Marchisio Cassettes?

nickwill

I've just changed to a 50 34 compact from a triple on my best bike, and am in a dilemna about which cassette to put on. At present it has a 12 25, which combined with the triple has got me over the worst that sportives like the Fred Whitton can offer.
As I'm planning a number of hilly sportives for next year, culminating in the Raid Pyrenean in September, I'm looking at a bigger cassette. I can't bring myself to fit a 13 29 on the bike ( it would just look wrong), and the only other campag alternative is a 13 26. Ideally, I would like a 12 27, but the only way to get one would be to fit a custom Marchisio cassette at over £100. Does anyone have any experience with them. I'm particularly keen to know how smoothly they shift with Campag, and how well they wear. Any advice would be appreciated.

Captain Fagor

Nickwill - I have a 50-36 Record carbon chainset married with a 11-29 Pro-lite Montechiaro cassette on my Merlin (not the same as a Marchisio, I know). It isn't as bad looking as you might think, and shifts fine.

http://www.pro-lite.net/content/cassette.shtml

peanut

I know what you mean. Its frustrating isn't it when the perfect gear solution doesn't appear to be available !

As you say 29 is too big (vanity ) and 25 just doesn't seem quite enough at times. 27 does seem to be a good solution .
I wonder if it is possible to build up a 12-27 10 speed using 8 speed EXA drive sprockets and thinner 10 spd spacers. ? might be a slight weight disadvantage but it would be a helluva lot cheaper solution than Marchisio Sheldon's site has lots of sprocket charts with various solutions ,some requiring a bit of filing or grinding of the sprocket tabs .

might have a go at this myself actually I fancy a 11-27t


http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/k7.html#10
http://www.branfordbike.com/cassette/cog18.html[/url]

henderson_mk

i think that the sram og1070 cassette does an 11-28 ratio if thats of interest to anyone?

henderson_mk

ps. captain F - where'd you manage to get the prolite in that ratio?

Captain Fagor

henderson_mk wrote:

ps. captain F - where'd you manage to get the prolite in that ratio?

eBay - got it for a snip!

mercsport

FWIW . When I got some Nucleon wheels ages ago and poshed everything off with Record , in short order I managed to crunch through two Record cassettes ( ..broken teeth ) . Salvation arrived when I opted for a self build Marchisio cassette - 11 x 28 with the standard derailleur ( it shouldn't have worked , but it did . Still does ) . It was super .
This summer after building the Litespeed I binned the 13 x 26 Campag block and built up another block for the CT system and made it 11 x 26 . Again , faultless . I have a 27 t. in waiting . As for smoothness : I can't tell the difference .
Advantages over Campag are that they're as light as the Record , and in my experience , tougher . Also that little bit cheaper . Incredibly easy to put together but mostly it's the fact that aside from being compelled to marry a 12 t onto the 11 t , the rest of it is whatever you want it to be and not be forced to buy Campag's pairs of sprockets to change anything or be limited by Campag's small pallette of gear spreads .
I noticed that the newer Marchisio block has simpler and beefier spacers for the larger sprockets now and is even easier to build . Top stuff !

nickwill

That sounds very encouraging.
Now to persuade my wife that I need to spend £100 plus on a cassette!

JWSurrey

I was chatting with a LBS owner/rider recently, and he advised me that they'd not had much luck with the Marchisio cassettes.
They were using something else - I'll find out.

Edit: I remember now - it was Miche, but it was more of an aside, so they may just have been testing it. They do seem quite cheap at less than 35 quid with a claimed weight of 250g.
If you go to google, enter miche cassette, and click on "shopping" it comes up with a few UK mail order companies.

As for Pro-Lite, try Tri-and-Run's East London shop for more info - They use and sell a fair bit of Pro-Lite. I think the website is triandrun.co.uk or .com

heavymental

Let us know what you do in the end Nickwill. I'm in the same situation myself so am after a solution which at the moment looks like it might be a Marchisio. Although I'm not too keen on shelling out £100 on a cassette really so I may just go for whatever campag can offer me.

tatanab

I have Marchisio on 3 machines. It enables me to use Campag gearing etc with Shimano hubs.

