Ten speed cassettes with STI

[JayB]

I am trying to upgrade an older tandem and have fitted latest Ultegra ten speed STI shifters. I have also installed latest XTR long rear derailleur. However, there seem to be a limited range of 10 speed cassettes available with large (30+) big cog. Anyone know what my alternatives are?

[TandemGeek]

You might try Santana regarding their "Mega-Range" 11x34t 10 speed cassettes: 800-334-6136

[ElRey]

do you really need all that gearing? I prefer a 12-27

[TandemGeek]

do you really need all that gearing? I prefer a 12-27

Ditto... that's what we use (9spd) unless we head for the mountains, in which case I fit a 12x32t: that gives us a 1:1 "alpine" gear as our small chain ring is a 32t.

However, the vast majority of tandems seem to come with the wide-range gearing -- along with some other components that don't suit my fancy -- to meet the expectations of the "masses". Given how few teams change out those stock mega-range gear ratios, I'm thinking we're in the minority as far as tandem owners go.

[zonatandem]

Alternative: smaller inner chainring?

[JayB]

Ditto (to El Rey's: "Do you really need all that gearing? I prefer a 12-27"). That's what we use (9spd) unless we head for the mountains, in which case I fit a 12x32t . . .
We do a lot of touring in the mountains and, after my hernia operation, don't want to overstrain. 12x32 would seem fine, but my question is where can I get one in 10 speed? Or could I use a 9 speed cassette with my 10 speed front STI shifter?

[ElRey]

sorry dude... You may be able to build one up with a kit from one of the aftermarket companies. I'd suggest you try calling Branford Bikes and they can probably help you.

[TandemGeek]

We do a lot of touring in the mountains and, after my hernia operation, don't want to overstrain. 12x32 would seem fine, but my question is where can I get one in 10 speed? Or could I use a 9 speed cassette with my 10 speed front STI shifter?

For custom cassettes, Wheels Manufacturing (Branford Bike's supplier) is probably your best bet but they're not cheap. They remanufacture OEM cassettes to come up with a variety of solutions, e.g., campy splines with shimano spacing, etc...

For running a Shimano 9 speed cassette with your 10 speed STI levers you have a couple of choices.

1. You can either use the alternate (B) rear derailleur cable pinch-bolt routing: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/dura-ace.html#alternate

or

2. You can use a J-Tek ShiftMate Model #2. http://www.peterwhitecycles.com/shiftmate.asp

From all accounts, the alternate cable routing works pretty well as does the ShiftMate. I've set up a couple bikes with the B cable routing (Shimano 9 with 8, etc.., but as of yet no 10 speed/9 speed combos) and we have been experimenting with a ShiftMate on one of our tandems (Campy Ergo 9 & RD w/Shimano 9 cassettes). The ShiftMate works well but periodically requires you to re-position the cam to it's 1:00 position as they tend to "drift" a bit over time.

Please note that there is no such thing as a Shimano 12x32t 9 speed cassette. I use a hybrid model created by merging the lower-end of an XTR 11x32t and the high-end of an Ultegra 12x23t together to get closer ratios between 12t and the middle of the cassette.

[JayB]

Thanks TandemGeek, Zona & ElRey. Several options here which I will have to look into. Maybe Shimano will go to 10 speed on XTR cassettes soon and provide a range of reasonably prices units with big cogs.

[gregm]

do you really need all that gearing? I prefer a 12-27

Ditto... that's what we use (9spd) unless we head for the mountains, in which case I fit a 12x32t: that gives us a 1:1 "alpine" gear as our small chain ring is a 32t.

Almost all of my weekend riding is in the hills -- largely a ridge, many miles long, peaking out at a bit under 2,000 feet high. Over this direction, up and down along the top, back down the other side, ride around, cross back over to home at the other end... even the ride between home and the hills is sloped at around 1%. Nothing is actually flat near home.

Put a child stoker or non-cyclist adult stoker on the bike, and a spinning captain, and expect to be able to talk to each other when you climb, and bingo! you'll be beggin' for a sub-30T granny ring AND an over-30T cog.

On the rare occasions when I go for a drive-away start ride in the flats, I have been known to redo the cogs with a 28 as the largest, and then don't use the granny at all.

Last weekend my daughter and I flew past a fit guy on a fixie going up a ~5%, couple tenths of a mile grade, barely turning... 40? rpm or less, and killing himself. We were in the granny gear and big cog (28grannyx34cog), and sailed right on by at over 90rpm, grinning the whole time. On the backside we went over 40mph, easily spinning out the 50x13 top gear.

...and, when going downhill with a stoker who likes to go fast, we can spin out a 50x12. Heck, if you just hold on and don't pedal at all, there are descents around here that will pull you over 50mph on a tandem. Has me achin' for an 11, but I can't readily install one on my 7speed freehub, darn it.

