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Home > Product Reviews > Front Mechs > Shimano XT Front Mech Down Pull Top Swing Reviews

Shimano XT Front Mech Down Pull Top Swing

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Shimano XT Front Mech Down Pull Top Swing
More about Shimano

Average Rating: 2 out of 5
No. of Reviews: 1
RRP: £26.99
Year: 2005

Description: To select the correct front mech you will need to know: CLAMP DIAMETER - This is the seat tube diameter and will be 28.6mm 31.8mm or 34.9mm. If the mech attaches via the bottom bracket select a BB mounted version CABLE ROUTING - If the cable comes down to the front mech this is Top Pull. If it comes from underneath its a Bottom Pull. SWING - If the actual mech sits below the clamp-on band this is a Conventional mech. If the mech sits slightly above its a Top Swing mech.

REVIEWS

1 to 1 of 1 review, to post a review you need to be a member - Join now.

Paul Matthes

Posted: 29/08/07

'CLEAN SHIFTING BUT WHY HEAVIER THAN LX?'

Strengths:
Smooth cog swapping

Weaknesses:
Significantly heavier than equivalent LX front mech - why? Adjustment is very fiddly thanks to poor siting of cable retaining screw, screw threads strip too easily.

Overall:
Okay, confession time. I destroy front mechs. I seem to go through one a year and I positively detest setting the buggers up. My LX Mech sheared along the cage, so I took a trip to my LBS and decided to upgrade to XT. How could I go wrong...?

Firstly, the top swing XT mech is significantly heavier than the LX I replaced it with. Why? Well, there's more steel used in the cage itself, plus the mech linkages seem to be of stouter build. The upgrade has more to do with build than weight, which I can live with given I'm not exactly a weight weenie.

Fitting the mech is a pain in the arse. The spring loading means that the cable retaining screw is inaccessable under tension and to compound matters the plastic spacer which holds the linkage apart was missing from the box. After much swearing and skin sacrifice to the great knuckle gods, I did the logical thing and rammed a 10mm allen spanner in between the cage and frame. By golly it worked! If I shift to the middle ratio I could still get to the bolt with some gymnastics involved.

Okay, so you can level some criticism at the convoluted cable routing which is absent on the LX but the proof is in the shifting and the XT is pretty good here.

Six months in I was reasonably happy but the job I'd been dreading loomed when I bought new shifters and had to swap the cables.

If you remove the retaining bolt and squint into the hole, you'll see that a steel spring has been inserted to ensure the bolt thread has enough purchase to tighten, thus saving the soft aluminium of the mech from wear. Except that it doesn't, as seconds later the allen key slackened and the cable was released. Yep, the thread had stripped.

Moreover if this happens it's new mech time. Unlike the LX, the steel insert isn't replaceable, forcing you to bodge a quick fix with wire hoping it'll hold if you're stranded miles from anywhere like I was recently when my mech gave up the ghost.

I'm not impressed. However, most full sussers need a compact front mech so a SRAM X-Gen or conventional front mech isn't an option. I've had to invest in another XT front mech and will update in due course. While the shifting itself cannot be faulted, an easy life with this mech is jeapordised thanks to some really boneheaded design compromises which aren't becoming of Shimano.