Shimano Transmission Compatibilty Mayhem
daddylonglegs
Posts: 96
Back in the early 1990's I was a mechanic and a regular cyclist who also raced a bit. Since then I've been a very regular cyclist who also still can't help 'training' a bit. I keep three Shimano equipped road bikes and one custom-built Shimano-equipped gravel bike (this doesn't include my son's two road bikes). All the bikes I assembled myself and regularly maintain in my garage/workshop. The various bikes that I ride have Shimano 105, Ultegra and Dura Ace components that cover a period from about 1986 to currently around 2015, a significant period ranging almost precisely from the beginning of Shimano's transition from 'just another middle of the road bike parts manufacturer' to the biggest and (arguably) still the most innovative manufacturer of mainstream bike components in the world.
So with all that said, I wonder if anyone else is heartily sick of the oceans of confused, incorrect, ill-informed and misleading advice swirling about the bike-related internet regarding Shimano transmission compatibility. I mean, what is Shimano playing at?
If you were to believe Shimano's doctrine, there is now virtually no compatibility at all between any transmission components of different speeds. For example, 10 speed rear mech with 11 speed cassette; or - even more stupid - 10-speed chainset with 11-speed chain.
A couple of years ago I was putting together a new bike. It was a gravel bike with a custom frame. On the front was an Ultegra triple, vintage 1998 (pre-ten speed). I had built the wheels with new XT hubs, but I put on them an old (2001), but little-used 9-speed cassette (For the record, all Shimano pattern Mavic and Shimano freehubs will take any Shimano or equivalent 9,10 or 11 speed cassettes, just with the addition of one spacer for 9 and 10 speed - don't let anyone tell you otherwise!). Brake lever/shifters were 9-speed, also vintage 1998. All worked fine, perhaps no surprise so far.
What was a surprise though came with the rear mech. If you know anything about rear derailleurs, you'll know that the principle is fairly simple: a cable pulls the lower section of an articulated parallelogram inwards and down; a spring pulls it back again. Without the levers there are no clicks, just a smooth movement, the extent of which is controlled by two screws. It had been a few years since I had last bought a rear mech., So I was quite surprised and a bit skeptical to discover that Shimano was now selling them for different speeds. I had a nine-speed cassette, but I noticed an XT Shadow rear mech for sale that was claiming to be for '10 speed only'. Unless Shimano had decided to commit commercial suicide and re-design the basic geometry of half their kit, I couldn't think of a single reason why this would be the case. The rear mech was just what I needed and was a very good price. So partly out of curiosity as well as a degree of cynicism I bought it anyway. I fitted it, set up the cable in the usual way and it worked perfectly. And when I say 'perfectly', I mean smooth as silk, not noisy or with hesitant, rattly shifts.
So to be clear, that's old 9-speed road STI shifters and 9-speed cassette with a new, so-called '10-speed' MTB rear mech. But if you read virtually anything about this on the forums you are likely to come away more confused than you started and possibly quite a bit poorer.
I had a similar experience with one of my road bikes when, for a few years I ran an Ultegra 10 speed cassette with Dura Ace 11-speed shifters and before that, a 9-speed cassette with Dura Ace 10-speed shifters. All as smooth as silk; all with completely reliable 'Dura Ace quality' shifts. All that happens is the shifter is left with one redundant click which you never notice because the (properly adjusted) derailleur stop screw prevents an overshift.
Chainsets are amongst the most expensive single component in the groupset, but they have also come under this compatibility tyranny. I bought a Dura-Ace chainset back in around 1997 when all top Shimano groupsets at that time were 9-speed. It doesn't get a huge amount of use, but right now it's attached to a bike running a ten-speed cassette with an '11-speed' rear mech and 11-speed shifters. As I'm sure by now you've guessed, all runs absolutely fine.
The only transmission component that may have compatibility issues are chains. But even then I'm not sure it's as clean cut as Shimano and half the forums you read suggest.
I can see that Shimano have to make a decision here and to some extent they are damned either way. They have been steadily re-designing their transmissions to work with more and more sprockets. A lot of the re-engineering has been quite detailed and subtle. I can also see that when they run the new designs in perfect laboratory conditions, tiny differences in performance really show up and therefore the theoretically perfectly performing transmission is one that incorporates every tiny innovation and re-design.
This inevitably though translates to a narrower and narrower specification for the end user who is then pressured to chuck away 'old' kit and buy new stuff in the belief that their bike won't work properly if they don't. Much of the time, as I think I have helped demonstrate, this is often completely unnecessary. This can make cycling prohibitively expensive for a lot of cyclists, even possibly putting people off riding their bikes. Meanwhile unscrupulous bike shops or cynical and ill-informed bike mechanics cash in on telling customers they'll need a £200+ chainset if they want that extra sprocket.
In the short term this might work well for Shimano profits as traditionally tight-fisted cyclists are 're-educated' into spending more money, but in the long term this cannot be good for cycling or indeed our already shattered environment.
It wouldn't be so bad if the forums could help out here, but they don't seem to at all, only confusing the matter further.
Shimano, you've done great things for cycling in the last 35 years, please don't screw it up now.
So with all that said, I wonder if anyone else is heartily sick of the oceans of confused, incorrect, ill-informed and misleading advice swirling about the bike-related internet regarding Shimano transmission compatibility. I mean, what is Shimano playing at?
If you were to believe Shimano's doctrine, there is now virtually no compatibility at all between any transmission components of different speeds. For example, 10 speed rear mech with 11 speed cassette; or - even more stupid - 10-speed chainset with 11-speed chain.
