After 1.750 km (since last September) of slow shifting with the LinkGlide technology today I just did the next best thing for my Canyon Endurace AllRoad (since the wheel set upgrade): I upgraded to the 2×11 drivetrain with the new Cues RD-U6040 and Tigra CD-R400 11-36T cassette. And wow! What an immense difference it made with this bike.
Well, long story short: this is my first dropbar bike bought after a few months "affair" with a hybrid bike that made me to leave my full suspension MTB. Not knowing if I'll like it (the dropbar) or not, I said last year that this new bike is a great deal to enter into the world of road cycling. And I was right…until I also discovered the few downsides of the AllRoad. From day one shifting was not great and my local bike shop adjust the derailleursas good as possible, but it was still kinda noisy but moreover slow in shifting (especially from bigger to smaller gears). After around 300 km of riding the back wheel developed the infamous Shimano TC-500 back hub play and I was more concerned to change the wheel set. The DT Swiss E1800 30mm deep is a cheap option (and not light at 1890 grams) but made the handling sharper and more responsive compared to the stock wheels.
In the past few months I improved my road riding abilities quite a bit and that slow shifting started to annoy me a lot. About a month and a half ago Shimano announced a new release in the Cues rear derailleurs family with the 2×11 speed RD-U6040, derived from the 105 R7100 (same as the new 2×11 Tiagra). The best part? The upgrade from 2×10 RD-U6020-10 requirs only the CS-R400 11-36T 11 speed cassette (again, from the new Tiagra series). Everything else will work, even the Cues U6030 STI (you only need to remove a small clip that blocks the 11th speed). How cool is that?
Last Monday the new Cues RD-U6040 became available at bike-discount.de (the cassette was already available for a few weeks) so I order the parts (plus a new 11 speed CN-HG701 chain – I really wanted to get rid of any trace of LinkGlide parts). The derailleur and cassette were 60 euro each, plus another 25 euro for the chain and 5 euro for the shipping fee (so a round 150 euro total). Yesterday I received the parts and swapped everything in a few hours. And well, it was really worth it. The Hyperglide/HG technology feels fast and responsive and is less noisy. The derailleur setup and adjustment took only around 10 minutes and was really easy. Even the cable routing is ok for the new Cues derailleur, but I must admit is quite on the short side (probably would work better with the outer Shimano OT RS-900 cable as is very flexible).
Today I rode the first 30 km with the new setup and it feels like a different bike. The shifting is quick and effortless compared to the 2×10 Linkglide Cues and there are no "clunky" noises when changing gears. The new cassette has smaller gaps between gears so is easier to keep an even cadence. The 36T lowest gear is quite close to the original 39T, but I hope I'll manage those steep climbs.
by Outside-Call-2629