Sora Compatible Long Cage Rear Mech

Warbski

I’m planning on doing some bikepacking this summer and want to lower my gearing to help getting up hills while fully loaded.

I don’t want to go to the trouble or expense of going triple chainring and would rather put a bigger cassette (11-40/ 11-42) on. I know I will need a long cage derailleur for this so just wanted some advice on a good option that is compatible with a Sora groupset.

Warbski

Sorry, i’m a bit of a novice when it comes to these things. Do you mean reducing the size of my chainring sizes (currently 34/50)?

faster97

Any 7,8 or 9 speed MTB mech with a suitably long cage would be your best bet for such a big cassette and would be compatable with your Sora shifters.

If you have Sora with the little thumbshifters, the front shifter is already triple compatible. You'd only need a road triple crankset and front mech.

Klaus B

As far as I know rear derailleur that can take the biggest cassette compatible with Sora shifters are the Sora r3000 long cage (11-34 max) and alivio long cage (11-36 max).
So you need at least a front chainring as small as 26/28t to go uphill full loaded at a decent cadence.
The cheapest way to achieve so is to use a MTB crankset. But there are some issues then..
1) you need to use a MTB front derailleur to work properly and this won't be compatible with the Sora shifter(different pull ratio). You can make it work only using a Problem Solver that change the pull ratio.
2) the stance (q-factor) of a MTB crank is wider and less efficient than the stance of a road crank. If you have doggy knees going for a MTB crank is not ideal.
3) putting a wide stance crank on a road bike can compromise the chainline.
In some frames you cannot fit MTB front mechs because they need to work lower on the frame than road once. Front MTB mechs can comes in different angles too, to be compatible with different frames.
Road ultracompact cranks are the best solution but more costly than MTB once
So we are talking about 25£ alivio rear mech, 20£ rear cassette, 40£ front MTB crankset, 20£ front MTB derailleur and 30£ for a Problem Solver.. plus eventually 10£ for a new chain. Roughly 150£+ work.
Like that you can have a 11-36 cassette matched with a 38/24 mtb crank. You can save some money if you have already a Sora rear mech with 11-32 or even better 11-34 cassette that are good enough matched with a MTB crank.

laurentian

I did exactly this about 18 months ago for the same reason (bike was an Allez but that's probably not important).

I simply bought an 11/34 8 speed cassette and a Shimano Deore long cage mech and swapped both onto the bike. You'll also need a new chain and, in all liklihood a new shifter cable. You may also find, as I did, that you'll need to replace the one supplied with a 1 inch "B" screw to get it adjusted properly.

Once set up on the stand from the first ride it has been perfect for 18 months.

It really was that straightforward . . . didn't even consider changing the chain rings.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

https://www.halfords.com/cycling/bike-p ... eur-silver claims 45T capacity, which sounds pretty big, so it should officially work in theory with 11-40 with a 16T difference double chainset.

https://www.leisurelakesbikes.com/30985 ... ilver.aspx comes with an 11-40 cassette, but it's a single ring up front, with the rd-m2000sgs rear mech.