BEATDOWN
GOLD STANDARD: DOES SRAM’S 12-SPEED
BLING HOLD UP OVER TIME?
to 8 cogs, but I doubt there was much controversy. The extra gear came with a switch to wider freehub bodies, so no parts needed to be any thinner, more fragile or more precise. But I did watch 9 speed happen, and I remember thinking it would be the beginning of the end. Chains and cogs had to be narrower, as did the margin of error because shifters needed to
