Count ’em, there’s 13 there. You’re excused for having no idea who Chinese drivetrain maker S-Ride is. But while the well-known drivetrain producers like Shimano, SRAM, and now Rotor are fighting to produce the latest & greatest premium 1x mountain bike groupset, S-Ride reworked their existing derailleur to handle a newly machined 13-speed cassette on a budget. They even do a 1×12 MTB drivetrain at a price that’s hard to believe…
S-Ride M700, budget 1×13 MTB drivetrain
The M700 groupset may not look like the most refined complete setup, but it seems to deliver a solid spec while also making upgrading to another gear easy.
While most 12 or 13 speed setups we’ve seen require a new freehub, the S-Ride M700 fits their new cassette on a standard 10/11-speed mountain bike hub with a HG body. That alone is reason enough to give this group a second look.
To do that S-Ride machines a large, hollowed-out upper gearing cluster out of a single block of alloy, that can cantilever over the spokes.
The next three gear cluster of steel cogs gets pinned to an alloy carrier, then five more loose steel cogs. The final gearing breakdown: 11-13-15-17-19-21-24-28-32-40-46-52.
The S-Ride M700 1×13 setup is meant to play nicely with what you already have making it an easy upgrade. Use any 11-speed HG compatible hub, any 12-speed chain on the market (like Rotor’s 13s, cog spacing seems to be the same as 12s), and modern 12-speed-ready crankset & chainring already on the market.
That 13-speed rear derailleur looks to share the same construction as S-Ride’s other derailleurs. Real concrete specs are thin, but it uses a mix of forged & cast alloy body parts with a machined alloy cage and aluminum pulley wheels without any narrow-wide tooth shaping. Geometry-wise it features a horizontal parallelogram and an offset upper pulley to maintain constant distance to the cogs across the wide-ranging cassette. It does not include a separate, adjustable external clutch mechanism, but refers to a ‘chain stabilizer’.
We tossed the three 1×13 components on our scale, and they weighed in at 287g for the rear derailleur, 408g for the 11-52T cassette & 124g for the 13-speed trigger shifter.
How much will a 1×13 setup cost you?
The only other single ring, 13-speed group you can buy now is Rotor’s. Still only offered for the road, the cheapest possible setup now will cost over $2000, and you’ll have to lace a new wheel. Surprisingly current 1×12 comes at a much lower price, from $250 for a three-piece NX Eagle setup to a surprisingly affordable $770 XTR 1×12 upgrade kit, assuming you can buy the right freehub bodies for your current rear wheel.
So, S-Ride’s new M700 1×13 components? They should set you back $780 including the 13-speed rear derailleur, 13-speed 11-52T cassette, and righthand 13-speed shifter.
What about 1×12?
That does sound like a lot when you stack it up to current XTR or the super affordable NX Eagle, but remember both of those are still 12-speed. If you want affordable 1×12, S-Ride also makes a $288 M600 combo (rear derailleur+shifter+cassette) with an 11-52T cassette, a $225 M510 combo with an 11-50T, even some M600 combo with an 11-50T as low as $190.
There’s even a 1×11 M520 derailleur with 11-46T or 11-50T cassettes made to work with Shimano 5800 shifters.
So how do you get ahold of any S-Ride drivetrain components to try them for yourself? S-Ride is currently working on developing European distribution. But for the time being they say that Aliexpress is a viable distribution channel. That sounds shady to us (and the 1×13 stuff isn’t there yet anyway.) Clearly S-Ride is still built more like an OEM supplier than a company working to deliver straight to consumers. Maybe the next mountain bike you pass at Walmart will be spec’ed with a wide-ranging 1×13 groupset?!
