I'm familiar with the levels of components for Shimano road bikes: Sora, Tiagra, 105, Ultegra, Ultegra SL, Dura Ace.

What are the level of components from bottom to top for Shimano MTB?

Where does Deore lie? What about compared to Deore LX or XT or XTR?

https://bike.shimano.com/

Deore is next to the bottom.

"Deore is not next to the bottom !" You still have Alivio, Acera, Altus, and Tourney. Deore is the start of the real deal in parts. And not only is it the real deal, but they are cheap, work very well and hold up to extreme riding. Out of the many bikes I own, just to give you a idea. I have one MTN bike with standard Deore components and another with full blown XT. While I will admit, when the XT bike is "fully tuned" works way better then the Deore bike. The Deore bike requires "Waaaaay" less maintenance. So unless you are racing, Deore is more than fine.

But to give you the latest break down from best to worst. XTR, XT SLX, Deore,Alivio,Acera,Altus,Tourney. And in the previous years,LX now renamed by SLX was just above Deore. Now the new LX stuff is for treking, whatever that is supossed to be.

Yeah, Deore stuff sits in the middle.

Not top of the range, but not the worst either.

I agree, but Shimano's website does make it look that way. Bring up their site, go Products->Mountain Bike. Alivio is at the bottom of the list, and Deore sits right on top. You have to go over to the Tech Docs menus to discover that there are also Acera, Altus, Tourney, etc.

For some reason, at least in their product info pages, Shimano pretends there is nothing less than Alivio.

When answering the OP's question, it is the bottom.

They are not bad parts, I still have a 9 year old Deore drivetrain with 1000's of miles that functions great.

Something's amuck here. XT is more durable. Will hold a tune longer. I would believe it if you said XT works better than XTR wiyh minimal tuning. My experience with XT is that it will operate better longer than LX or Deore. Deore and LX can be tuned to work dang near side by side with XT...but won't be smooth nearly as long as XT.

My experience.

LX will be discontinued and SLX will take over. there's word that in 2011, Shimano will come out with XTR 10spd.

Will LX be discontinued entirely? I had been under the impression that Shimano had decided to reassign the LX label to one of their trekking groups.

So where do Saint and Hone fit into the line-up? At one time I was told Saint was a notch below LX. According to the website it looks like it's higher than XT. Not sure about Hone.
I agree with the positive comments about Deore. I've made a one level change from Alivio to Deore front DR on one bike and rear DR on another and was surprised at the noticable imporvement.

Not discontinued... you have it right.

https://images.channeladvisor.com/Sel...set175mm_4.jpg

Word has it that LX is discontinued in the U.S. the new LX that you'll find over seas is more for Touring Bikes. if you've seen them in the US please post a link to it. I know i havent seen any 09's with this LX Line.

"Shimano's new SLX gear had left LX as a bit of a fifth wheel in the Japanese giant's MTB armoury, so the decision was made to rebrand the groupset as touring and urban kit. Overall it's a good full groupset in a sector where manufacturers normally have to use a bit of a mix-and match approach to spec. Expect to see it adorning plenty of £700-£1000 urban steeds in 2009."

^^ Yeah, it's just on their Euro site, not N.America...

https://cycle.shimano-eu.com/publish/.../deore_lx.html

Saint is Shimano's top DH/FR group. Hone is like Saint Lite...not quite as burly as Saint and a little lighter weight, but still able to take more punishment than the others.

My weight weenie XC bike came with a Hone crankset. Huh... (For the record, it's on the DJ now).

Even in the Euro site, LX is discontinued as an MTB Group:

I see they have that silly Yumeya stuff on there.

I agree with you! i rather drink a cup of $99cent coffee b4 a ride, take a huge dump and get more weight savings than paying all that money for the Yumeya Crap

Yumeya. For those who could never be seen in public riding plain old XTR.

(Gotta admit I am a fan anyway...)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupset