first impressions from the 1x10 conversion

Herdwick29.

Just finished the conversion, rode the thing down the neighborhood, adjusted cable tension and ready for the trail
I will give you my experience and troubles I went through and may be helpful to whoever wants to go to 1x10
Never done this before but is as easy as swapping spark plugs on your car. Basic knowledge of mechanics some call it

Swapped the cassette for a 10 spd slx item
Got a SAINT 10 spd shifter
KMC 10 spd chain
XCR BB mounted chain guide

Some say you need to replace the rear derailleur, may not need to, mine is working perfectly. The 10 spd cassette has the same width as the 9spd. I didn't even touched the limiting screws! Remember to get a 10 spd shfter and chain though. All I did was the cable tension, and the saint shifter is a dream!!!

Kept the front 32T middle ring, used some washers to compensate for the big ring and tighten the ring bolts.
The BB mounted chain guide is a pain to get it sorted, after trying varying combos with the spacers, the damn thing didn't line up with the chain ring, and all you get if you put in that order: spacers/chain guide/BB is to push the crank assembly far out of chain line and cause the chain to go to far on one side when in lowest gear. Fit the chain guide with no spacers, the chain line is some how better but guide won't center on the chain ring, impossible to fit, used some washers roughly 4mm, to push the guide away from the back plate and, dead center!
I will comment on my impressions after the first trail ride tomorrow. I am pretty sure it will be okay and hope the guide mods I've done to hold on
Next thing is a 30T narrow/wide chain ring

Oh! The bike is a ghost asx 4900

jimothy78

Herdwick29. wrote:

Some say you need to replace the rear derailleur, may not need to, mine is working perfectly. The 10 spd cassette has the same width as the 9spd.

My understanding was that it was nothing to do with the width of cassette, but the fact that the 10 speed and 9-speed stuff works with different pull ratios. Therefore, one shift of the 10 speed shifter should not move a 9-speed derailleur the correct distance for one gear change. Based on the received wisdom, your setup should not work????

Are you absolutely sure it's working properly across the whole range, or have you just tested the extremes?

Herdwick29.

AFAIK pull ratio on shimanos is 1.5:1 and is the same across the derailleur range, with maybe a couple exceptions that are not very common. The only problem you can come across is the capacity of the derailleur, which here is not the case.
One shift of a 10 spd shifter will move the deraileur less distance than a 9 spd because it looses up less wire not because it works on different pull ratio.
So a 10spd shifter will move the derailleur in 10 evenly spaced stops, in the same given distance, The shifter gives the command and derailleur executes. that simple.
http://sheldonbrown.com/drivetrain-mixing.shtml

Herdwick29.

correction, shimanos work on 2:1 ratio

Northwind

Not any more... 9-speed Shimano is 2:1, 10-speed is closer to 1:1. (Hence 9-speed SRAM shifters are very nearly compatible with 10-speed Shimano mechs, with just a small spacer needed to tweak the ratios). Basically, Shimano finally admitted that lower cable ratios work better, especially for mountain bikes.

Are you saying that you're running a 9-speed shimano mech on a 10-speed shifter and cassette?

Chunkers1980

I don't think he is, just a little confused.

I think the OP was talking specifically about going x1 at the front not 10 at the rear as well.

He already had 10 at the rear and a shortish cage mech, with it being a Saint, so perhaps he was moving from a x2 front setup.

Herdwick29.

I see some confusion here, the bike used to be a 3x9, ditched the granny, big ring and 9spd rear cassette
Kept the middle ring and rear derailleur, got a new 10spd cassette and a 10spd shifter, and it works fine

Chunkers1980

With a 9 speed Saint mech? And Shimano shifter ?

paul.skibum

Chunkers1980 wrote:

With a 9 speed Saint mech? And Shimano shifter ?

That is what it says as I read it - theoretically I can see why it would work - the distance travelled at the mech is the same from one side of the cassette to the other so the cable pull between a 9 and 10 speed shifter must just be marginally different mustn't it? Unless the mech itself is set up to have slightly different leverage ratios?

