>>1406656>The nickel provides degree of corrosion resistance but honestly, unlike chains, corrosion has little adverse effects on performance for cassettes.Surface rust really has no bearing of drivetrain life as, on frequently used bikes, those parts wear faster then the damage caused by corrosion. Take a look at attached picture. This is how a chain and cassette looked when I was riding it last year over the winter. What passes for "winter" over here is composed of frequent dips above/below freezing and a lot of snowfall. So everywhere is covered in a slush of road salt which makes a short job on anything. Over this period I just squirt lube to make stuff work and don't get bothered much.
I still use this cassette and chain got scrapped not so long ago, because, as bad as they look, not much damage was really done.
>>1406656>A full aluminum cassette is a bad idea as you will have to throw away the whole cassette once the 11T cog is worn down which will happen very quickly.There were some almost-full aluminium cassettes out there ( brands like Ceradure or Recon come to mind but there were more ). But, as you said - there were weight weenie race-day only stuff.
