TRP EVO 12 Drivetrain

I really like reviewing drivetrains. This could be a holdover from my early days of mountain biking when a bike was defined by the drivetrain. It was an XT bike or it was an LX bike and you shopped it against other XT or LX bikes. What your bike was rocking at the derailleur was of fundamental importance, to an odd degree. Brakes? Geometry? Tires? Who cares! Maybe because none of them were very good? So we hung all our cares on how well the bike shifted.

It’s still a little bit like that though, isn’t it? Shifting a bicycle is the great equalizer. The one thing we can all understand, independent of skill or nuance. Press a lever. How does it feel? Good? Bad? Did it shift? Did it make noise? Did it feel weird? This is information you can hang your hat upon.

When I saw the announcement for this drivetrain, long, long ago, I knew that it was something I wanted to try. I really enjoyed my TRP brake experience, and if this drivetrain could bring something similar, that was very exciting to me. Just the sheer chutzpah of creating a new, non electronic drivetrain right now!

I had thought I would do a preliminary look at this drivetrain, but then things just kind of dragged on for several months. I’ve spent a good chunk of months on this setup, with less mileage than I would have hoped. Still, I feel pretty confident in the opinions that I have formed.

A Description of Things

The EVO 12 drivetrain is all of the things that you would expect from a groupset.

- A mechanical derailleur – US$230 and 300 grams

- An accompanying shifter – US$100 and 125 grams

- A steel/aluminum hybrid, microspline compatible cassette with 10-11-13-15-18-21-24-28-32-36-44-52 cogs – US$400 and 372 grams

- A KMC built chain – US$39 and 234 grams

- Cranksets in carbon - US$350 and 504 grams, or aluminum US$150 and 561 grams

- Bottom bracket - US$42 and 81 grams

Where does that put this relative to the competition? Cross shopping with XTR and XO1, certain things will be heavier/cheaper/lighter/more expensive, but that’s the ballpark you’re looking at. All of that comes with 12 speeds and in black or gold. We’re also going to throw a pair of DH-R EVO brakes into the mix, even though AJ did a review of them a few years back. Those are another US$299 per wheel for the brakes, plus US$50-70 per rotor, depending on which you choose.

Derailleur

TRP has put much of their energy into the derailleur. It has a bunch of things you’d expect (a not visibly adjustable clutch, a mixture of aluminum and carbon fiber, oversized pulleys, a little cable guide wheel) and a bunch of things you wouldn’t expect (the main pivot limiting Hall lock, a cage release, a super horizontal moving parallelogram). It’s a very, very interesting piece.

Because of all of the interesting things, you should read the instructions and/or watch their setup video before you install it. There are some specific steps as to what things get switched, and when. The cage release in particular takes a bit of thinking before you get to understanding. Two other things of note:

- There is no fancy means of measuring your B gap. Get out your ruler and see where it sits. Similar to Shimano and SRAM, they recommend doing so with your bike at sag. This always puzzles me a bit. It feels like you’re setting your customer up for failure. Sure, you’ll probably go through the effort the first time you install. And if you’re paying attention, you will measure your B gap when not at sag for future reference. But after that, are you really going to go through all that? I get that this is bike specific, but I wish drivetrain manufacturers would give us both a “best” measurement at sag and an “it’ll do” measurement for what you might expect it to be not at sag.

- Running the gauntlet to get your cable threaded is tricky. I had to flip things right over and even then I wasn’t sure I had it correct. This proved to be the most challenging part of setting up the derailleur

Setting limits and getting the gears clicking properly was pretty easy after that. I made a few turns of the barrel after a couple of rides and haven’t had to do anything with it since.

The TRP Shifter

The shifter is a two lever affair, much like what you get from everybody else these days. It’s probably a bit more SRAM than Shimano, but kind of reminds me of the old before plus early 90’s Rapidfire shifters from Shimano. Except these work! Push the lower/closer lever to get to an easier gear and the higher/further lever to get to a harder gear. The lower/closer/easier gear lever is also rotation adjustable. There are two mounting holes to allow for some adjustment in and out on your handlebars, and it is compatible with anything Matchmaker. One other thing to note is that the shifter ships with a cable, but no housing. I asked and TRP recommended Jagwire LEX-SL housing, but weren’t too concerned about what was used.

While all of this sounds pretty standard, TRP adds one little twist to the recipe with a handy little switch on the bottom, that lets you choose between either a single or maximum of 5 down shifts. This sounded pretty nifty, as I generally crack through shifts one at a time. I quickly realized that this isn’t “all of the time” though, as you really notice when you’re looking for a quick 2-3 gear shift and it isn’t available. So, back to the 5-max setting for me, and I never looked back.

TRP Cassette

The cassette is an awe inspiring piece. Especially in gold, it just looks expensive, and even the locknut is pretty tidy. And it’s deceptively light! I seldom care about weight, but it was hard to not notice the 470g of the Shimano XT that came off vs. the 372g of the TRP as it went on.

