Instead of using a thick thin profiled tooth design, Shimano use a very deep trough that is slightly hooked forwards slightly. This means as the chain and ring wear, the chainring won’t lose effectiveness. Shimano say that they do not guarantee you won’t lose your chain with this system, but ours has been as good as gold to date. Bear in mind that performance on a hardtail, or with certain suspension designs may affect this.

Our rear mech has glanced off several rocks through the summer – some were hits that we half expected to lose the mech completely. As a result, our mech does have a small amount of play, but it shifts just as cleanly . The clutch mechanism has also remained tight, and we’ve not needed to manually adjust tension to date. If we’re being picky, we would say the rear mech is one of the uglier designs out there, but it really does work excellently.

Unlike the SRAM 11 speed cassettes that use a 10-42 spread, Shimano use an 11tooth sprocket in order to continue using the conventional cassette body design. This is great for users on a budget, and in case you wonder the Shimano cassette does work with a SRAM chain, and mech. And vice versa. Shifting has been flawless from the £80 cassette – although as our test bike is also used for commuting we did miss the 10tooth that SRAM offer. If you rarely spin out your biggest gears, you can live without it.

Shimano shifters always have a good feel, although the shifting action can be a little light for some. The 11 speed Xt shifter has a reassuring clunk about it though, and a very smooth action. We love that the down-shift lever allows for double down shifts – though it only does this if pushed with your thumb. Using your index finger will only change a single gear. As big fans of the XTR shifter, we’d rather it could double shift both ways, but it’s still one-up on SRAM’s single click action. The i-Sync II system is great for mounting the lever, though we did have to take a file to the inside edge of the clamp as it was scoring carbon bars.

Even with the press fit BB90, we never suffered from a creaky BB, and our unit is still perfectly smooth. The cranks too are as straight as new, and we’ve not had chainring bolts rattle loose. The finish is starting to dull down a little toward to top of the cranks where certain shoes rub on the cranks – but nowhere near as badly as the XTR cranks. Our cranks are still black, and look good.

As we mentioned, we’ve avoided maintenance as much as possible – only clearing off the worst mud and grime and leaving enough trail scum on there to unveil problems. Nothing to report though – the Shimano XT 11 speed drive train is working a treat.

Alp d’Huez earlier this year was the driest we’ve ever seen. The lower wooded section of the Megavalanche course dried out everything to the point of squeaking, but a little lube and the XT transmission was back to business. Photo | Callum Jelley

Verbier was on the damp side compared to the dusty French trails we’ve ridden this year, but not enough to put a dampener on the XT performance. Only a few rock strikes questioned things – a bent lower jockey cage was bent back by hand, and still works just as it did originally. Photo | Callum Jelley

£402.93 as you see it. Impeccable shifting; near silent running and keeps on churning. We’re now going to fully clean up this drivetrain, and install it on a new test frame. We’ve no doubt it will be fit and forget again.