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Bashgaurd question??

3K views 31 replies 18 participants last post by  rekrutacja 
#1 ·
Hi,
Newbie looking to get a Bashgaurd. What do I need to know before purchasing one. I want to get rid of my Third Chainring and replace it with a bashgaurd. Based on my current set up since I'm losing the third ring can I replace the second and first one with larger ones to make up for my 44T that will be replaced by the Bashgaurd. I don't want to have to buy a new Cassette, chain, etc. What are my options?


Cassette SRAM PG970 11-34T, 9spd
Shimano SLX, 44/32/22, Hollowtech II arms, integrated BB spindle
 
#2 ·
If you have a lot of ride time on your chain and cassette, then changing your chainrings may introduce gear issues like skipping etc.

Don't forget that if you change your smallest chainring (22t) if you use this for climbing etc then you may have a harder time.

To get a bashguard on there all you need to do is take off the big ring, you may need some longer chainring bolts too, be careful with your front mech once you've got your bash on as you may still be able to shift onto your big ring (which is no longer there!)
 
#3 ·
Steve.E said:
If you have a lot of ride time on your chain and cassette, then changing your chainrings may introduce gear issues like skipping etc.

Don't forget that if you change your smallest chainring (22t) if you use this for climbing etc then you may have a harder time.

To get a bashguard on there all you need to do is take off the big ring, you may need some longer chainring bolts too, be careful with your front mech once you've got your bash on as you may still be able to shift onto your big ring (which is no longer there!)
You shouldn't be able to shift into your bash if you have your limit screw set properly. Just make sure you dial it in enough to where you can't pull the derailleur out with your hand any further than your second chainring. Your shifter should also be firm when you try to push on it when it's in the middle ring. You will almost certainly need longer chainring bolts for most bashguards.

You can replace your middle ring with a 34T or 36T for more top end, but try it with the 32 first to see if you miss anything. You can always change it later. Keep your 22 small ring if you live in an area with any really steep climbs. You'll be glad for it. So basically, keep things as is and throw the bashguard on it. If you like it, keep it. If you miss the top end, change your middle ring. Most people don't find the need to go above a 36T for trail riding.

I just recently went 2x9 and liked a 22-34 up front with a 11-34 cassette. I might try a 22-36 up front, since the bolt holes of my Blackspire Super Pro chainring got destroyed, along with the spider of my SLX crankset. I replaced the crankset with a Shimano XT and I'm looking to stick with Shimano chainrings this time around. They don't make a 34 4-bolt that I can find, so probably going to go with their 36 and run it 22-36. There are some steep climbs in Colorado, so I'm not planning on ditching my 22 up front.
 
#4 ·
I just installed a bashguard this weekend on my XT cranks. I got the BBG standard bashguard for a 32 tooth ring. Super easy to install (like 5 minutes), cheap ($18 shipped), and no need for longer bolts. For what I ride I never find myself shifting to the big front ring so I see no need to change my 32 to a 36 or something. If you do you can always change it later but you might want to keep that in mind and order a 36 tooth bashguard just in case. The BBG seems to get lots of love on here. Do a search for bashguards and it's sure to be a favorite of most threads you look at.

http://www.bbgbashguard.com/Mountainbike.html
 
#5 ·
I definitely want to keep the 22T for climbing. I was mainly wondering if I replace the middle ring with a 36T if it's a noticeable difference from the 32T that is there. Also, if I make this change will I have to make any other changes like purchasing a new chain, cassette, etc. The easiest option I guess would be to get rid of the third ring and replace with bashgaurd and leave the rest as is with also making the front derailer adjustment.
 
#7 ·
The Grimmer said:
I was thinking of doing the same, If i were you I would get a 36t middle ring and replace the 3rd with a e13 supercharger (mate has one and they're solid as hell and pretty light)
The one from e13 does look nice. Does anyone know if the serrated aluminum bashgaurds are any good. Straitline makes a sweet looking one. I may get the straitline flat SSC pedals so I was thinking the bashgaurd from Straitline would match well.
 
#8 ·
oceanminded said:
The one from e13 does look nice. Does anyone know if the serrated aluminum bashgaurds are any good. Straitline makes a sweet looking one. I may get the straitline flat SSC pedals so I was thinking the bashgaurd from Straitline would match well.
Kinda defeats one of the purposes of getting a bashguard imo. One of the benefits is not slicing your leg open with the big ring in a crash. I can't imagine putting on something that seems even MORE dangerous than my big ring. :rolleyes: The Straitline actually doesn't look as bad as others I've seen though, but still, I second the recommendation of the e13 TurboCharger.
 
