Unite Components are a small outfit based on the Welsh-Shropshire Border producing high quality chain rings and guides.
Pete has been testing one through the Scottish winter to see how they fare.
Can small, high-quality companies compete with the massive range of similar products on the market? Pete has been running the Grip Ring and Compact Guide through the colder months to answer that question.
The chainring and guide market is awash with a million and one options for looks, budget and chain retention. The advent of the clutch mech has mostly done away with bottom rollers, and the new breed of guides sport only the top cage. Narrow/Wide rings did their best to kill th guide completely, but they’re not infallible.
This ring/guide combo from Unite Components gives you chain security regardless of the conditions. Narrow/Wide rings, in my experience, only work without a guide if your bike’s suspension system doesn’t produce tonnes of chain growth or there’s not loads of snow about.
At £90 for both, the Unite setup is a high-quality, sensibly-priced option for anybody looking to get a new setup on the front ring, or moving from multi to single ring. Many chain guides cost much more than that alone, plus these are made on home turf.
Grip Ring.
- £40.00 RRP
- 30, 32 (tested), 34 and 36t options.
- Narrow/Wide teeth.
- Hard anodized 7075-T6 alloy.
- 40g (32t, 104 BCD)
- 9, 10 and 11-speed compatible.
It’s often hard to find fault with a chain ring, there really isn’t an awful lot to go wrong, and this ring has shone even when jammed with snow. Something the XT ring it replaced did not.
Fitting was easy, in fact, I didn’t even take the cranks off the bike to get it on. The hard anodising is more than just a bullet point on the website. After months of grinding through Scottish slop, the teeth are only just starting to show signs of wear.
I would happily run this without a guide.
Compact Guide.
- £50.00 RRP.
- E-type and ISCG 05 (tested) options.
- CNC’d 6082 Alloy backplate.
- Engineering plastic slider.
- Compatible with oval rings.
- Takes 30-36t rings.
- 50g+ depending on model.
Anybody that has struggled to fit chain guides in the past will maybe fall head over heels for the Compact Guide. This guide only uses two of the three ISCG tabs that not only helps reduce weight, it also means you can fit it, like the ring, without removing the cranks.
Spacers aren’t your usual cheap steel washers, but CNC’d inserts of varying widths, specifically designed to hook over the bolts while you tighten them in place. A very nice touch indeed. My only request would be to add a middle width spacer to the two thick and single thin spacer, just owing to the spacing on my long term test bike.
Setup was easy once the spacing was sorted, and the device runs quiet and smooth, the only noise coming when mud has found its way inside, but is quickly pushed out.
What we think:
All in all, a cheap, light, high-quality, UK-made setup that should definitely be on the list for your next drive train upgrade. Both would work equally as well on their own, but really come together when run in tandem.
Buy Unite Components gear online here.
How do we test products at Wideopenmag?
Great question. Everything you see reviewed on Wideopenmag is tested by a small, regular group of trusted reviewers. We pick our reviewers based on their experience of riding a wide-range of products and ability to look at products clearly and sensibly without getting caught up in fashion and hype. We pick people that can cut through marketing schpiel, ride loads and can talk to you guys in plain, honest english about their findings. You can find the reviewer at bottom of the page where a review is published.
As of Feb 17 our testers are Jamie (our editor), Pete (our web editor), Rosie Holdsworth (fast, experienced female racer and 2016 Red Bull Foxhunt winner) and Rich Thomas (ex-Team Wideopenmag captain and life-long elite downhiller).
Brands will send us products to review (sometimes we’ll ask to review the products we’re keen to show you guys, sometimes brands will ask us to review something they think you want to see) and we’ll pick the best test pilot for the product.
Bike time is essential. We’ll get our test pilot to thrash the living daylights out of their test product and give us regular feedback on ease of installation, performance on the trail, longevity and value for money. They’ll ride in the wet and dry. They’ll ride their local loop and spend time on unfamiliar trails. They’ll often try the product on various different bikes and styles of riding.
Where you see ‘First Ride’ reviews we’ve typically ridden the product for a few weeks and have formed a decent opinion of the product’s performance … but haven’t ridden it for long enough to fully test its long-term performance over time. When you see a ‘Long Term’ review you know the product has been tested over several months and had a really thorough, long term hammering.
All of our product photos in our reviews will featured used components – we don’t shoot box-fresh, studio shots. Why? Simple. We want you guys to see that our reviews are legit. Everything gets ridden loads, gets a proper hammering and goes through the ringer before we talk to you about it.
