If you are still using a triple crankset, you may have sufficient overall range with a road cassette, but this is a fairly specialist application these days. SRAM introduced its XD freehub standard when it started rolling out cassettes with a 10-tooth smallest cog. It recently ported this design over to the road with XDR, which also allows the use of 10-tooth cogs, but is slightly wider than the road bike standard. For mountain bikes, 12-speed cassettes are largely the default for higher-spec groupsets, paired with a single-ring chainset. Where an 11-28 would have been considered an ‘easy’ training cassette a few short years ago, the smallest cassette available for a Shimano Dura-Ace R9200 is an 11-28. That might not sound like much but, when you consider pro riders would typically ride on 11-23 or 11-25 cassettes, it’s a sizeable difference. These days, it is increasingly common to see higher-spec road bikes with 12-speed gearing, Shimano having joined SRAM and Campagnolo with 12-speed groupsets in 2021 with the release of its Dura-Ace Di2 R9200 groupset.

SRAM’s eTap AXS XPLR groupsets are designed specifically for gravel riding. SRAM XPLR cassettes have a range of 10-44 and require their own compatible rear derailleur. It is also possible to mix and match drop bar shifters with mountain bike Eagle eTap AXS components if you want an especially wide-range 1x build. SRAM dubs this a ‘mullet’ setup. You may sometimes see brands refer to their cassettes as having a certain range in the form of a percentage.Shimano, for example, uses a system it calls Hyperglide, which is engineered to provide smooth shifting. Its latest cassettes have a newer system called Hyperglide+, which Shimano says reduces shifting time by up to a third relative to Hyperglide, and improves shifting performance under power, up and down the cassette. The cage of a rear derailleur is designed for a certain range of gears. For example, Shimano’s outgoing Dura-Ace R9100-SS rear derailleur is designed for use up to an 11-30 cassette. The most common system is the Shimano 11-speed HG-style freehub, which has 9 splines. Most Shimano groupsets up to the 11-speed era used this style of freehub. SRAM groupsets prior to the current generation of 12-speed groupsets also used the same freehub design, although there are a handful of exceptions with the larger cassette ratios on their 1×11 groupsets.

SRAM also offers just two cassette sizes in its Eagle lineup – 10-50 and 10-52. The 10-52 is the widest-range cassette made by either manufacturer. Although there are currently two options, it’s likely the 10-50 will be phased out in time because it has been superseded by the 10-52. For example, SRAM boasts a 520 per cent range with its 10-52t cassettes. How has SRAM arrived at this figure, and how do you work out your gear range percentage? Unless you’re running a triple crankset, it’s unlikely you’ll want to use a road bike cassette on a mountain bike. Dave Caudery / Immediate Media It’s important to note that this figure is only indicative of the range of gears you have on your cassette, and is not the same as working out how far you will travel with your chosen gear ratio. On the mountain bike side, Shimano uses its Microspline freehub standard for its 12-speed Deore, SLX, XT and XTR groupsets.

Shimano HG50 8 Speed Cassette

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You will need a long-cage derailleur if you want to use an 11-34t cassette on a road bike. Simon Bromley / Immediate Media Shimano’s HG freehub design was the most common option for many years. Felix Smith / Immediate Media If you are specifically using a Shimano HG freehub, you need to consider how wide the cassette you are buying is. Road wheels have slightly wider freehubs than MTB ones – by 1.85mm – and 11-speed Shimano HG road cassettes are slightly wider than 8- or 9-speed ones, again by 1.85mm.

Shimano Deore XT M8100 12 Speed Cassette

It would have been uncommon to find a cassette as large as SRAM’s Eagle 10-50 a few years ago. Alex Evans However, as groupset manufacturers have jumped onto the gravel bandwagon, there are now gravel-specific gearing options available on the market. Although it might seem straightforward, there’s a lot of engineering that goes into a bike cassette. SRAM XDR road cassettes are 1.85mm wider than SRAM XD MTB cassettes. With a spacer, you can run an XD cassette on a road wheel with an XDR body, but you can’t use an XDR cassette on an XD freehub. Mountain bike versus road cassettes