7 speed cassette compatibility

Michael Falk · October 2010

I've read quite a bit of information at SheldonBrown but I'll seek an opinion here.

My old Cannondale road bike, that I rarely ride & is bit high geared for me, I'm thinking of putting on one of my spare 7sp atb cassettes (13-28 or 13-30) instead of its current 13-23. I have a good old XT rear dérailleur to replace the current short arm Shimano 600 dérailleur. I'll keep using 52-39 chainrings. I have downtube index/friction shifters.

Will there be any problems doing this (especially cassette compatibility)? Are the short chainstays likely to produce any problem with this wider range gearing?

Thanks, Michael

priory · October 2010

in early 90's I moved to a hilly area, had a shimno 105 short arm 7 speed set-up.
I put 28teeth cassettes on without problems, then 32 teeth which did click a bit as they went round because the derailleur wheel would be practically in contact wth the cog. It did work , though, even with the short cage. The clicking was worse when the chain was new, then became unimportant.
Not all old 7 speed shimano type cassettes use the same spacing if I remember rightly, but you would have difficulty finding a part that old. I used to use dt shifters on friction setting so that the gears could be found by feel and I used 7,8,9 speed whichever was to hand..

so you might save yourself some trouble by first just puttind on the new bigger cassete and see if it works.

Michael Falk · October 2010

Thanks for that info.

It seems like I won't have a problem at all with the dérailleur, I won't use larger than a 30 tooth cog. I have the old XT dérailleur anyway, so I might use it. I can't really see any disadvantage about using it, just a slight weight increase.
I'll see how it goes.

bigjim · October 2010

I've put a 7 speed 34megarange cassette on my bike that is sora equipped with STI's. Works great with the existing rear mech.

7 speed cassette compatibility

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