Some thoughts on my experience with 2 new Shimano 12 speed shifters...
I recently bought a bike with 1x12 Deore groupset, including M6100 1x12 shifter. Using it felt great, very similar to my older bikes which had SLX 3x10 and Deore 3x9. Very low effort to push the lever into bigger/slower cogs and only slightly more to push/pull the other lever into smaller/faster cogs. A subtle, quiet, satisfying click once engaged in each gear.
Then I replaced the deore shifter and cable with an XT M8100 1x12 model. I kept the same Deore rear mech. I did not adjust or change the spring/clutch tension in the mech with either shifter.
Straight away I noticed a few things about XT vs Deore:
my $0.02
I recently bought a bike with 1x12 Deore groupset, including M6100 1x12 shifter. Using it felt great, very similar to my older bikes which had SLX 3x10 and Deore 3x9. Very low effort to push the lever into bigger/slower cogs and only slightly more to push/pull the other lever into smaller/faster cogs. A subtle, quiet, satisfying click once engaged in each gear.
Then I replaced the deore shifter and cable with an XT M8100 1x12 model. I kept the same Deore rear mech. I did not adjust or change the spring/clutch tension in the mech with either shifter.
Straight away I noticed a few things about XT vs Deore:
- It takes more effort to push both up or down levers on XT than Deore
- XT shift to bigger/slower cogs will move up to 4 cogs in one push if you want!! 😮. Deore was only 2 (or 3?)
- XT shift to a smaller/faster cog will do 1 gear if you pull with your finger but 2 gear double-shift if you push the same lever with your thumb.
- XT double-shift quickly becomes VERY addictive on rolling terrain, it's great!
- XT smaller/faster cog lever action is very harsh. it requires much more thumb pushing/finger pulling effort to initiate a gear shift, then once it reaches its mechanical shift point, the lever suddenly bangs and clunks forward with almost no further spring resistance felt. You notice it even more when double shifting as the resist/bang/clunk lever action is repeated twice during the same push of the lever.
- By comparison, Deore is much more consistent when moving to a faster/smaller cog. Less effort and no big lever clunk and bang when the shifter mechanism clicks to the next gear. It only does one at a time, but I never had a problem with that in the past.
my $0.02