#10 ·
I swapped out my big ring for a bashguard a few months ago and have been really pleased with the change. I rarely used the 44t and the extra rock clearance is great.

I also had the question about altering the gearing up front to have a bit wider range over the 22-32 setup. So I picked up a 36t slx chaniring and bash combo to replace my 32t xtr ring.

The result? No good...Immediately I felt that while the bit of extra top end could come in handy in certain situations, overall it's not that great in the rest of the range. It felt like too big a change going from the 22 to the 36. Trail sections where I could have powered the 32 the 36 felt too tall, and dropping to the 22 made me have to shift too far down the cassette to find a comfortable gear.

Also on my 5" travel trail bike, I wasn't able to get the front derailleur adjusted to allow all gear combos to work very well, and ended up with unwanted chain rub when running cross chain combos. A dedicated 2x9 front derailleur might help this but overall I really didn't feel that the gear range was as usable as the 22-32. Perhaps switching both rings out to a 26-36 or 22/24-34 may be better in alleviating the gap in gearing I felt, but for the places I ride, the 22-32 is enough gearing for 98% of situations so I am back to the 22-32 combo. For me what seemed like a good idea in theory (wider gear range with a 2x9) just didn't translate on the trail. Live and learn!
 
#11 ·
Session, try a 34T middle ring if you ever get a chance. I really loved it before my crank and chainring broke. I still can't figure out how it happened. I'll ride the new 22-32 for awhile and see if I'm OK with it, but I'll probably end up searching for a new 34T middle. I haven't ridden a 22-36 setup myself, but my friend says the same thing as you about the gear differences being too large. I can see how this would be true. I found it perfect with the 34, not too big of a jump yet less duplicate gearing than the 22-32. I just wish Shimano made a 34T ring. I'm afraid of using a Blackspire ring now.
 
#12 ·
BaeckerX1 said:
Kinda defeats one of the purposes of getting a bashguard imo. One of the benefits is not slicing your leg open with the big ring in a crash. I can't imagine putting on something that seems even MORE dangerous than my big ring. :rolleyes: The Straitline actually doesn't look as bad as others I've seen though, but still, I second the recommendation of the e13 TurboCharger.
The Straitline serrated bash is hardly 'serrated' at all (I have one on my full sus bike and the octagonal one on my ht), it just has a row of bumpy ridges, I don't see how they'd grip anything really.
 
#13 ·
Okay, so based on the responses I've read, I'll probably go with a 22T-34T Middle. Any good 34T rings that will go good with my current SLX setup. I'm assuming I can just leave the 22T Shimano that is already on there or is it a good idea to replace both the middle and small ring using the same manufacturer?
 
#14 · (Edited)
Alot of people recommended the Blackspire Super Pro, so that's what I used and I really liked it, until this happened. I'm still not sure what was the cause. I had lost 2 chainring bolts at the end of the ride. It was a super rocky and fast downhill after a long climb. I'm not sure if I just didn't tighten the chainring bolts enough, and one came out, then caused the other to break due to increased stress, or if I hit something really hard. The bolts certainly weren't over-torqued. There were no significant marks on my bash that I could see. I replaced the crankset with an XT, and was actually going to put on the same ring, except when I looked at it, the Blackspire had hairline cracks on the inside of all the bolt holes. I'm pretty sure it was a fluke, but I'm kind of leery of using another Blackspire ring on my new XT crankset. I haven't found any better options for a ramped 34T 9 speed chainring yet, but I'm looking.
 

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#16 ·
Blksocks said:
Looks as if one of your crank arms got slammed and caused stress on the bolts which tore your crank and chain ring.
Possibly. That's what I'm wondering. That sounds feasible. I do remember having a particularly hard pedal strike. I actually posted a thread in the Drivetrain forum on this issue because I'm curious what people's thoughts are. Thanks.
 
#17 ·
Baecker that looks nasty!! Thanks for the tip on the 34t middle ring. After my experiences with the 36t, thought that a 34t could be the happy medium. Only reason I haven't yet is that the only rings available in that size from blackspire have to be run as a set (22-34) which was just a bit more than I wanted to shell out to get 2 more teeth on my middle ring.
 