So, yes, it's all relative, as I see your 12-27 sacrificing both the downhill go-fast 11 cog and the glad-I-don't-have-to-walk-up-this-17%-driveway 34 cog. How can you possibly have ANY fun with a 12-27? You've probably fallen for that "gear it like Jan Ullrich" marketing hype. ;) :D

-Greg

[ElRey]

Greg, the answer to your question is: because I can turn a 12-27! Hvae a 12 -26 on my winter wheels. 53 front. At high rpms. Since before there was a Jan Ullrich. The shifting is so much better on a close gear ratio cassette with road rear der. that the fun starts there, not with an 11-34. Torque, torque, torque....

[TandemGeek]

So, yes, it's all relative, as I see your 12-27 sacrificing both the downhill go-fast 11 cog and the glad-I-don't-have-to-walk-up-this-17%-driveway 34 cog. How can you possibly have ANY fun with a 12-27?

Yes, it's all relative...

Your 50x12t nets out to about 110 gear inches & will get you to 39.2mph at 120 rpm
Your 28x34t nets out to about 21.7 gear inches which is what a lot of folks like.

Our 54x12t nets out to about 119 gear inches & will get us to 42 mph @ 120 rpm
Our 32x27t nets out to about 31 gear inches which is more than adequate for anything but mountain intensive rides, which we anticipate by changing tandems and using our stiffer S&S model that sports a 12x32t cassette (~26 gear inches) and a rear disc.

As for "fun" and go-fast gearing, speeds above the mid-40's are, as you well know, all about physics: mass, slope, and drag. Even though we spin out in the mid-40's, we've hit 62.5 mph (Talladega Nat'l Forest in '99, fun-fun-fun) and see speeds in the low-50's as well as 5 miles of sustained speeds at ~45mph whenever we head into the North Georgia mountains. 41mph is a daily occurance. Bottom Line: A 54x11t would net out to 129 gear inches & yield 46 mph at 120 rpm... the juice ain't worth the squeeze: give me closer ratios, thank you very much.

FWIW: My fixed gear sports 48x16t gearing (~79 gear inches) and the road out of our sub development is an 1/8th mile @ 8%, never mind the 2,300 vert. feet gained over my short 25mi loop. RPMs go above 140 on many rides.

Again, it's all relative... and, well, Debbie is an awesome stoker who more than pulls her own weight on many occasions.

[JayB]

I am trying to upgrade an older tandem and have fitted latest Ultegra ten speed STI shifters. I have also installed latest XTR long rear derailleur. However, there seem to be a limited range of 10 speed cassettes available with large (30+) big cog. Anyone know what my alternatives are?

Would it be possible to use a 10 speed Campy Chorus cassette on a Shimano 145mm tandem hub and the STIs mentioned above? Campy make 10 speed cassettes with large cog of 29, right? Would this give me better shifting than trying to run a 9 speed cassette with 10 speed STIs? (I realise that the Campy would not have as large a big cog as I was looking for; thought I could compensate by going to smaller front chainring, as several have suggested in this thread.)

[galen_52657]

To the best of my knowledge, there are no tandem-specific hubs that are Campy compatible. You can buy a conversion cassette to use Campy Ergo 10 shift levers on a Shimano freehub but not the other way around. Some folks have had custom wheels built using some sort of Campy - compatible hub and a home-made spacer to get to 145 MM spacing (ask Mark). But, if you go that route you may be limited on spoke count.

[ElRey]

CONversion cassettes aren't that great a solution. They don't fit like the real thing.

[TandemGeek]

Would it be possible to use a 10 speed Campy Chorus cassette on a Shimano 145mm tandem hub and the STIs mentioned above?

No. Campy's cassettes & cogs are not compatible with Shimano-spec cassette hubs; they use a deeper spline.

We can screw around with what-if scenarios all day long on gearing, but it's pointless unless we understand what you're trying to accomplish and what you're willing to trade off to get there.

Here are some questions:

1. Which year/model (e.g., '05 DuraAce 10spd Triple) rear derailleur do you have on your 10 speed set-up?
2. Why did you upgrade to Shimano 10spd in the first place:Tighter gear ratios? It's the latest and greatest? Someone recommended it? Or...????
3. Are you trying to replicate the very short 23.6" gearing (30t x 34t) of your original 9 speed set-up's granny gear? Or,
4. Are you trying to get shorter "bottom gears" for your middle (42t?) and big (53t?) chainrings so that you can stay in them longer?
5. How often do you "need" to use your shortest gears? Every ride, once a week, once a month, just in case?
6. Do you have the tools and the knowledge to change your own rear cassette? How about derailleur cable installation and adjustments?
7. Do you think a $120 IRD 12 x 28t Shimano-compatible 10spd cassette would be close enough?