I have one set up running 7 speed (because Campag 8 will not fit an XTR hub), another with 8 and a newer one with 9. The gear change is more than adequate, although I suspect that a Shimano user would describe it as clunky. This is because the teeth are tall, like on old 5/6 speed blocks with little in the way of ramps etc to aid changing. The benefit is that they are likely to last longer and of course you can change the sprockets individually as they wear.

The benefit to me is that I can construct EXACTLY the cassette that I want, not what comes from some factory. For example, my 9 speed goes 15,16,17,18,19,21,23,25,28. With a 50T ring I still have a top gear of 90 inches which is plenty big enough since I am a small gear spinner.

I have a box of maybe 30 sprockets with various adaptors etc lying around because I bought quite a few on ebay 2 years ago when people came back from riding the etape or similar and decided they no longer needed the little used Marchisio kit. There has not been much on ebay this year, so perhaps people are hanging on to it now, or maybe not buying it because it is not advertised.

wildmoustache

Guys ... Mavic also do conversion cassettes as do Wheels Manufacturing.

The other option is to use a JTEK shiftmate ... I have one of these for campag hub > Sh cassette but have never used it. people say they work flawlessly

in theory at least a good idea as you get to use the 12-27 Dura Ace cassette which is as light as the record half Ti cassette and half the price and has a 27 rather than a 26.

pete.whelan

one of the internet shops in Germany sell the Marchisio kit very cheaply compared to UK sources. Try RoseVersand www.rose.de

henderson_mk

help me out in my idiocy :-)
do you have a direct link?

Raph

Has anyone here tried BBB cassettes? They don't seem to sell individual sprockets, but they say the sprockets are all separate (as in no pairs or triples on a carrier), so what I've done is I've got a 11-28 and a 16-24 and will mix and match when I get them. Total cost £42 inc post from Parker. I don't know what the quality or weight is like.

Check http://www.bbbparts.com/

aracer

Try http://clemenzo.com/index.php/index.php?lang=en - Marchisio cassettes from as little as 67 Euros (~£50). Alternatively lighter versions for 107 or 129 Euros (Parker sell the 107 Euro version for £109!)

(that address found as first hit for Marchisio on Google - if you couldn't find that you really weren't trying!)

heavymental

Ah ok, So I could get a BBB 11-23 and a 13-28 and mix them up. Would that work out ok? Let us know how you get on Raph.

Nelson Longflap

Cost and versatilty aside - are they actually any good? That is, do they shift positively and quickly without a ramping profile, and are they as durable as, say, Campagnolo and Shimano?

heavymental

Nice one aracer.

I was thinking of going 11-12-14-16-18-20-22-24-26-28. Seems like a logical spacing to me!? or am I missing something.

So the only difference is the weight between Junior and Aviotek versions?

aracer

I'd go for nearer what I was suggesting earlier - ie 11,12,13,14,15,17,19,22,25,28. Doesn't seem a lot of point in having a 2 tooth jump from 12 to 14 where it's a 17% difference, and still only a 2 tooth jump from 26 to 28 where it's a 8% difference.

Do you really need that 11 sprocket though? 110rpm in 50/12 is 36mph, and I'd suggest after that you should just coast on any ride where you need the 28 at the other end, in which case you can use my original suggestion for a 12-28 in http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtop ... c&start=43

As far as I can make out from that site, the only real difference between the different Marchisio cassettes is weight (and the difference in cost is simply marketing!)

heavymental

Hmm. I'll have a think then.

I run a 11-28 on my 8 speed shimano setup and it works well for the big stuff when you need to spin up but need something big on the way back down....especially with only a 50 on the front.