#18 ·
Oceanminded, there is always one other option.... I happen to use my big ring to get between the local ride areas. Rather than drop the 44, I picked up a "4th ring." I prefer the one by Purely Custom...I'm a Clyde and I have no issues with taking on logs, etc. with this set-up and I know it works on an SLX (that's what I'm running).

If you need the extra clearance, then drop the 3rd ring and go for something like a Turbo Charger or BBG. If not (or you want to keep the big ring option), a "4th ring" is an alternative.
 
#19 ·
I went xt 26/36/48, 180mm, and put on a blackspire lite god bash in place of the 48. running an 11-32 rear, and I have no issues climbing. Even with the front 26, I don't use the 32 often for climbing. If you're not using the 22/34 rear combo regularly, the 26 front works nicely for using the whole range of the rear cassette for trail riding.

I found the slx 2 speed front dérailleur shifted nicer than the 3 speed xt, but that could've been from the xt being fairly old. The slx was the only easily available 2 speed at the time, and has a smaller cage that lets you run it closer to the chainrings without hitting things like the rear swingarm.
 
#20 ·
BaeckerX1 said:
Alot of people recommended the Blackspire Super Pro, so that's what I used and I really liked it, until this happened. I'm still not sure what was the cause. I had lost 2 chainring bolts at the end of the ride. It was a super rocky and fast downhill after a long climb. I'm not sure if I just didn't tighten the chainring bolts enough, and one came out, then caused the other to break due to increased stress, or if I hit something really hard. The bolts certainly weren't over-torqued. There were no significant marks on my bash that I could see. I replaced the crankset with an XT, and was actually going to put on the same ring, except when I looked at it, the Blackspire had hairline cracks on the inside of all the bolt holes. I'm pretty sure it was a fluke, but I'm kind of leery of using another Blackspire ring on my new XT crankset. I haven't found any better options for a ramped 34T 9 speed chainring yet, but I'm looking.
That sucks, for as many people that run a SLX crank, yours is the first one I've seen broken. Have you contacted Shimano about warranty?
 
#22 ·
b-kul said:
thats what i was gonna say. must have been one hell of an impact to wreck the spider.
The common consensus from the drivetrain forum is that it was due to loose chainring bolts, which was one of my thoughts as well. So make sure to loctite and check these bolts every so often. :p I didn't even think to check my chainring bolts when doing my normal routine bolt tightening.

I think you all can still be confident in the SLX crankset. I ran it for 2.5 years without issue, and this failure doesn't seem to be the fault of the crankset in this case.
 
#23 ·
BaeckerX1 said:
The common consensus from the drivetrain forum is that it was due to loose chainring bolts, which was one of my thoughts as well. So make sure to loctite and check these bolts every so often. :p I didn't even think to check my chainring bolts when doing my normal routine bolt tightening.

I think you all can still be confident in the SLX crankset. I ran it for 2.5 years without issue, and this failure doesn't seem to be the fault of the crankset in this case.
makes sense, i could see a loose bolt and big hit doing that. im not gonna go rush to check my deores though, if i do that i'll have an excuse to upgrade. :D
 
#25 ·
mtskibum16 said:
I just installed a bashguard this weekend on my XT cranks. I got the BBG standard bashguard for a 32 tooth ring. Super easy to install (like 5 minutes), cheap ($18 shipped), and no need for longer bolts. For what I ride I never find myself shifting to the big front ring so I see no need to change my 32 to a 36 or something. If you do you can always change it later but you might want to keep that in mind and order a 36 tooth bashguard just in case. The BBG seems to get lots of love on here. Do a search for bashguards and it's sure to be a favorite of most threads you look at.

http://www.bbgbashguard.com/Mountainbike.html
Is there any reason to put on a 44T bashguard? My buddy says I should, but the 36 sounds like a better idea to me.
 
#26 ·
When I went 2x9 last fall I did it the easy way 32/22 front 11/34 rear. I also shortened my chain 6 links! I noticed less chain slap and noise and I had better shifting too. On my 2nd attemp I went 38/26 front and will go down to 36/26 soon because of chain rub on the front deraileur. I'd stick with increments of 10 like 34-24 and so. BBG guards are just ok me. When I hit the guard (32t) on rocks big chunks come off and sometimes the guard bends inward and rubs on the chain. But only18$! For my 38t I picked a grinder and buffed an old 44t (7075 alu) ring. I expect it to be a lot stiffer than the BBG.
 
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