Which Garbaruk cassette fits my bike?

Most of the questions we get about Garbaruk cassettes come down to one thing: will it fit my bike? The answer depends on three parts of the bike, in this order. Get the first one right and the rest usually follows.

1. The freehub body (the bit the cassette slides onto)

This matters more than the number of gears. A cassette made for one kind of freehub will not go onto another, whatever the speed count. There are four kinds you are likely to have:

• Shimano HG (the splined body most bikes have had for twenty years). The smallest sprocket that fits is 11 teeth. If your current cassette starts at 11t, this is almost certainly you.

• Shimano MicroSpline. Shimano's 12-speed mountain bike body (Deore, SLX, XT and XTR 12-speed). Takes a 10t small sprocket. Finer splines than HG; you can see the difference straight away.

• SRAM XD. SRAM's mountain bike body, used by 11 and 12-speed Eagle and by Eagle Transmission. Takes a 10t small sprocket. The cassette threads on rather than using a separate lockring.

• SRAM XDR. The road and gravel version of XD, 1.85 mm longer. An XD cassette fits an XDR body with a 1.85 mm spacer behind it (we sell the spacer). An XDR-only cassette does not fit an XD body.

Not sure which you have? Take the back wheel out and look at the body the cassette sits on, or send us a photo of it on WhatsApp and we will tell you.

2. The number of gears

The cassette has to match the shifter and rear derailleur: an 11-speed shifter moves the chain in 11-speed steps, so it needs an 11-speed cassette, and so on. You cannot put a 12-speed cassette on an 11-speed bike without changing the shifter and derailleur too.

What Garbaruk make, by freehub and speed:

• 12-speed, SRAM XD (MTB): 10-48, 10-50 or 10-52. For SRAM GX, X01 and XX1 Eagle, and any 12-speed drivetrain on an XD body.

• 12-speed, Eagle Transmission (T-Type): 10-52. Transmission derailleurs are built around a specific cassette shape, so use this one, not the ordinary XD cassette.

• 12-speed, Shimano MicroSpline: 10-52. For Deore, SLX, XT and XTR 12-speed.

• 12-speed, Shimano HG body: 11-52. For 12-speed drivetrains that still use an HG body, such as SRAM NX and SX Eagle.

• 12-speed gravel, XD/XDR: 10-44 or the GEN2.0 in 10-48 or 10-50. For SRAM AXS road and gravel groups (Rival, Force, Red and the XPLR 12-speed).

• 13-speed XPLR: 10-52. For SRAM's 13-speed XPLR Transmission.

• 11-speed: Garbaruk have stopped making the 11-speed cassettes (10-46 and 10-50 for XD; 11-46 and 11-50 for HG). We can sometimes still find one, so ask before you give up on an 11-speed bike.

3. The rear derailleur

A derailleur has a limit to the biggest sprocket it can reach. Going from, say, an 11-42 cassette to a 10-52 asks a lot more of it. On a 12-speed Eagle or Shimano 12-speed mountain bike derailleur this is fine: they were designed for 50 to 52 teeth. On older or road derailleurs it often is not, and the fixes are, in order of cost: wind the B-tension screw further in, fit a longer cage, or change the derailleur. Garbaruk make longer derailleur cages for several Shimano and SRAM derailleurs for exactly this reason, and we fit them.

A bigger cassette also needs a longer chain. Count on adding links, or fitting a new chain at the same time, which is usually a good idea anyway: a new cassette with a worn chain will not shift well.

Which size?

If the choice is between a 10-50 and a 10-52, the honest answer is that one tooth either way is hard to feel. Pick the bigger one if you ride loaded or climb a lot; pick the smaller if you want slightly closer gaps between gears. The 10t small sprocket is what makes the XD and MicroSpline cassettes so wide: you get a higher top gear as well as the low one.

Fitting

Garbaruk cassettes are machined in one or two pieces and go on like any other: clean the freehub body, slide it on, and tighten the lockring to 40 Nm (the XD type threads onto the body). If you would rather we did it, book it in and we will fit the cassette, set the derailleur up and check the chain at the same time.

Still not sure?

Tell us the make and model of the bike, or the shifter and derailleur on it, and we will say which cassette fits. Photos of the freehub and the derailleur save a lot of guessing. Message us on WhatsApp or email.