Modern wheels on vintage bike - cassette issues

shirley_basso

Hi,

I have a spare pair of Shimano RS11 wheels which I have given to my sister.

She has a 'mixte' bike with 2x5 gears and the rear wheel has been pringled by a car running over it while locked up.

The shifters are non-indexed downtube shifters

I'm confident the wheels size will fit with an adjustment to brake pads, but the gearing is an issue as you can't get 5 or 6 speed Hyperglide cassettes.

Can you get 7speed shimano/SRAM cassettes? Would that work?

ugo.santalucia

dropouts distance is likely to be different, preventing the rear wheel to slot in. Your bike is likely either 120 or 126 mm, the wheels are 130 mm

shirley_basso

ah bugger. Thanks Ugo. Any way to fix? Can I just bend them (if 126!)

Edit: Seems if it's a 126mm you can just pry it apart and it's fine. Not sure what spacing this bike will have.

timothyw

Yeah, I had a 126 frame with friction shifters that I killed the rear wheel of, swapped in a modern wheel with an 8 speed cassette (I think that's the smallest you can go with a modern freehub) and it worked fine - had to adjust the limit screws on the derailleur but I think that might have been it.

shirley_basso

Nice. Thanks Timothy.

Hopefully it's a 126. Worried it may be a 120.

ugo.santalucia

Shirley Basso wrote:

ah bugger. Thanks Ugo. Any way to fix? Can I just bend them (if 126!)

Edit: Seems if it's a 126mm you can just pry it apart and it's fine. Not sure what spacing this bike will have.

if you cold set them, the dropouts will not be vertical and the QR won't hold the wheel in place, which is an issue with horizontal dropouts. You need to cold set them and then align them vertically... you need tools for that... I just sold mine...

timothyw

Given that it's your sisters mixte, I'm pretty sure it'll be fine - just advise her to do up the qr reasonably tight.