Standard to Compact Crankset

saftlad

Hi all, hope you can help me to avoid an expensive mistake.

I've got a Carrera TDF 2011 running a standard crankset on 8sp. I'm hopelessly unfit and want to change to a compact chainset to help get me around the hills.

I was hoping to be able to just drop the crankset and bb off and replace with a 105 5700/5750 compact crankset and hollowtec bb but this only seems to come as a 10sp.

According to previous questions on chain reaction, I would need to swap out the whole gear set otherwise it wouldn't work due to the chain being the wrong width so a new cassette/rd/shifters etc would be needed too. This results in the cost jumping up from £100ish to a lot more than I'm willing to spend on a cheap bike. If I've got to do the whole lot, I'd be just as good buying a new bike.

Has anyone got any idea whether I would be able to go the cheaper route successfully?

ugo.santalucia

There are a couple of things you can do:
First you can try... chances are an 8 speed chain will work on a 10 speed ring, it's not impossible. If not, you can try a 9 speed chain, which will work with 10 speed rings and should work with your 8 speed cassette too.