Chunkers1980

Yes, it does. It shouldn't work by all accounts.

pilch

10 speed shimano/9 speed SRAM derailleur works too...

warpcow

10spd shimano mechs have a different geometry to 9spd ones and require a different amount of cable to be pulled to move the equivalent of 1 cog. 9 and 10spd mechs and shifters do 'sort of' work, in much the same way that a slightly bent mech hanger might allow you to hit most gears fine but will skip and miss some gears. I wouldn't want to live with it and I have ridden a bike that had the opposite; 9spd XT shifter with 10spd Saint mech. It was all fine, until it wasn't.

Herdwick29.

The rear mech is a crappy, cheap end 9spd deore unit. No skips, jumps and weird chain noises, shifts perfectly across the range with no problems at all,
I used 10spd Saint shifter
10 spd slx cassette
and the '9 spd' deore rear mech.

I don't see why a 9 spd rear mech it's not suppose to work with a 10 spd shifter, as long as both are designed with the same pull ratio. Anyone here knows for sure what is the pull ratio of the saint SL M820 shifter?

Chunkers1980

They are not designed with the same pull ratio

cooldad

Doubt it's actually getting all 10 cogs.

Chunkers1980

Herdwick29. wrote:

adjusted cable tension and ready for the trail
II didn't even touched the limiting screws! Remember to get a 10 spd shfter and chain though. All I did was the cable tension, and the saint shifter is a dream!!!

What makes you think that Cooldad?

cooldad

Intuition.

Herdwick29.

Anyone here tried this before, or you just speak from what other ''experts'' say? It is common when you repeat something, in the end turns out to be right. As I understand this is a grey area.
But it works fine. I assure you.

Chunkers1980

This is why I can't take all this seriously. Nowhere do you say you're trying it with a 9 speed mech, just explaining your experiences moving to one ring.

Northwind

I have not tried it, but I find it hard to see how it could work, seeing as how Shimano and SRAM 9-speed rear mechs are incompatible, but Shimano 10 speed mechs and SRAM 9 speed shifters are very nearly compatible. Likewise, Shimano 9 speed mtb mechs are compatible with 10-speed Shimano road, but Shimano 10-speed mtb and 10-speed road aren't compatible.

FWIW I've also found people who claim 9-speed SRAM and 10-speed Shimano are completely compatible with mods- that I have tested and know not to be true, unless you're happy with a poor standard of shifting. Then again lots of people are.

So I won't judge but there's the argument against.

pilch

Herdwick29. wrote:

Anyone here tried this before, or you just speak from what other ''experts'' say? It is common when you repeat something, in the end turns out to be right. As I understand this is a grey area.
But it works fine. I assure you.

On holiday recently in india, very difficult to get hold of 10 speed stuff - I was advised to bring a spare mech with me in case mine got trashed. Chatting to the guys, apparently the week before my trip some bloke had destroyed his mech in the back wheel and didn't have a spare, obviously he didn't want to waste his holiday so they tried various fixes with the bits the guide & co. had available.

The one combination that worked was his existing 10 speed Shimano shifter with a SRAM 9 speed mech, I didn't see it with my own eyes, but i've no reason to doubt that it worked from what they told me, worked as in he could get all the gears and enjoyed the rest of his holiday.

I know it shouldn't work and its probably not the best idea and there is a strong likelyhood that doom, fire & pestilence will follow but if it gets you out of a fix...

larkim

I know nothing about these things, but that won't stop me reading the thread and wanting to understand more!!

It seems that the OP is saying that he has swapped a 9spd shifter, paired with a 9spd cassette and rear mech (designed to work with the Shimano 1.7:1 (often described as 2:1 but actually narrower than that) pull ratio), which therefore shifts the mech left and right by 4.35mm per sprocket (see https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Bicycles/ ... ift_Ratios) for a 10spd Saint shifter (which by all accounts now uses a different pull ratio, though I couldn't find a specific technical document on this - plenty of references to it being "closer" to a 1:1 ratio), paired with a 10spd cassette and the old rear mech (designed to work with the 1.7:1 ratio).

