
really wonder why Shimano is not using something similar but what about the weight of this?
This is an X01 10-50T and you can see it at 359 grams, XX1 10-52T is very similar to that so again 360 grams.
I looked at the XTR cassettes in a different video and you can see it here at 369 grams, that's for 10-51T
and in comparison my 10-52T Garbaruk for Micro Spline comes up to 347 grams.
Obviously I would have to add the lock ring, here's your 353 grams
so these guys from Poland managed to beat both SRAM and Shimano by a few grams.
But obviously none of this would matter if the cassette doesn't perform so let me put it on my bike and see how it goes!
And I'm going to dab a bit of grease right here at the end of this spline
and I'm also going to add a bit of Grease here on the teeth at the top of the spline
as usual, a tiny bit here on the threads
40 Nm and we're ready!
Given that nickel coating of the steel cogs you can see the machining very clearly on this Garbaruk cassette.
Machining is similar to SRAM, but otherwise that cassette is HYPERGLIDE+ compatible
meaning the same chain that works on these Shimano cassettes should work on that one just fine
and give us that smooth shifting that Shimano 12 speed is known for.
Shifting both down and up the cassette seems to be smooth, as expected,
if anything may be a bit noisier than what I was getting with the Shimano cassette.
Once on that largest cog I know you guys are going to ask me about back pedaling
and the chain drops off of that 52T cog, it does.
Now mind you this bike has 425 millimeter chainstay which is very short,
this is a 52mm chainline so this is Boost.
My Yeti ARC has 433mm chainstays, uses a 55mm chainline
so the chainring is pushed out another 3mm and here's the Garbaruk on the same bike,
XTR chain, the 52 tooth cog and you can see how...
the chain won't drop!
So if your chainstay is in that 430 plus millimeter range you probably won't see that issue with this cassette whatsoever.
So if you're still with me after all this time I assume you like the video so don't forget to like and subscribe
it really helps me with the YouTube algorithm.
Is this cassette any good?
Well, as you could see, the only problem that I could find was with that really short chainstay
but that's probably because it doesn't have the narrow wide tooth profile that you can find on the SRAM cassettes
with all the issues that come from that.
Now the gear steps on this cassette, I haven't talked about, is very similar to both Shimano and SRAM.
It jumps from 44 to 52T as opposed to 45 to 51T on the Shimano or 42 to 52 on the SRAM.
It seems to be nicely constructed, obviously I cannot talk about the longevity of this cassette,
so all in all I think this is a very nice cassette and a good alternative both to SRAM, Shimano,
and also the e*thirteen Helix R that you see running on that Yeti ARC.
So what do you think about this guys?
Are you gonna go on their website and buy one of these?
Are you gonna get one for Shimano or SRAM? Let me know in the comments below.
Hope you found this useful, don't forget to like, subscribe, keep an eye on my channel,
and until next time, hope to see you guys on the trails.
Cheers guys, cheers!