11sp wheelset issue on new bike

dee4life2005

I recently purchased a Giant Propel Advanced 1 (2017) and it came with their own Giant P-A2 wheelset (with giant performance tracker road hubs). Its an ultegra 11speed groupset (6800 cassette), and the freehub has 11sp engraved on it. They aren't the lightest of wheels.

I've got a set of Fulcrum racing 3's from a previous road-bike (bought in march 2016) and they have an 11sp freehub as well, so I thought it would be a simple case of buying an 11sp cassette (I went for 105 5800 11sp) and I could then freely swap between these two wheel-sets. Wrong!

With the indexing spot on with the Giant wheels, I then mounted the Fulcrums and the indexing went all to hell - almost like it was half a shift out, though that seemed to change the further up the cassette I went. Thinking it might have been a slight difference in stack height between the 105 and Ultegra cassette I even swapped them over and the same thing (giant wheels ok, fulcrums not).

This may be a non issue, and something that happens in a small percentage of cases, but my other two bikes with 10speed I was able to swap the 4 wheel-sets about without any problems, and even borrowed a set from a mate and didn't have to tweak a thing.

So have I just been lucky, and I'll have to put up with faffing about with the indexing every-time I swap ... or is there likely to be something weird going on ? - if so, any suggestions.

(one of those wheelsets was going to be an emergency set, so that if I find a flat before leaving for work i've got a handy swap ... if the indexing needs tweaks, that's a bit more of PITA than i'd hoped).

Thanks.
Steve

The Rookie

Quite common for different hubs to need reindexing, the only sure way is to use the same brand which will tend to be designed to the same spacings.

I swapped from my Novatech hubbed back wheel to a Shimano hubbed one (temporarily) and it was exactly one sprocket out - as it was short term I just tweaked the high stop and road it with one gear less for a week!

svetty

There is something funny going on. You haven't left the 1.85 mm spacer (needed for 9/10 speed cassettes) on one of the freehub?
If not, the easiest solution is probably to add spacers to whichever freehub gives the most inboard cassette location until the indexing on both wheels is the same. You should be able to get to within 0.5 mm or so.

dee4life2005

Svetty wrote:

There is something funny going on. You haven't left the 1.85 mm spacer (needed for 9/10 speed cassettes) on one of the freehub?
If not, the easiest solution is probably to add spacers to whichever freehub gives the most inboard cassette location until the indexing on both wheels is the same. You should be able to get to within 0.5 mm or so.

My initial thought was similar, that perhaps the stack height of the 105 cassette was different to the ultegra one, but not that. Both cassettes are 11sp, and both freehub are 11sp specific so no spacers required - and I checked I hadn't fitted one. Even swapped the cassettes between wheels without any success.

I'll probably try and measure cassette offset along the axle, but might be tricky if it's only half a mm or so out. Might just have to live with tweaking the indexing everytime I change the wheels and just not change the wheels that often.

evodeda

Maybe add a small spacer to offset the cassette slightly..?

Anonymous

The issue comes from different brands hubs being different widths, How the spokes are laced and width of the rim all make wheels marginally different. Some wheels can have a much larger gap between the spokes and the innermost cog than others which may be tight against the spokes. A freehub classed as 9,10,11 speed will be slightly different than a 10,11 speed or one just 11 speed. Sealed bearings will have a different total width to serviceable cup and cone bearings. The difference can only be a mm or 2 but the more gears a cassette has the greater the effect it has on the indexing. On a 8 or 9 speed you probably wouldn't notice the difference. On a 10 it may click slighty and 11 will be ghost shifting. Thats the cost of having a bigger range in a finite space along the wheel hub.