TIL Shimano made a 10 speed MTB groupset before the 11 speed stuff took over

Was digging through an old forum archive from 2009 and found out the Shimano Dyna-Sys was actually a 10 speed system on mountain bikes way before everyone moved to 11. Has anyone else run into weird old groupsets that didn't make it big?

3 comments

3 Comments

fiona_carr2613d ago

Hold up a sec, shout out to the info but I gotta gently correct you on one part. Dyna-Sys was actually Shimano's 10 speed for mountain bikes but it came out around 2010, not exactly 2009. I remember because I was saving up for a new bike and got a 2011 model with the 10 speed Deore group on it. The system was a bit of a game changer at the time because it had that big range cassette with a 36 tooth big cog in the back. But the weird thing is that a lot of people didn't realize it was a whole new shift ratio compared to older stuff, so you couldn't just mix and match parts. And yeah there were definitely some oddball groupsets before the 11 speed stuff took over like the old 9 speed Saint stuff or even the 8 speed XTR that had that funky rapid rise shifting that people either loved or hated.

charles83613d ago

I remember when I first saw that 36 tooth cog on a cassette. I was working at a bike co-op back then, volunteer stuff. A guy brought in a new bike with it and I was like, "What in the world is that giant gear back there?" We spent like an hour trying to figure out why his old shifter wouldn't work with it. Ended up just telling him to go back to the shop he bought it from.

nina_hall4813d ago

Oh man, that rapid rise shifting was wild! I read somewhere that Shimano actually called it "low normal" because the spring pulled the chain onto the big cogs by default, which was totally backwards from what everyone was used to. @fiona_carr26 I remember seeing a mechanic at my local shop absolutely losing his mind trying to set one up on a customer's bike, said the cable tension had to be perfect or it'd skip like crazy. And you're totally right about the Dyna-Sys timing, I think the first official release was actually at Interbike in late 2009 for the 2010 model year, but it rolled out on actual production bikes mostly in 2010.