Intense M6 FRO Build

Drivetrain:

Cables & Housing – Shimano SIS

Standard Shimano SIS housing was used in this build. It’s very lightweight and works great.

Chain – KMC X9SL

The KMC X9SL chain shifts well and is very lightweight. It’s a lightweight chain that doesn’t compromise quality where some other chains fall short. We’ve had no issues with these chains.

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Shimano Saint Grouppo

The rest of the drivetrain consisted of the new 2009 Shimano Saint Grouppo. You can read more about the grouppo in our article previously written on it.

Why use the 2009 Shimano Saint Grouppo?

Rear Derailleur - Shimano Saint RD-M810

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The Short Cage Saint derailleur provided some very snappy reliable shifting. For 2009 the Saint derailleur got the shadow treatment. The derailleur tucks cleanly away from harms way and is quite robust in the right areas to provide some good protection for when you do go down.

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Cassette - Shimano Saint / SLX 11-28t

For the cassette, we have used the Saint / SLX 11-28t cassette as well as an 11-21 dura ace cassette. The 11-28t provided a very good range of gearing that offered some gearing for going uphill a little bit.

Chainring and chainguide - e.13 Guide Ring and LG1

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The e.thirteen 36t chainring is one of the lightest rings out there and works very well. Paired with the e.thirteen LG1 (ISCG 05 wide) the system has worked out quite well. The taco on the underside provides some bash protection.

Crankset - Shimano Saint FC-M815

The Saint crankset has been stellar and provided a really nice interface for putting the power down. There have been no issues so far. We expect to see a lot of these cranks outfitted on a lot of peoples’ bikes in the coming year. Shimano took a considerable amount of weight off these revised Saint cranks without compromising the strength and stiffness. Paired with the LG1 the chain retention system was easy to set up and align properly.

Pedals - Twenty6 Rallye

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For our pedals we wanted something unique to go with the rest of the bike. We went with Twenty6’s new Rallye pedal. Tyler at Twenty6 also anodized our links to match the pedals perfectly. The pedals are much improved over the first Twenty6 pedal (6foe) in a lot of key areas. They are wider, offer some nice pin placements, and held up well to the beating that would ensue.

Rear Shifter - Shimano Saint SL-M810

The shifter can be adjusted on the clamp itself in a similar fashion to SRAM shifters to deliver a wide variety of shifter positions. The shifter tucks quite nicely underneath the Saint brake lever. The shifting also features a 2-way system so you can down shift in the normal Shimano fashion with your index finger, or push the lever with your thumb. Whether you like the classic Shimano trigger shifting methods or the push method of SRAM, this new Saint shifter can do it all.

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