This will sound minor, but I really dig the one piece design and how it just so easily slides onto your cassette. If you’re often swapping wheels, this is a nice feature. The smallest 10 cogs are all machined out of one piece of steel and then the two largest cogs are bolted onto the back of that. Ramps are prevalent and certain teeth are sculpted, I’d say not quite to the same degree as Shimano Hyperglide+.

Cog size is probably worth a discussion because TRP does things differently than both SRAM and Shimano. Certain cog sizes do line up with one or the other, but TRP puts it together into something that is quite different.

For me, I’m most concerned about gear ratio when I’m climbing. This is where I appreciate consistent, not-too-large jumps and I think the Shimano 33-39-45-51 combination is the one that I like best. The 32-36-44-52 felt like it was sometimes forcing me into a larger cog than I needed at times, and I’m getting a lot of use out of those two aluminum cogs.

KMC Chain

The chain is pretty simple and pretty cheap and comes from KMC. We’ll talk about chain length now. My first impulse was to count the links of the chain that came off and then put the same length back on. As I started to fit this onto the bike though, it seems super long. It was okay with the chain on the largest cog, but it seemed like way too much slack in the smallest. TRP suggested setting chain length with the chain in the smallest cog and ensuring that the derailleur is just under tension. Check it in the biggest cog though too, all the way through suspension travel! This wound up being a full link shorter than my Shimano setup (despite 1 tooth extra on the largest cog). Not a big deal, but something to keep in mind.

TRP Crankset / BB / Chainring

Finally, we get to the stuff under your feet. I’m running the carbon crankset, which is a nice little piece but probably not something I would typically run. It’s a 30mm spindle and available in 165 or 170mm lengths. There’s a little preload spacer on the non-drive side as well, to set your correct bearing preload.

Bottom brackets are available in BSA68, PF92 or PF30. Can you use other bottom brackets? No idea. This one seems pretty standard with sealed bearings and seals and all that jazz.

One thing I discovered during this whole process is just how many different tool standards there are for bottom brackets now! TRP has actually made this fairly easy, using the DUB tool standard. It took me quite some effort to find the right tool to pull the XT out first.

Lastly, you have the chainring. You can get a 30, 32 or 34 tooth ring and they’re all narrow/wide (of course!) and look like little shark teeth. What other chainrings are compatible with this crankset? No idea. The lockring that holds it in place is the old ISIS standard though, so it least you can get some use out of that tool.

If it were me I’d either be buying all of this stuff together (crank/bb/chainring) or none of it at all and I just can’t face the legal consequences of suggesting what may or may not fit together here.

TRP DH-R EVO Brakes

Rounding things out are a nice matchy-matchy set of gold DH-R EVO brakes. This was just me being greedy, really. I mean…would it have been possible to test a bright gold TRP drivetrain without a matching set of brakes? Maybe, but I’d hate to find out.

The DH-R EVO shares a lot with the Trail EVO that I sort of tested a while back. I didn’t get along all that well with the Trail due to a reach challenge. I think I can fix that though with a pretty simple pushrod swap, so I will likely revisit these brakes at a later date.

With the DH-R, there’s lots to like. The biggest difference on the DH-R is the 9mm piston in the master cylinder, compared to 10mm on the Slate and Trail. What’s that do? Well, the 9mm piston concentrates the force from your hand on the lever across a smaller area. This ups the pressure and pushes a bit less fluid with each stroke. This results in more force on the caliper pistons, as well as more lever throw.

Compatibility

The only 2 parts you absolutely have to use together are the shifter and derailleur. I’m sure some enterprising soul could figure out a way to use either a different shifter or derailleur but TRP informs me that their cable pull is proprietary and I didn’t put any effort into proving otherwise. As you would expect, TRP suggests that you’re going to get best performance out of using all of their parts, but admitted that there was likely nothing holding anybody back from using a different cassette, chain or chainring. It’s on you to figure that all out though.

Riding

Shifting

The first question is of course going to be “How does it shift?” Quite well, actually! When I started my test, I wasn’t so sure. I was getting an inconsistent shift onto the first of the aluminum cogs. Turns out I had a slightly bent hanger (and I mean slightly…but still). Once I swapped that out (swapped to a different rear end, in fact), it was all good.

Because I don’t have brand new versions of either Transmission or XTR to compare to, I’m going to minimize the amount of comparisons that I do here. It would have been lovely to do some back-to-back-to-back testing of all 3 drivetrains, but my political pull around here isn’t nearly that large.

Shifting speed is on par with about anything you would expect. And why not? If you look closely at the cassette there are ~4 shifting areas on most areas, so it’s usually going to take a quarter turn of the cassette (at most) before your chain starts moving. This is similar to the spacing Shimano provides with their cassettes. Oops. That’s a comparison! Shifts move faster up the cassette into larger gears than down, so there’s the usual bit of pre-planning shifting into a harder gear as you crest a climb.

