Originally Posted by Steev
You are missing a big one here. 7 speed road bikes have 126mm rear drop out spacing, 9 speed have 130mm.
You are going to have to change your freehub to a 8-9-10 speed compatible one and re-space the rear axle to 130mm and re-dish the rear wheel (or get a new wheel). Being a composite frame, you will need to spread the drop-outs every time you install the rear wheel, I'll leave others to argue whether its going to damage your frame to do that.
I was planning on getting a new freehub/cassette wheelset and scrapping the freewheel setup I have...regarding the dropouts, that part of the frame is aluminum. But with that said, will spreading out the frame from 126mm to 130 mm still cause damage to the bike?
another ?'s -- if I leave the FC-1055 2x ring crank and keep the Shimano105 7 sp. ft/rear dereillurs, while changing the freewheel setup to a 9 sp. freehub/cassette and changing the 7sp. downtube shifters to this Shimano 105 STI "brifter" setup. . .
http://cgi.ebay.com/Shimano-STI-105-...QQcmdZViewItem
while using the housing stops/downtube boss cap from Harris Cycles to run the shft cables....will I be okay.