He says that all works fine.

Others here say that it patently shouldn't, as the shifter is pulling the cable by completely different amounts which would mean that both individual gear selection would be inaccurate, and that (depending on the cable setup) he would be unable to shift either to the top of the range of the cassette, or the bottom, by some considerable margin.

However, he reports that it works.

So is the information about the pull ratios in the Saint shifter correct? Or not?

Matt

cooldad

Either that's not what he did, or it doesn't work.

paul.skibum

So do I understand that you guys are saying:

The 9 speed and 10 speed mechs are designed to move different angles within the parrallelogram bit of the mech based on the pull of the shifter?

I dont see why anyone would design it like that - it seems to me that the obvious thing to do is have the mech ostensiby the same and the pull change at the shifter to allow the mech to shift gears - now from a business point of view you might redesign everything simply to shift units which may be the case and why things arent expected to work but otherwise if you have a working mech system then changing only the shifter makes more sense.

cooldad

paul.skibum wrote:

So do I understand that you guys are saying:

The 9 speed and 10 speed mechs are designed to move different angles within the parrallelogram bit of the mech based on the pull of the shifter?

Yes

paul.skibum wrote:

I dont see why anyone would design it like that - it seems to me that the obvious thing to do is have the mech ostensiby the same and the pull change at the shifter to allow the mech to shift gears - now from a business point of view you might redesign everything simply to shift units which may be the case and why things arent expected to work but otherwise if you have a working mech system then changing only the shifter makes more sense.

They obviously did. Perhaps with Shimano pull ration on 9 speed and under, the amount of cable pulled was getting too short for decent shifting. But the 10 speed pull ratio is different to 9 and previous.

Herdwick29.

Update: to all of you that said it shouldn't work, I have to tell you, you were RIGHT!!!

I was too excited and thrilled about it, that didn't notice two gears were missing, cooldad you were right, not getting all 10 cogs.
Just left the shop with a second hand XT rear derailleur at 50euros,
and the worst, dragging my pride along the floor.

Thanks all of you, for your time and help. My apologies for the confusion and if mislead any one, being stubborn is my strong point!

BloggingFit

Sometimes things just work, even when they're not meant to.

I can remember using original SRAM 7 Speed Gripshifters to work faultlessly across an 8 speed cassette with a Sachs Mech and old XT Thumb Shifters with a hidden 8th click which could run XTR when it was first released.

It shouldn't but it did.

Northwind

Herdwick29. wrote:

Update: to all of you that said it shouldn't work, I have to tell you, you were RIGHT!!!

Good stuff though, 99% of the internet would have just slunk off quietly and never told us (and probably other people would have then read your post and tried it too).

Herdwick29.

Northwind wrote:

Herdwick29. wrote:

Update: to all of you that said it shouldn't work, I have to tell you, you were RIGHT!!!

Good stuff though, 99% of the internet would have just slunk off quietly and never told us (and probably other people would have then read your post and tried it too).

Hey we all leave as we learn 8)
Fiddling around with washers and spacers of every thickness and size improved it but was a waste of time, not worth it, but on the other hand knowing definitely isn't compatible may save someone from a headache

Discopooh

If you think about it, the cassette is the same from top to bottom in distance, the rear mech moves in a smooth action and the shifter moves the cable in 10 equal movements.....why wouldn't it work.

Northwind

Because the cable pulls don't match. Think about it in bits...

The mech will only ever do what the shifter tells it
The shifter controls the mech by pulling x amount of cable per gearshift
If you've got a mech that needs x amount of cable to shift 1 gear, that's fine. But when you get a mismatch, you end up with 1 gear at one end not equalling one gear at the other