The telephone company was the first to rub its hands: brothers Yozo and Yoshizo Shimano spent four hours on the phone. For four hours, Yoshizo talked about the American hippies who were hurtling down the Californian mountains on their self-built clunker bikes. A trend that supposedly spread like wildfire. At home, brother Yozo paid more attention to the second hand than to the sensational innovations from the USA. In the background, the phone bill got bigger and bigger. But Yoshizo had a new mission: he wanted to design the world's first bike gearstick, even if it meant sinking many dollars down the drain.
Those who previously laboured their bikes over the trails had few alternatives. Their knees were on fire from single-speed excesses, a three-speed gear system was clipped into the rear triangle or a delicate road bike gear shook at the dropout of the frame.
In 1982, just one year after the phone call, the Japanese company presented the first "XT" groupset at the trade fairs in New York and Milan. The name "XT M700" ("Cross Terrain") sounds so simple - and yet it represents a milestone. The development was based on existing racing bike groupsets and made them suitable for off-road use. In practice, it looked like this: Six steps on the handlebar shifter rattled above the screw-on sprocket, three chainrings turned the mountain bike into a mountain bike in the first place and downhill, cantis now gripped instead of shoe soles or steaming drum brakes. Only the optional frame shifters seemed a little dusty in the mountain bike group.
The development itself was driven by Joe Breeze and Gary Fisher. The bike pioneers tested the prototypes until they were ready for series production. Getting there was not always easy: sometimes the grease steamed out of the rear wheel hubs like in a deep-fat fryer or the cantilevers were more of a pain in the arse than a strong grip. A constant exchange between the testers in the USA and the Japanese engineers determined the development. Fisher and Co. scrapped the components and sent the individual parts back to Osaka. The developers there improved the parts and sent them back again - until the next breakage.
Little by little, one childhood illness after another was cured: be it the chain that wouldn't come off the chainrings or the rear derailleur that refused to work in muddy conditions.
The "XT" has been rattling around the world's bikes for 25 years now and is the epitome of reliability. For years, the groupset has been the class leader among components. It only faced competition from within its own ranks: The "XTR" replaced the "XT" in pole position. Almost everything about the "XT" has changed. What has remained is the name - and the fan community.
Text: Björn Scheele
