Review: Praxis Wide Range 10spd Cassette

Praxis says that their 11 - 40 tooth Wide Range 10spd Cassette is ''made for the mountain bike rider that needs just a little deeper climbing gear, but refuses to give up performance,'' which is a phrase that probably describes a lot of riders out there. A bit wider gearing range, particularly on the low-end of things, can make life much easier, especially for those of us on longer-travel or heavier bikes that we huff to the top of the mountain because of how much fun they are on the way back down. The 11 - 40 tooth spread of the Praxis cassette means that the biggest cog is four teeth larger than the 36 tooth cog on a stock Shimano or SRAM ten-speed block, a fact that raises the question, "Why you wouldn't just go with one of the many add-on cog options that extend the range of the cassette you already own?"

Praxis' answer to that is that they've taken the entire gearing range into consideration with the 11-13-15-17-19-21-24-28-34-40 spread, a tactic that they say removes the sometimes awkward steps between gears that some riders can notice when using an add-on cog with a cassette that wasn't designed with that in mind. The company also says that the 40 tooth large cog, while not quite offering the ease of a 42 tooth cog, doesn't require modifying your derailleur with a longer B-tension screw.




Like other cassettes out there, Praxis has used steel for the smaller cogs that would otherwise wear too quickly, but they've gone with lighter weight aluminum on the larger cogs that see more chain wrap and possibly less use. The bottom five (11, 13, 15, 17 and 19) are all loose cogs with aluminum spacers between them, while the 21, 24 and 28 tooth cogs are steel but are all pinned to an aluminum carrier. The largest two cogs, the 34 and 40, are aluminum and both share the same aluminum carrier. The $130 USD cassette also comes from Praxis with an orange anodized aluminum lock ring, and the all of the above came in at 323 grams on our digital scale. www.praxiscycles.com




Installation and Performance

There is no trick to installing the Praxis cassette. It goes on just like any other cassette does, and all you'll need is a chain whip and lock ring tools to remove your old block and install the Praxis cogs. The cassette spent months fitted to an aluminum driver body that I expected to see a bit gouged up when I removed the Praxis cogs to shoot photos, but it wasn't any worse than when I had installed the cassette. It slid off easily, without the need to pry it off with a screwdriver or tap it from the backside, which is more than I can say for the cogs that were on there previously.

Shift quality was pretty good, but it never seemed to be as spot-on as when the bike was running the stock cassette, especially when bringing the chain down off the 40 tooth cog. I'd say it was 95% there, but no amount of tinkering with the shifter's barrel adjuster let me find that last 5 percent. To be fair, the difference was small enough that I'd probably be hard pressed to take notice of it had I not been riding with that in mind, and it could possibly be down to other variables. The gearing spread does feel great, though, with no awkwardness between jumps that can happen with some other setups, but it did take a bit to get used to the lack of the 36 tooth largest cog that was on the end of ten-speed cassette that it replaced. This is because some of our climbs are steep enough that it's compulsory to go straight to the easiest gear and the bike's chain ring was chosen with this in mind. Now, with the 40 tooth large cog, the gearing was obviously a bit easier, but it felt more productive to be turning over the 34 tooth cog at a bit slower cadence than it did to spin up in the 40 tooth. The bottom line is that the Praxis cassette gives you that option, whereas the stock cassette didn't. The cassette still looks near-new as well, which is a good sign when talking about longevity.




Pinkbike’s Take:

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