The Shimano XTR has remained fundamentally unchanged for years now. And that time has seen loads of new development in lower groups: nine speed throughout, splined bottom bracket axles, introduction of disc brakes, etc. But XTR, formerly the king of the innovation castle, was left on the development shelf. Until now… The new 2003 XTR groupset gets much more than a makeover. There are new: cranks, disc brakes, hubs, mechs and shifters.

Cranks
The big story with the completely new, four arm, fully anodised finish cranks is the bottom bracket and fixing system. Shimano have gone for a massively oversized bottom bracket axle which will be permanantly fitted to the right hand crank. The left arm looses the traditional crank bolts in favour of a pinch bolt over the end of the crank. When you think about it this makes loads of sense. Splined bottom bracket axles don’t need much tension to keep them in place. Indeed most problems are caused by over-tightening.

Shifters
Road bikes have long had dual control brake/gear levers for years now but they’ve never been introduced mtbs. Until, sounds familiar, now… Imagine a road STI lever turned through 90deg, okay? Swap the lever for an mtb one. Braking remains the same. But your shifting is done by moving the lever up or down. Sounds like a neat idea. It’ll leave more room on the bar and allow you to shift under heavy braking.

Disc brakes
XTR is your racing groupset so Shimano have gone for a lightweight, fully hydraulic disc system. Fully active two-pot calipers grip onto a super-light, or so we’re told, disc. They’ve got the weight of the disc down by making an aluminium spider (the bit in the middle of the brake disc) with a small steel brake disc. The spider is intergrated with the rotor and mounted onto the hub with a spline fitting – a move away from the current ‘standard’.

The rear mechs, long and short cage, have been given a makeover, sort of Shimano steroids. The only real technical change is the top jockey wheel has been raised slightly in relation to the pivot point. Shimano claim that this makes shifting a bit tighter. Hopefully we’ll see later this year when we get our hands on a groupset to tell you how well it all works.

That just leaves the bad news… It probably won’t be available in the shops
until the end of 2002.