Originally Posted by bccycleguy
You'll have to stay with 9-speed cassettes as long as you have 9-speed shifters, but there's lots of 9-speed cassettes on the market. I don't think that Shimano (or anyone else for that matter) has a 10-speed MTB groupo on the market yet, but I could be wrong as I don't follow the MTB stuff. The only 10-speed groupos I'm aware of are for road bikes (drop handlebars with brifters). SRAM is comming out with a 10-speed system maybe it'll include a 10-speed pods for upright handlebars.
XTR is supposed to come out with 10-speed. i saw a picture of a pro's mtb and he was running 10-speed with two chainrings.
pauls components makes a part that converts barcons to thumbshifters. i actually considered this option but i wanted to go with XTR rapidfire more than i wanted the extra cog.
erader