Guess as per your suggestion, its good to have a smaller range in the cruising gears. Care to explain to a maths numpty why there's a difference in percentage difference at the 12/12 end compared to the 26/28 end? Not sure I know what you mean there.

aracer

14/12 * 100 = ~117
28/26 * 100 = ~108

What that means in real terms is that your leg speed will change more when shifting from the 12 to the 14 than when changing from the 26 to the 28 - the 12 to 14 jump is actually the same as if you had a 24 to 28 jump. What's more, I find that I mind big jumps less at the big end of the cassette, where typically you might be grinding a bit before changing down and going to a spin is a relief, compared to at the little end where typically you're riding at speed and trying to keep a spin going.

heavymental

oh ok. I geddit. Maybe I'll go with your suggestion then and order it from Clemenzo. Seems like a good solution to the problem anyway and going that way means its not prohibitively expensive.

vanleapo

If you don't want to replace your whole cassette, then it's possible to buy individual Marchisio sprockets from http://www.webbline.co.uk/cassettes_chains.asp
I switched the smallest sprocket on my Record cassette last year from a 13 to a 12 and it worked perfectly.
I know some of the sprockets on a Record cassette are connected together, but it's alot cheaper to buy 3 sprockets than buying a whole new cassette.

Steve928

Yeah that's what I do too.

I've added a 24T Aviotek sprocket plus 27T and 28T last position Aviotek sprockets to my existing Campag 12-25 and 13-26 cassettes to get 8 usable combinations e.g. 12-25, 12-27, 13-28 etc..

I got mine direct from Clemenzo - very good service. I use the Aviotek spacers with each Aviotek sprocket and Campag spacers with Campag sprockets. In theory that gives a miniscule mis-alignment at each inteface between a C and an M sprocket, but I can't detect it either by measuring or in use.

The only strange thing is that you can get all Marchisio sprockets from 11 though 30, except 29. A 29T would be good too given that Campag rear mechs can handle it.

heavymental

I guess as I don't yet have a cassette I might aswell just buy a Marchisio 11(or 12)-28 rather than adapting a standard Campag cassette. Unless there's another issue here?

heavymental

Hmm..they now do a MTK and MTKL...optimised for 10 speed shifting. More expensive at 89euros (or 129euros with aluminium spacers). I wonder if it shifts any better...although by the sound of it, nobody here has problems with the Junior/Aviotek when shifting?

Ken Night

vanleapo wrote:

If you don't want to replace your whole cassette, then it's possible to buy individual Marchisio sprockets from http://www.webbline.co.uk/cassettes_chains.asp
I switched the smallest sprocket on my Record cassette last year from a 13 to a 12 and it worked perfectly.
I know some of the sprockets on a Record cassette are connected together, but it's alot cheaper to buy 3 sprockets than buying a whole new cassette.

Can you stick a Marchisio in the middle, where one's fave sprocket is starting to get snaggly?

vanleapo

Can you stick a Marchisio in the middle, where one's fave sprocket is starting to get snaggly?[/quote]

I don't see why not.

Depending what type of cassette you are using you may have to change out a few sprockets if any of them are connected together.

mercsport

BTW , if you're wearing out sprockets you'll be wearing out chains too . Have you checked for wear ? ' Stretch ' specifically . Creeps up on you and unnoticeable until you come to change the chain and discover all the teeth - big rings too - have to be renewed .
Unrelated to the last few posts ,but as it's fresh in my head -as I've just put on the photo's - here's a photo of the Marchisio cassette I built a few months ago . http://picasaweb.google.com/f.bruce.mil ... 0595183090[/url]

proto

This thread is making me feel very old and feeble

How on earth do you guys manage to push an 11 tooth sprocket? That would be way overgeared for me, and I suspect for just about everybody below pro/elite standard. I came to the conclusion that I could even live without the 12 for the very few times I'd ever use it (steep downhill and following wind), so opted for the 13/26 Chorus route with 50/34 chainset.

If you're racing then your needs may be different but a 122" gear is massive, really huge. Kids must be getting bigger, not so long ago 108" (52/13) was considered 'a big gear'.