Shimano CUES

Tech Tech - What to Buy
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There was a recent post about low gearing for touring on gravel bikes.

I’ve been thinking about this same topic for months but have come from a different direction.

I have a gravel frame set (not UHD) I’ve been meaning to build up. I tend to make my bikes very heavy and find long hills to ride up. My current ‘gravel’ bike is a Topstone Carbon that is woefully overgeared with a 46/33 and 10-36. I struggled on 10% climbs that were 7-8km long last week with a bike that weighed ~20kg. My bikes often weigh a lot more.

Cannondale state the maximum tyre size is 37mm, I’ve managed to (just) fit a Maxxis Ravager 50mm in the front and 40mm in the back.

Despite the inability of SRAM to move a chain a consistent distance with a front derailleur, I like front derailleurs. I am yet to see the benefit of a 1x build, except that seems to be only way to gain a decent climbing gear. A 38 chainring with a 10-52 is 0.73.

I’ve spent a few months looking at Shimano CUES, and my first question to those in the industry is why isn’t this more popular? Why are bikes still being sold with 1x drop bars when CUES has wide range cassettes and now works with drop bars? Is this an issue of supply chain, designs that have to be signed off years in advance, or a stubborn belief that change is too hard?

CUES 11 speed theoretically allows 46/32 with an 11-45 cassette which is even easier at 0.71. Not that Shimano makes this clear with their somewhat obscure compatibility chart (https://bike.shimano.com/en-AU/products/components/pdp.P-FC-U6000-2.html). I’ve seen shops selling bikes with these builds (Omafiets - Soma Wolverine House Build 56cm with Shimano Cues 2 x (46/32t Front 11-45t Rear) ) albeit with flat bars.

CUES is expensive for what you get. Each shifter/calliper pair is $250AUD which is on par with entry level electronic shifters. That’s a drawback for a ‘mid-range’ groupset. Weight is irrelevant to me.

If you can live with mechanical shifting (and I do love electronic), why is there not more information and discussion about CUES anywhere but niche YouTube channels? The set up I’ve found basically gives you ‘road’ (46) and ‘off-road’ (32) gearing with a wide(ish) range cassette, all on a standard HG freehub. Am I the only person that thinks this is amazing?

Have we all bought into changing front chainrings is a better idea than just having two that you can use whenever you want?

If 1x is the answer, what’s the question? How to save costs (for the manufacturers)? Am I blissfully unaware of what the market wants and in a very small group of people that want to have front derailleur and ride up hills with a heavy bike?

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Yeah, this is a great post. I too build lumpy bikes due to a deep belief that the joy a bike gives is not defined by its weight. The Pelican has no groupset because none existed for what I wanted. 42/26 front (White Industries VBC) and 11/28 rear, great range, the “groupset” comprises bits from five manufacturers. CUES looks good, like most Shimano it can probably be thrown on a bike and just work.

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I reckon I’d still want more than 28 in the back! Hoping those who build and sell bikes will offer an opinion on the post.

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any old long cage derailleur will take up to a 34 even with the 42/26 chainset.

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I think technically this means any medium- or long-cage Shimano MTB-group rear derailer from older days (9 speed and prior, possibly 10) will handle a 34t large sprocket.

There were medium cage Shimano rear derailers from road groups (e.g., Ultegra or 105 triple drivetrains) that had the same parallelogram slant as other Shimano road rear derailers of those eras, and with us officially limited to 27t large sprocket though in practice you could usually go larger with some b-screw adjustment.

(All to say, you’re right about every long cage RD, mostly just because Shimano never stuck a long cage on a road group RD.)

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If 2x gets you what you want, I’m all for it. For my part, I’ve intentionally and happily switched to 1x on my all-road (38 front, 11 speed 11-42), gravel (32 or sometimes 36 front, 11 speed 11-42), and mountain (30 front, 12 speed 10-51) bikes. I don’t race, don’t ride in fast pace lines, don’t pedal downhill past ~25 mph, and don’t miss the faff of keeping 2x tuned.

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The last graven ride I did was a bit muddy. My front derailleur was pretty full of mud. I plan on going 1x on my next gravel bike but obviously that will come at the expense of bigger jumps in my cassette.

No perfect solution.

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The issue with 2x is that there is a lot of crossover with the gears, so in effect, for example, your 2x12 is actually just a 14/15/16 speed system, once the overlaps are discounted.

This is why I happily switched to 1x12 on my gravel bike once GRX 12 speed mechanical appeared, because it gave me the same range as 2x11, but without the front mech, and only a slight increase in gear spacing.

If you really must have a wide range and small gaps in the cogs, then fair enough, go 2x. I do run 2x on the road bike for this reason, but if 1x14 existed, the range and acceptable cog spacing for road use would likely be possible in 1x form, and I’d certainly consider switching.

As for touring/bikepacking, I think, 1x12 with 36 or 34t and 10-50/51/52 is fine. Certainly in my case, much like with gravel riding, I’m happy to freewheel once over 25 mph.

But not all use cases are the same, and not all riders have the same fitness or particular requirements, so the fact that CUES allows 2x with 11-45 is great, (I think it also works with 11-50 too, unofficially), and should be applauded.

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If you’ve got a 46/33 & 10-36.
Could you get an xplr RD and a 10-44 cassette? That gives you a 0.75 low gear with the same top and might be cheaper than CUEs. (plus you get the beep boops) SRAM does support it. It’s not as low as the other options but it’s also easier than replacing a whole groupset

If you’re running Force you could then get some RIval 43/30 chainrings, it’ll look a bit off, but that might be worth it, you then get a 0.68 low gear, with the XPLR RD from above

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The SRAM Force groupset is on an existing bike, this is a new build. I looked at the option of using the XPLR RD with a two-by set-up and was told “this wouldn’t work” by . This was my first preference, then I went on the hunt to find something that would give me this configuration.

