Completely on the needless complexity and SKU proliferation with the current crop of cranks - cranks are inherently modular, Shimano seems to be willfully minimizing the opportunity to take advantage of that. I've had a lot of Shimano cranks go bike to bike over the years... my 12s stuff won't be able to do that as easily.
12s has been super reliable, though - I always found Shimano 11s pretty touchy, especially compared to my gold standard 10s XT - the later gen 10s stuff you could set up and it'd be perfect a a couple seasons later. I'd wear out chains and cassettes before I need to mess with cables.
March 26, 2021, 6:32 a.m. - Gbergevin
Completely on the needless complexity and SKU proliferation with the current crop of cranks - cranks are inherently modular, Shimano seems to be willfully minimizing the opportunity to take advantage of that. I've had a lot of Shimano cranks go bike to bike over the years... my 12s stuff won't be able to do that as easily. 12s has been super reliable, though - I always found Shimano 11s pretty touchy, especially compared to my gold standard 10s XT - the later gen 10s stuff you could set up and it'd be perfect a a couple seasons later. I'd wear out chains and cassettes before I need to mess with cables.