Old gears - revamp for world tour!

Mcreighton90

Hello!
I'm taking off around the world in a few months. Deliberately bought an old steel frame for durability purpose. It has come with a campagnola group set and has been modified to include 'flight deck' style shifters. I imagine it is a few years old, but seems to be in good working order. No wheels or cassette came with the bike, but I have counted the shifts and it seems on the rear derailleur that it is only a six speed. This is not enough. What I need to know is, is there anyway of increasing this - both on the flight deck shifters and on the rear derail, or would I have to replace the whole group set?

Any help would be appreciated!

Cheers,

Matt

ugo.santalucia

Surely more... indexed systems are 7 minimum (6 clicks)... flight deck is shimano, right?

Mcreighton90

Apologies, my shifters are campagnola - flight deck 'style'.

ugo.santalucia

Mcreighton90 wrote:

Apologies, my shifters are campagnola - flight deck 'style'.

What do you mean by flight deck? You mean the shifters are integrated with the brake levers? If so, Campagnolo is minimum 8 speed... depends on model and period

Mcreighton90

Yes, that's what I mean. I think it is quite old you see, but can't make out the model.

ugo.santalucia

Mcreighton90 wrote:

Yes, that's what I mean. I think it is quite old you see, but can't make out the model.

You can do a bit of homework with google and find out if it is mach 1 or mach 2 model... if it is mach 1 it is likely to be 8 speed... could be Xenon, which did come without the model name on.
Once you have found out the model, you just have to get a cassette with the correct number of speed, whether that is 8 or 9

Mcreighton90

Right, I get you - so in essence, what the shifters are, you have to stick with? There is no way of adjusting the shifters to cater for a bigger cassette?

earthvspace4XTuUWcX

Correct, an 8 speed shifter will only shift 8 gears, 9 speed 9 etc. If you are planning on cycling around the world I would be tempted to start of with a whole new drive train. In fact hub gears, particularly a Rholoff, would be more durable/reliable for an around the world tour, but they are not cheap, and not always easy to fit to standard rear drop outs. What sort of bike have you bought, are you sure it's suitable for what you are planning?

ed_j

For cycling around the world you're going to new a spare cassette and chain(s).

desweller

If you're going to be hauling a lot of accoutrements you also ought to look at fitting it out with a triple.

MichaelW

Campagnolo 8 speed is an obsolete system, in that it is very hard to find replacement cassettes (specialists shops sell Miche and Marchisio). The cog-cog spacing is wider than Shimano 8 speed. I retired my Mirage 8spd with great sadness for Shimano Tiagra 9 but I wouldn't recommend that for a world tour.
My advice would be to ditch integrated shifters altogether and revert to bar-end shifters or switch the bars to trekking/butterfly style. Getting integrated systems to work with road bars and MTB chainsets is becoming increasingly difficult.
8 speed was really the pinnacle of touring technology. 8 speed chains are widely available. As the gear count goes up, the chains become thinner, harder to fix with reliability, more prone to wear and harder to find in non-specialist bike shops.
You also need to measure the rear axle length, the distance between the outer faces of your rear dropouts. Most tourists use the MTB std of 135mm rather than a road 130mm axle.
Flight Deck is a Shimano bike computer system that fitted the STI integrated levers . Ergolever is Campy's name for their integrated levers.

Mcreighton90

Right, cheers for the advice everyone.mi was thinking myself of just stripping the groupset and starting again, and that is probably the best bet. I am just wondering now - to keep my costs at a minimum (because I am a full time ski/cycle bum with no job) is there any way I can replace the rear derailleur and cassette and shifters, but keep the original front derailleur and chain rings and shifters? Or is that a stupid question? Also, is it hard to find/re-fit down tube shifters?

MichaelW

CTC have a page on mixing components from different systems, see: shimergo.
Most tourists prefer bar ends to DT shifters because you retain control of the bars at all times.
Down tubes can be clean, requiring a band-on DT shifter, have a modern cable stop which is hard to convert to DT shifter, or comprise a DT shifter boss fitted with a bolt-on cable stop. Just remove the cable stop and bolt on a shifter.
Note DT shifters may be friction, indexed to a specific system or micro-shifting from Suntour (like the campy front shifter) Suntour is my fav and is my backup/spare when touring with integrated levers.

Mcreighton90

Right, well I have been weighing up my options. I am potentially thinking about putting a Shimano sora groupset on the bike - mainly because it's cheap, but also quite reliable. That would mean buying and installing the rear mech, 8 speed cassette and the shifters - do I need to renew the front derailleur and shifter? Or can I use a campag front mech and shifter with a sora 8 speed.

Also, how complex is it to install the how rear mech, and how much do the front chain ring sizes and chain come into play? Do I NEED to replace everything?

Cheers