Originally Posted by
ericcc65
Thanks everyone. I know it's a little outside the scope of the original question, but does it matter what type of 10 speed cassette I get? I can go the mtn route and get an XT 11-32 or 34 cassette, but I also notice there are Tiagra 10 speed cassettes that go to 11-32 (or SRAM road cassettes). I've seen some threads say it doesn't matter and others say that it does matter, that I need to get a road cassette.
It doesn't matter for 10 speed, they'll both fit on a standard 8/9/10 freehub body.
The big differences are in materials, and therefore durability and weight. The cheaper cassettes have more steel cogs, and more separate cogs. The more expensive cassettes use more aluminum cogs, often mounted together on spiders. Aluminum cogs wear down more quickly than steel ones, but weigh less. Your choice.
Personally, I use XT CS-M771 cassettes. The cogs are mounted to a couple aluminum spiders.
They're ~$45 online, but can be found cheaper from the german bike sites (like bike-discount.de). Obviously, shipping is more expensive from zee germans (~$23 for bike-discount.de), so I pool purchases together and make one big order from them.