While we’re talking tooth profiles, have another zoom in. There are quite a few things going on with the TRP cassette, but not quite as much as with the latest Hyperglide+ voodoo shifting magic cassette. The result is that the TRP shifts pretty damn well, but with the occasional little hiccup that keeps it from the very top tier. It bangs out 95%+ of shifts cleanly and precisely, but every once in a while it’ll just speak up to remind you that it’s there. It’s not like it’s shouting at you. It’s more like a guy talking on his phone while you’re trying to relax at the Scandinave Spa - not the end of the world, but you paid for silence, dammit! Hit me up in my e-mail, Scandinave, if you appreciate this reference and would like to pay me back.

Moving on with not comparing, I much prefer the lever feel of the TRP compared to Shimano, especially dropping to a harder gear. This may sound like damning with faint praise (because certain Shimano shift levers feel absolutely terrible), but it’s not really so. The TRP shifter is pretty close to exactly how I like a shift lever to feel. Not too much free play. Not too light. Not too heavy. Once I accounted for the difference in lever placement, I was very, very happy with the shifter. It did take a bit of playing around with placement and rotation to get it to a place that felt comfortable, but that’s usual with most new systems.

The one thing I don’t like about this shifter is what I would describe as a failure to close the deal on a shift. It’s possible to shift into an easier gear without fully clicking the shift through to completion. Then, when you release the lever, the chain shifts back to the original gear that you were trying to get out of. This happened frequently enough to be annoying, and seemed to mostly happen on more technical climbs as I was trying to finesse just one shift. I spent a bit of time trying to make the same thing happen on other drivetrains, but I couldn’t. TRP pointed out that if you’re worried about this happening you can use the single shift setting to avoid worrying about accidentally shifting multiple gears, but I hope TRP can tweak their click points a teensy bit and make this a non issue on future generations.

Braking

Remember when AJ reviewed these brakes? Boy did he do a thorough job! While this isn’t a thorough review of these brakes, I will say that they were pretty much everything that I wanted them to be. Super smooth. Super consistent. Lots of control. There’s been a lot of discussion about maximum braking force these days and there isn’t a lot of consensus on what that means or how it occurs. We tend to isolate things like piston size and lever geometry and we ignore that this is all one big system that works together, any one thing capable of ruining your day. We compare brakes with different rotors and pads and wonder why our experiences vary. For the most part, these brakes just sort of disappeared into the bike and I didn’t really notice them compared to the Codes that came off. Until one day I found myself dropping into something steep and greasy on Fromme. I had taken a wrong turn and I probably wasn’t more than 10 feet away from the trail I was looking for but instead wound up just plunging down a fall line. I honestly could not believe how well these brakes did down that trail. I kept one finger on each lever, just happily maximizing my braking force and finding traction. Are these the most powerful brakes available? I don’t think they are. They sure do have a pile of usable power though, and are super easy to modulate and control, even at the limit. Boy do I wish they used the same size thread for their bleed fittings as Shimano, though.

Other things

I haven’t noticed a particular increase/reduction in noise compared to the XT drivetrain that came off the bike. The Hall Lock is supposed to be an additional thing to prevent your drivetrain from banging around and it probably does help, but modern drivetrains are pretty quiet already.

So far, I’ve dropped my chain once, and only once. This occurred right at the end of the flowy/fast section of the newly rebuilt Cambodia and hasn’t happened since. I also had the chain pop off the largest cog while stopped at the top of a climb a couple of times. Never while climbing though, only when stopped.

My one other gripe is mostly user error but still an annoyance. What I learned riding this drivetrain is that lots and lots of people ride with an 8mm allen wrench, but not many ride with a 10mm. The first lesson here is to check all your bolts for the first few rides on a new setup. I was nearly at the top of Seymour, wondering what all the clunking was when I discovered that my crankset was loose. Of course I didn’t have a 10mm to tighten the cranks up, nor did any of the dozen people I asked trailside. I wound up making it rideable by jamming a 2mm and an 8mm in, and giving it a few turns. The bolt doesn’t look all that great any longer, but works. When I got home I gave it as good a reefing as I could manage with my largest 10mm allen, and it hasn’t budged since. But I’ve tucked a 10mm into my hip bag, just in case.

Final thoughts

If you’re spending XTR/X01 levels of dollars on a drivetrain you are looking for a very high standard of component. I’m happy enough to continue riding these parts and I think TRP has done a fantastic job here with their second kick at the can. The performance of these parts feels remarkably mature, albeit with some room for refinement

Honestly though, we all win with this TRP experiment. If this is the opening move from a legitimate 3rd drivetrain manufacturer, we will all benefit from the greater choice, and the competition, that TRP will provide. As TRP has shown with their brakes, they learn very, very quickly and it hasn’t taken them very long to be up there with the best.

Should you consider this for your next bike, though? And if not, who are the likely customers for this drivetrain? Myself, if I’m spending my own money it’s probably going to be SLX across the board. Many of you, judging by the bikes rolling out these days, seem most likely to be mounting something electronic from SRAM. Are there enough mechanical drivetrain absolutists out there right now and is this drivetrain a compelling enough argument to eschew the big two? The answer to that is probably a tricky business case. But, if TRP can take everything they’ve learned here, shave a few features, cut the cost in half (or a 1/3?) and spit out a legitimate SLX alternative, that’s going to be really exciting.