Review: E13 TRS+ 12-speed 9-46 cassette

Clearly 2-piece construction and somewhat polarizing looks. Myself,  I think the cassette is ugly, but functional.

Looking for an option to your expensive Eagle cassette that is both light on the wallet and on the bike? E13 to the rescue! They released their 12-speed Eagle compatible TRS+ cassettes early this year and it didn't take long for my favorite online shops in Germany to stock them. I picked up a TRS+ 9-46 cassette with a Kaban / YBN chain from Bike-Components in June and have been riding and testing the cassette since with first rotating a Sram GX chaing and a YBN chain, which proved to be a disappointing affair lasting only ~1000 km before it was stretched over half a link and had to be ditched. The GX is still going strong, even though it's not the best chain out there. I'm expecting to get about 1500 km from it and have already bought a new GX and X01 chain to rotate on the bike next.

The cassette weighs in at 336g, which is lighter than Sram XX1, and costs ~200 EUR at most online shops like Bike-Components, including the E13 branded, but YBN / Kaban made and honestly crappy chain. This is still about 60% of the price of a new XX1 "wear kit", so if you're looking at €/g saved, it's a good deal.

Cassette build and installation

E13 have come up with a way to include a 9-tooth cog on an XD driver. This means that you can combine the 9-46t cassette with a 30-tooth front chain ring and retain a similar gear range as with Sram's 10-50 and a 32-tooth chain ring, while having a shorter chain and even slightly less weight from it and the smaller chain ring up front. Does it make a big difference? Probably not in real life. Gear spacing is similar to Sram Eagle when you consider the smallest gear is smaller, but also the largest gear is smaller: 9, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 21, 24, 28, 33, 39, 46. Since I bought mine, E13 have also released a 9-50t cassette with even more range.

As one can see from the pictures, the 10 largest gears, or smallest cogs are machined out of a single piece of steel, and joint to the 2 largest aluminum gears via. a theoretically smart form-locking system. In order to lock the halves you first install the large aluminum gear part on the XD freewheel and tighten them down with a 3mm hex grub screw on the splines on the XD driver. You then install the steel portion to the aluminum half by sliding it on the freewheel and aligning a little arrow with the "open lock" symbol laser etched to the aluminum portion. You then rotate the steel cogs in relation to the aluminum portion to align that little arrow with a "closed lock" symbol, and secure the 2 halves together with another 3mm hex screw.

The little hex grub screw that lock the two halves together

E13 have updated the system from the old 11-speed version, which required a special E13 tool. Now you either need a chain whip or a cassette tool to tighten the halves together, which is nice as most home mechanics will already have these in their tool box.

The contact surfaces come pre-greased from the factory. DO NOT WIPE THIS GREASE OFF! It's there to prevent an annoying, and sadly inevitable creak from the mating surfaces. My cassette remained quiet for the first ~1200km and then developed a nasty creak, which could only be quieted down by disassembling the cassette and re-greasing the mating surfaces. So far I have about 3000km on the cassette and I have had to re-grease it 4 times. OK, but in my opinion still unacceptable as original Sram cassettes do not require any such maintenance. I would have preferred a 10-48 or 10-50 range and a regular XD driver style threaded attachment without all the hassle this new wedge system brings with it.

The wedge in the steel half locks in place behind the triangular reinforcement arm you can see here, extending from the center of the cassette to the kidney shaped mating surface.

Removal

Some initial reviews mentioned you need either 2 chain whips, or a chain whip and a cassette tool to remove the cassette from the freehub body. This is not entirely true, as you can also keep the wheel on the bike with the chain on one of the 2 largest cogs, undo the little grub screw holding the halves together and unlocking the halves with a chain while while holding the wheel from rotating with the cranks, as the bike's chain is still in place.

As you may have deducted from my comment about frequent re-greasing above, I have now removed and installed the cassette 4 times with no issues with any other screws. The mating surfaces do show wear, but it's not yet significant, and the nylon bushing that sits inside the steel half has a tendency to remain on the freehub body when the steel portion is removed, but it's easy enough to pry off.

Performance and wear

Like I mentioned I now have about 3000 km on the cassette with 3 different chains and while the cassette does show wear it's not significant and doesn't seem to affect shifting. However, a friend of mine ran a similar E13 cassette with 1 chain for 3000km and his ended up skipping badly with a new chain, and so far has not worn-in to the new chain completely even after about 300km with the new chain. Thus I highly recommend you rotate 2 or even 3 chains to wear the cassette evenly and retain best performance.

As I'm on the topic of rotating chains: It's a good idea to rotate 2 chains every 100km or so to wear them and the cassette equally. This won't increase the kilometers you get from a single chain, but it will help wear the cassette more evenly so that when you do replace the chain, the new chain is less likely to require a break-in period to prevent skipping or ghost shifting. 

Shifting is crisp and accurate, but somehow "clunky" when compared to Sram cassettes. It's about on-par with GX, but definitely noisier and less accurate than X01 or XX1. For some reason both mine and my friend's cassette also seem to like to shift 2 gears down when going from 2nd to 3rd, but the chain quickly pops back from 4th back to the intended 3rd, or 1st steel gear. Back pedaling also sometimes causes the chain to drop a gear, which is something Sram cassettes don't do. Other than that the cassette runs nice and quiet with no skipping or unwanted ticking noises, which sometimes plague GX cassettes.

I'm expecting to get around 5000km from the cassette by rotating chains and so far this seems like a realistic goal. The aluminum portion is available separately, but if you're like me and don't spend much time on the 2 smallest gears I would not expect it to be necessary to replace them before the steel portion has worn down as well.

Conclusion

Would I buy another one of these cassettes? Purely from a performance vs. price vs. weight perspective yes, but if you're after looks and absolutely perfect shifting then no, you're better off sticking to a Sram cassette. As an alternative I think E13 have done a good job, but I would still rather have a 10-tooth smallest cog and do away with the troublesome two piece construction. It would be interesting to compare this to another alternative 12-speed cassette like Garbaruk, KCNC or Rotor. Perhaps the next time I need new cassette, I may just do that!

EDIT: 3.4.2020, the final verdict on the cassette can be found HERE