Here's the deal... Shimano 10 speed shifters and derailleurs can be used as 9 or 10 speed. However, not all 10 speed derailleurs will work with the very large rear cogs; their cages aren't long enough. So, you may be in kind of in a rock and hard place depending on what you've installed. Yes, you can use a smaller granny ring to shorten up your granny gears. If you're running a 30t granny with the 12x27t 10 speed Ultegra cassette, your shortest gear is 29.7" If you go to a 28t chain ring you knock it down to 27.8" and if you go to a 26t chain ring 25.8", which is a bit shorter than what your stock Co-Motion probably have had in the 30t x 30t (second largest cog, next to the 34t) @ 26.8", but obviously not the 23.6" acheived in the 30t x 34t granny. As previously indicated, IRD makes a 12 x 28t Shimano 10 speed cassette that would get you down to 24.8" with a 26t granny ring. Going to a 26t granny ring will, in effect, make it a "bail-out" gear that you only resort to when you find you're unable to maintain your cadence in the middle ring & tallest cog combination. Most folks whom we ride with that use a "bail-out" granny use it's momentum killing performance as an incentive to grind out the tough climbs in the 42t x 27/32/34t cog (which ever is the largest they have).

So, what is it you're trying to accomplish?

If you want a set of gear inch tables for all of the various combinations I've talked about (there are 8 of them), send me a PM with your Email address and I'll send the Excel file along. Or, if you're so inclined you can go to Sheldon Brown's website and generate your own.

[TandemGeek]

To the best of my knowledge, there are no tandem-specific hubs that are Campy compatible.

Rolf's Prima Vigor tandem wheels can be purchased with Campy-compatible hubs. I also seem to recall, but am not positive, that White Industries can install campy compatible cassette carriers on their tandem hubs. Phil Wood, in the past, offered both Shimano & Campy compatible hubs, but discontinued the Campy option a few years back.

Some folks have had custom wheels built using some sort of Campy - compatible hub and a home-made spacer to get to 145 MM spacing (ask Mark).

TandemRacer will correct me on the details if I screw them up.... I believe the one friend (TR) that modified a 32h Campy record hub / wheelset had their Lightspeed respaced down to 140mm and the wheels were spaced out to 135mm with some custom spacers. The 140mm rear spacing allowed him to fit either the respaced Campy 135mm wheels for racing or the more durable 145mm Chris King / Velocity Deep-Vs for training and other ride duties. As I recall, they dinged the CK wheelset and ended up using the Campy wheels on a regular basis... well, for a short while as the rims didn't last long.

[irablumberg]

Have you tried TandemGeek's suggestion about contacting Santana? I recently got a new Santana Niobium and it came with the Santana "special" Shimano 10 speed 11-34 cassette. It works very well with the XTR rear der. and provides sufficient low gears that going up moderately steep hills, I almost never bother shifting to the small ring.

Ira

[TandemGeek]

Have you tried TandemGeek's suggestion about contacting Santana? I recently got a new Santana Niobium and it came with the Santana "special" Shimano 10 speed 11-34 cassette.

Yeah, well... that may not be a good suggestion after all. I believe they've decided to hold all of their 10 speed 11-34t cassettes for production use and are not offering them up as an aftermarket items. Not sure if this is a barrier to all potential upgrade buyers, or just those who aren't Santana owners.

By all means, give them a call. You never know. But, and this gets back to my earlier questions, note that you'll need an XTR derailleur with its very long cage to work with the 34t cog.

[JayB]

Thanks Tandem Geek and Galen,

Some of this info I will have to look up. What I am trying to do, however, is upgrade an older 531 steel framed tandem which has 145 mm dropouts in the rear. It had a hub which only took freewheels and some of the older ones with big cogs worked well with front barcons. However, I decided to go the whole hog and get a new rear wheel with Shimano 145 hubs - thanks to advice I got here. I bought 10 speed 2005/06 STI Ultegras shifters as I figured they were the latest and because I liked STI on my solo bike. I think I heard from you, TandemGeek, that the newer 10sp Ultegras had more trim positions for the front d and that there was some sort of other improvement to the STI for the rear. So then I thought I would try to figure out what the alternatives were for rear cassettes to fit my new rear wheel. Oh, one of the front cranks was bent and rings were very worn so I replaced that with a triple and longer axle. A friend who is a much more competent mechanic is doing the tough bits. I can change cables, replace derailleurs and that sort of stuff. Never cycle without a spare tandem length brake and gear cable after seeing what it was like trying to handle remote hills after breakages. Thanks again for all the suggestions.