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I’m a happy 2x11 GRX user. My usecase of “gravel” is: 30-100% tarmac, because the road-network in my country is just not as romantic as in other places. On the tarmac sections I enjoy the small gaps between gears. On the hilly gravel I enjoy being able to shift a lot of gears by just one lever-press (especially if I realize the last second, that actually I need to turn off onto a steep trail). But every now and then, on a fast gravel descent, I’ll drop the chain. It doesn’t happen often, so next time I’ll forget to activate the clutch again. (But also: if I only lose the chain on every 10th descent, I’ll have to stop less frequently by not activating the clutch). I’ve never had a one-by, but I assume dropping a chain is no issue there. So if I were doing more rough stuff, I’d probably see an advantage there. The clutch might be a good idea in mountain biking, if you go uphill first and then do the descent. But when doing hilly gravel routes, to just always stop and go just to activate/deactivate the clutch is no option for me.

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JC1979 said of 1x “…only a slight increase in gear spacing” which implies they are way less sensitive to gaps than I am. On a MTB where there are large and sudden changes in gradients, and where pedalling at high speeds is a non-issue 1x is okay, or for CX or riding in flat places where not much range is needed, but otherwise I need all the help I can get, which means both a reasonable range and close-ish ratios help considerably.

FWIW, 2x and XPLR can be made to work provided some gears are locked out: 43x30 + 10/11-44 can be done using whatever SRAM calls their Syncroshift equivalent. IMHO this still isn’t ideal though.

CUES can give a wide range and very low gears indeed - 36x22 + 11-45 anyone? - but the gaps on the cassettes are IMO ugly, and there’s not much compatibility with anything non-CUES.

My next gravel/touring bike is likely to use 650b wheels with 43x25 Dixna rings and either a ZTTO 11-39 or 11-42 12 speed cassette, or else 700c with 40x24 rings. Either way the result will be a low gear of <18”, and a top gear a bit over 100”. A higher gear would occasionally be useful, but only on Alpine descents, and at the other end one can always walk off-road if needed.

Since I hate riding when it’s muddy and mud isn’t typical near me, I don’t care about mud fouling the FD; if there was hideous mud all the time I’d just read more books. And while it’s true that 1x will allow a wider tyre (especially given bulky AXS FD batteries), one can fit in a wide enough tyre with a Shimano FD, especially with a slightly wider chainline, as with GRX etc. If you want to use a tyre much wider than say 55-584 or 52-622 other contortions are needed to fit everything in and frame design gets way more complicated, much more so if you have 700c, and/or a road chainline, and/or AXS…

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Yes to both parts. Cues is heavy, especially the cassette. Heavy doesn’t sell, even on high end e-bikes. The folks who want to ride up steep hills on heavy bikes seem perfectly capable of cobbling together a drivetrain that works for them.

I have some CUES parts to install on by E-cargo bike, but I wouldn’t put it on my touring bike. The CUES derailleurs feel pretty cheap, with lots of slop in the pivots, and make a fair amount of noise when using the easiest cogs in the 1X configurations. I would rather use 20 year old road/mtb components to achieve the same gearing.

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Do tell what this is.

What model CUES are you running that feels cheap? The 4000 or the 8000?

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I remember first reading about this on Sheldon Brown and thinking, “How’s that possible?” before realising that, of course, it’s obvious!

More gears at the back in a fixed amount of space quickly become problematic for shifting. I would assume there’s a reason there are no 1x15 bikes. Maybe at 1x15 I’d be convinced and I just need to wait.

I find that with road I sometimes end up using the front derailleur to find the gears I want, but with the CUES system, I’d see this much more as two distinct 1x12 systems. This seems more appealing than two 1x7/8, which is what you’d get with a 1x12 if you think in terms of road and off-road gearing.

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A couple others have chimed in with their low-gear setups and the OP mentioned their proposed solution. So the solutions are there. As to the question of why bike makers and component makers aren’t making these low-gear options well known, marketing is largely aspirational. You are inclined to buy the bike that is capable of more spirited, aggressive riding than you are. Buying a bike for the reality that you are likely to get less fit and need lower gears and higher bars as you age hasn’t been a very successful formula.

I mostly deal with the 4000 CUES stuff where I work. It works well, I would rather use 10speed CUES than 10 speed Deore. The 4000 CUES has been replacing Tourney and Acera on lower end bikes from the major manufacturers. It is definitely an improvement over Tourney and Acera, but not something I would put on my touring bike. The 6000/8000 series CUES feels better, but is visually incongruent with my old steel touring bike.

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I am OP.

I specified 11-speed in my original post which has to be at least 6000 series. I’m looking at 8000 series. Comparing 4000 series seems a bit disingenuous. I am not worried about the aesthetics, given it’s going on a modern titanium frame.

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SRAM sell a 43x30 crankset, I think that is at least worth to look at, I would put on my bike (that now has a 46x33 on it) if I would do more bikepacking.

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I currently run 2x11sp GRX on my gravel bike with a 30-46 chainset and an 11-40 cassette. Strictly speaking, Shimano only recommend a max of a 36T cassette, but I have not had any issues and don’t ever run “big-big”. Definitely tilts the gearing towards the easier side, but find it helps when riding off tarmac, or fully loaded, or both.

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Or maybe I’m not more sensitive, cause my 1x12 setup is great off road despite the gaps, for all the reasons you go on to explain, but is definitely a problem on road (gaps and overall range), which is why my gravel and mountain bikes are 1x, while as I already stated, my road bike is still 2x. When 1x14 appears (which it will, at some point), there is a good chance my road bike will be switched to 1x as well.