Konichi-wa, Bitches!

Never trust an engineer to bleed your brakes.

When Shimano introduced the matte-grey, all-business M-950 XTR back in 1995, the Japanese component manufacturer single-handedly obliterated a cottage industry of CNC machinist bent on churning out cute looking but often woefully inadequate cranks, brakes, hubs and even derailleurs. The new XTR componentry was, across the board, stronger, lighter and, in many cases, better looking than the cottage-competition.

A lot has happened since then. Bikes have continued to become more sophisticated, riders have become more demanding of their products, disc brakes have become the norm, and a company named SRAM has grown to such a level of prominence that Shimano can no longer be thought of as the lone giant of bike parts. Never one to sit stagnant in a market for long, Shimano has combined some evolutionary development of its off-road flagship XTR with some new design directives and introduced the all-new XTR M-970 group as a pre-emptive challenge to anyone who might think that Shimano might be losing its edge.

What’s New? First and foremost, choices. You like Low-Normal rear derrailleurs (formerly known as Rapid-Rise)? You got ‘em. Like ‘em the old fashioned way instead? Got that too. Loved the Dual Control levers? There’s a new one. Hated ‘em? The late, great Rapidfire Plus trigger shifters are back with some impressive tweaks. How about brake rotors? Yup, got ‘em, in 140, 160, 180 and 203mm diameters. Brake calipers come in both IS and post mount configurations.

Rather than just feed us some press releases and let us wait for the parts to show up on 2007 bikes, Shimano invited a handful of us over to Japan, had us assemble the new XTR on our bikes, in whatever configuration we chose, and took us riding on the local trails for a couple days (to read more about that adventure, click here). We’ll be breaking down our impressions, part by part, on this website over the next couple days. Today, we’ll start with the wheels and cranks.

Cranks
The new 970 crank incorporates the two-piece design and outboard bearings of the most recent XTR cranks with a step back toward the castellated Octalink style spline of the old 950 crank. In the newest tweak, the left crank is torqued down into place from an oversized end bolt (unlike the pinch bolts of the 960 series cranks), and the bearing adjustment is then set via a threaded lockring. It all goes together quickly and easily, and stayed snug with no creaks or pops in its first few days of riding, but does require a special tool for the bolt and puller on the left hand crank.

The 44-32-22 chainrings shifted smoothly and chainsuck was minimal. Weight is shaved by employing a carbon-fiber/titanium composite middle ring (we don’t even want to know what the replacement cost on that puppy is). Shimano claims that the titanium teeth on the middle ring, and the double anodized finish on the outer ring, will lead to roughly double the lifespan of current XTR rings. The total weight savings over the already very light 960 crank/bb/ring setup is about 27 grams, down to 769.8 grams from 797 grams.

Wheels
The new 970 wheelset is silly light. Total weight for the wheelset is 1525 grams, down 187 grams from the old 960 version. By comparison, Mavic’s Crossmax SL’s weigh in at 1685 grams a set, and American Classic’s non-UST 350 wheelset weighs 1503 grams. That puts the new XTR hoops in the “mighty dang light” category.The wheels still use cup and cone bearings, for silky smooth performance and actual real-world bearing adjustability. The titanium freehub body now features a quick 36-point engagement. scandium rims and 7075 aluminum axles keep weight down while maintaining impressive rigidity. The new QR skewers are real purty, and work better than anyone else’s. Oh yeah, they’re UST ready, too...

On the trail, they pedal like the lightweights they are, but held more lateral rigidity than we would have expected from hoops this feathery. Not sure what the down the line lifespan will be, but we came away extremely impressed by the ride quality. Usually, light wheels tend to be flexier than is desirable for anything but smooth x-c racing. We threw these things down two successive days of truly unpleasant rocks and ledges and they came away rolling true, while we ended up being surprised by how taut they rode.

Next up? Brakes and drivetrain. Stay tuned!