Originally Posted by
MNBikeCommuter
You sound like my wife. :-) I'd rephrase it as "I'd suggest you check out a SRAM cassette over a Shimano...."
As for the Shimanos, which cassettes have you used? I've run XT cassettes on my tandem since '01 and each has had the larger sprockets on a spider. I'm not sure how the #2 and #3 sprockets would get bent as the energy transfer is quite far out on the radius of the sprocket. My daughter and I are spinners rather than mashers, so we're also not hard on equipment.
Like your wife, thank you...she must be a wonderful, level headed, easy to get along with, and easily understood person, that loves everyone, and is over the top about riding tandems.
The cassettes we have destroyed were all XT. These were spider types and have the larger sprockets riveted on. Usually they start skipping after a climb. BTW every failure was off-road, but we always bent it straight and finished the ride. These were not failures from extreme mash fests, normal climbing in the mid 80's for rpm. Normally the climb is completed, a shift to more gear is done and it starts skipping. Quick check shows the sprocket folded outward, catching the chain.
FWIW, I've had the XT's bend on single bikes. We run spiderless SRAM stuff with no concerns.
PK