Classified Powershift hub goes 12-speed

Classified’s Powershift hub has now gone 12 speed, with four one-piece steel cassettes revealed today. 

With two internal gears, the rear hub replicates the gear change of shifting between chainrings, allowing the front derailleur to be dispensed with while still retaining that wider range. The main benefits of the system are faster shifting, the ability to shift under load, as well as improving the chainline when riding in the larger sprockets of the cassette.

The new 12-speed cassettes are compatible with the current Powershift rear hub, so customers will be able to easily replace their current cassettes for one with an extra sprocket.

Currently, these are only rated for use with SRAM 12-speed groupsets, as Classified “cannot confirm other manufacturers at this stage”.

The cassettes are available in four sizes: 11–28, 11–30, 11–32, and 11–34. This is quite different to the offerings from SRAM – which feature a diminutive 10t smallest sprocket and have the option of a 36t sprocket as the largest size.

So while the 12-speed Classified system may not have the potential for quite as broad a band of gears as SRAM can offer with its X-range gearing, Classified can, nevertheless, almost exactly match SRAM’s combination of 48/35 chainrings paired to a 10–33t cassette.

With a 52 tooth chainring and an 11–34t cassette, you get a range of 451%, compared to SRAM’s 453% range in the described setup. A difference of this size would be essentially imperceptible when riding. 

With a 52 chainring, both the top and the bottom gears are slightly smaller than the equivalent SRAM gears. Swapping in a 54t chainring, on the other hand, would give slightly larger top and bottom gears. But no matter the chainring size, the 11–34t cassette offers smaller and more consistent jumps between the gears than you get with a 10–33t cassette.

A full break down of the cassette progressions is below:

• 11–28t: 11-12-13-14-15-16-18-20-22-24-26-28
• 11–30t: 11-12-13-14-15-16-18-20-22-24-27-30
• 11–32t: 11-12-13-14-15-16-18-20-22-25-28-32
• 11–34t: 11-12-13-14-15-17-19-21-24-27-30-34

You can find Classified’s website here for more information about the system.