A couple of years ago I was putting together a new bike. It was a gravel bike with a custom frame. On the front was an Ultegra triple, vintage 1998 (pre-ten speed). I had built the wheels with new XT hubs, but I put on them an old (2001), but little-used 9-speed cassette (For the record, all Shimano pattern Mavic and Shimano freehubs will take any Shimano or equivalent 9,10 or 11 speed cassettes, just with the addition of one spacer for 9 and 10 speed - don't let anyone tell you otherwise!). Brake lever/shifters were 9-speed, also vintage 1998. All worked fine, perhaps no surprise so far.
What was a surprise though came with the rear mech. If you know anything about rear derailleurs, you'll know that the principle is fairly simple: a cable pulls the lower section of an articulated parallelogram inwards and down; a spring pulls it back again. Without the levers there are no clicks, just a smooth movement, the extent of which is controlled by two screws. It had been a few years since I had last bought a rear mech., So I was quite surprised and a bit skeptical to discover that Shimano was now selling them for different speeds. I had a nine-speed cassette, but I noticed an XT Shadow rear mech for sale that was claiming to be for '10 speed only'. Unless Shimano had decided to commit commercial suicide and re-design the basic geometry of half their kit, I couldn't think of a single reason why this would be the case. The rear mech was just what I needed and was a very good price. So partly out of curiosity as well as a degree of cynicism I bought it anyway. I fitted it, set up the cable in the usual way and it worked perfectly. And when I say 'perfectly', I mean smooth as silk, not noisy or with hesitant, rattly shifts.
So to be clear, that's old 9-speed road STI shifters and 9-speed cassette with a new, so-called '10-speed' MTB rear mech. But if you read virtually anything about this on the forums you are likely to come away more confused than you started and possibly quite a bit poorer.
I had a similar experience with one of my road bikes when, for a few years I ran an Ultegra 10 speed cassette with Dura Ace 11-speed shifters and before that, a 9-speed cassette with Dura Ace 10-speed shifters. All as smooth as silk; all with completely reliable 'Dura Ace quality' shifts. All that happens is the shifter is left with one redundant click which you never notice because the (properly adjusted) derailleur stop screw prevents an overshift.
Chainsets are amongst the most expensive single component in the groupset, but they have also come under this compatibility tyranny. I bought a Dura-Ace chainset back in around 1997 when all top Shimano groupsets at that time were 9-speed. It doesn't get a huge amount of use, but right now it's attached to a bike running a ten-speed cassette with an '11-speed' rear mech and 11-speed shifters. As I'm sure by now you've guessed, all runs absolutely fine.
The only transmission component that may have compatibility issues are chains. But even then I'm not sure it's as clean cut as Shimano and half the forums you read suggest.
I can see that Shimano have to make a decision here and to some extent they are damned either way. They have been steadily re-designing their transmissions to work with more and more sprockets. A lot of the re-engineering has been quite detailed and subtle. I can also see that when they run the new designs in perfect laboratory conditions, tiny differences in performance really show up and therefore the theoretically perfectly performing transmission is one that incorporates every tiny innovation and re-design.
This inevitably though translates to a narrower and narrower specification for the end user who is then pressured to chuck away 'old' kit and buy new stuff in the belief that their bike won't work properly if they don't. Much of the time, as I think I have helped demonstrate, this is often completely unnecessary. This can make cycling prohibitively expensive for a lot of cyclists, even possibly putting people off riding their bikes. Meanwhile unscrupulous bike shops or cynical and ill-informed bike mechanics cash in on telling customers they'll need a £200+ chainset if they want that extra sprocket.
In the short term this might work well for Shimano profits as traditionally tight-fisted cyclists are 're-educated' into spending more money, but in the long term this cannot be good for cycling or indeed our already shattered environment.
It wouldn't be so bad if the forums could help out here, but they don't seem to at all, only confusing the matter further.
Shimano, you've done great things for cycling in the last 35 years, please don't screw it up now.
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Comments
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What on earth?
Is this a rant or is there a question here?
Part of it is improvements and part of this is increasing sales by designing in obsolescence.0 -
Dear Shirley,
I can't believe you've really bothered reading it. You replied about 60 seconds after posting. Does it have to be a question? Maybe I posted in the wrong place...
And thanks for the lesson in market economics. I'd never have guessed
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Erm the 10 speed only does not refer to the cable pull but to the jockey wheels which are slightly narrower for 10 speed as is the cage. Hense a 9 speed chain in a 10 speed RD can cause a bit more noise. If that does not bother you then nowt is wrong.
This post is ong drawn out exlaination of eveything we aready knew about shimano. The compatibility guides are CYA. Some compatability is hard and not flexible other compatibility is flexible. Thats always been the case and always will be the case.http://www.thecycleclinic.co.uk -wheel building and other stuff.0 -
If you stick to Shimano Road stuff it's fairly simple. Everything 10 speed is backwards compatible with 9, 8, 7speed etc apart from Tiagra 4700 which for some reason adopts the new pull ratio they use with the 11 speed stuff.
If you want a rear mech with a bigger range then 8/9/10 speed shifters (but not Tiagra 4700) will work with a 9 speed MTB rear mech. I have 9 speed 4500 shifters and a 9 speed Alivio RD which allows a mahoosive 36t cassette.
I had always understood that a 10 speed MTB rear mech wouldn't work in such a situation but you seem to have found it does...
Tiagra 4700 stuff will work with 11 speed road 105 / Ultegra / Dura Ace.
I fondly remember the days of a 5 speed block and downtube friction shifters...0 -
Daddylonglegs wrote:Dear Shirley,
I can't believe you've really bothered reading it. You replied about 60 seconds after posting. Does it have to be a question? Maybe I posted in the wrong place...
And thanks for the lesson in market economics. I'd never have guessed
I didn't read it all because it was a bit of a pointless essay.0
