New! Better! Improved!

Til one day I returned
And found they were the victims of the vines
Of changes
—Phil Ochs

Here’s a bit of recent bike equipment esoterica that likely escaped your attention: Shimano, the world’s largest supplier of cycling components, is revamping its lower lines of components and replacing them all with one new line called CUES (“Creating Unique Experiences”). If you’ve had to work on Shimano components (rather than having your shop do it), then you know Shimano has a rat’s nest of differing specs that make opaque which components are compatible with others. This is true not only between component line types—mountain bike versus road—but also quality and price levels such as Tiagra vs. Claris vs. Alivio etc.; and between e-bike and regular bikes. It’s also true between generations of the same component line. The purpose of throwing them all out and replacing them with CUES is to make mountain, road, 9-, 10-, and 11-speed CUES components intercompatible. The components are also less expensive than Shimano’s upper component tiers such as Dura Ace, Ultegra, 105, XTR, XT, etc. and they are supposedly more durable.

It certainly sounds like a good idea and it should make replacing Shimano parts a less confusing task should you need to do so. From personal experience I can tell you that replacing old Shimano parts is a semi-nightmare because newer stuff is not often compatible with older stuff. The most obvious example is the seemingly inexorable increase in the number of cogs in a cassette. I have old bikes and wheels going back from 5-speed up to 11-speed; rear derailleurs, shifters whether downtube, barend, or brake/shifters, chains, and obviously cassettes are not interchangeable. Even with the same number of cogs, Shimano has changed its shifters and front derailleur pull ratios so that an older 10-speed shifter may not work with a newer 10-speed front derailleur. Since 9-speed cogs Shimano’s mountain bike and road derailleurs have not been interchangeable because the pull actuation ratios are different; and even pull ratios in newer groups are different. I’m often forced to go onto EBay or prowl the dim recesses of the Internet looking for an older part and sometimes I’ve failed to find one. I’ve bemoaned this situation before.

If I were a shop owner, this change would be welcome if only because stocking an inordinate number of just slightly differing parts should diminish by having just intercompatible CUES parts. Furthermore not having to mentally keep track of compatibility between hundreds of parts will eventually be a relief. But I’m not a shop owner and I know that with all things tech—and that includes bicycles now—everything is changing constantly with the adoption of model year upgrade cycles and the need to dazzle cyclists with shinier, newer stuff to throw dollars at. On top of that it is only the CUES line that is interchangeable. For road cyclists, mountain bikers, and gravel cyclists who like lighter equipment, this won’t have an effect. Shimano XTR is still not going to be compatible with Dura Ace nor with Ultegra or GRX. CUES is also not going to be helpful for any existing Shimano components that it is replacing because they will mostly or entirely not be compatible with CUES. So it’s only going to be a benefit moving forward and if you buy the less expensive bikes that will have CUES as standard equipment.

Note that this interchangeability and replacement mess has been less of a problem with Campagnolo and SRAM. Yes, the number of cogs makes shifters, cassettes, chains, and hubs non-interchangeable. But both Campy and SRAM seem to have held to consistency in pull actuation ratios over generations. And in SRAM’s case its mountain bike and road bike components are mostly interchangeable. (Campy doesn’t make mountain bike components.) So this change by Shimano is really, to some extent, just playing catch up with the other producers.

There is one change in particular that caught my eye. Shimano’s lower lines are currently the only place where you can still find a triple crankset. Over time Shimano has stopped making Dura Ace triples, then Ultegra, and recently 105 triple cranksets. Tiagra was until now the highest road line that still had a triple crank. But now Tiagra is being replaced by CUES and there will be no more triples from Shimano: no front derailleurs, shifters, and cranksets. If you want to use a triple crankset or shifters or replace a worn out ones, in the near future you will either have to look for used or NOS Shimano parts or move to specialty component makers such as Rene Herse, Velo Orange, and maybe TA or Stronglight in France. Campagnolo stopped making road triples years ago and SRAM never made one at all. If I had to drop down to Tiagra for a triple crankset, the only real disadvantage is some additional weight. In exchange I would keep Shimano’s crank alignment and its excellent chainrings that are not only strong and longlasting but also have shaping that makes its front shifting so good. But Shimano is now driving the final nail in the coffin. At one point Shimano even made a Di2 electronic shifting system that worked with its top end mountain bike group XTR. What I had predicted in 2015 is now coming to pass.

There are a lot of cyclists still using triple cranksets but they’ll have to transition to a wide ranging double. As I’ve written about before, triples are not more difficult or complex to use and they allow you to shift in what I call “serial one-by”: the middle chainring is the one you use for most often since it provides a good run through the gears you use most of the time with small jumps between cogs; the big ring is for high speed flat or downhills sections; and the granny is for climbing steep inclines. Each chainring can provide a good run by just shifting the rear derailleur. Wide ranging doubles on the other hand have a weird transition between big ring-big cogs and small ring-small cogs. On the flats and rolling terrain I find I have to be a repeated cumbersome shift of both the front and rear derailleurs to move to the next higher or lower gear. However if you’re looking just for a wide gear range, then modern doubles and older triples cover the same ground and either will work.

Of course the compatibility issue that CUES solves with lower line Shimano parts will only hold true as long as Shimano doesn’t change the CUES specs as time goes on. That’s a bet I am very skeptical of given Shimano’s track record.