It is possible that it was pre-production model. I did not get any instructions with it. But I've wrenched for world cup teams and I know how to setup a guide. I'm pretty sure that the skidplate exploding was not a setup issue! And I was using it with an M980 2x crank... Could it be that this guide is designed to work with Sram cranks and not Shimano?

they are loud and fragile!

This is pretty much a homemade chainguide!!! Buy an alloy pulley, some spacers, nuts and bolts, and a one foot square of 5mm carbon fiber sheet for about $30... You'll need a drill press, a belt sander, a hacksaw and some patience. Use an old chainguide backplate to make a template, trace all the bits out on the carbon sheet and rough cut everything out with the hacksaw. Then smooth and shape the parts on the belt sander. Drill out the mounting holes. Assemble. Install. Ride. I made one just like this in High school. Lasted about a week, just like the weeze will!

The Xguide review is completely biased. That guide is an spectacular failure. Its fragile, the skip plate doesn't handle the impacts at all and is designed so the lower guide rips off when you slide over logs. If you don't manage to rip it off, it'll fall off on its own as soon as it gets mucked up the pulleys spin the bolt out. It wears out fast, very fast, probably because shifting a chain back and forth over dinky plastic pulleys is stupid. The spacing between the two pulleys is wider than the spacing between two chainrings, so it will never be setup right. The chain rides in between the pulleys. The inner pulley should have been larger than the outer and it should have been made as one piece so the chain would shift smoothly. After 15 rides on Seymour mine was finished. I gave it to the neighbour kid to have as spare parts. I'm just glad I didn't pay a cent for it since it was a sample sram gave to my friends at ***** ******** bikes and they had no interest in using it so they passed it onto me. Call any bike shop on the N.Shore and they will tell you the same thing. My confidence in Mike's reviews has been shattered!

You can get a blackspire der guide for $150 it weighs a gram less than the MRP carbon and its ALUMINUM!!! The guys I ride with on the shore have been testing them for a year now and they swear by it. Less weight, less cost, and twice as durable as carbon!

Only problem with the straitline is when it wears in a bit the slider contacts the rollers in the chain and because bicycle chains are bushingless, it wears the chain out prematurely :(

This is by far the best mag you can buy! Awesome quality content and you don't feel like your being bombarded with BS on every second page.

except for that straitline is a side business and their main business is producing surgical grade parts which has massive margins and more than pays for their fancy and incredibly unneccessary robot. Do the math! $3 of aluminum + $1 axle + (2x $0.05) bushings + $2 pins + $1 hardware + $0.5 Anodizing + $0.25 laser etching + $1 packaging = $8.85 per pedal, so $17.70 a pair and they double that to cover manufacturing costs and make a profit, so $35.40 total cost. Sell it to a distributor for that and it gets marked up to shops for $53.10 and they mark it up to retail $106.20 That is the reality of it. So either they are getting ripped off by all their suppliers and that makes the price high, or they are marking it up twice as much because of greed. Although with all those "safety breaks" it could be they have to mark up more to cover the costs of all the screw ups! No I didn't get stuck with the "safety break" pair, the shop did cuz I wouldn't take home pedals that were useless. And they are still waiting for the replacement axle. And apparently Cove bikes got stuck with some "safety break" pairs too, they had them on one of the bikes at interbike and were pretty embarassed about it!

They look amazing!!! But nothing about these pedals justifies the price. The igus bushings are a fraction of the cost of the bearing and teflon bushing that most pedals use and they feel cheap in comparison. Material cost of the body, axle and pins should be no different than any other pedal, there is nothing special about them! And when you get a pair, open the box to discover that both left and right pedals have left axles, leaving you waiting for a replacement because they were too stoned when they assembled them! These should not be a cent over $100

LOL...she hates PINKBIKE!