Road Cycling - another campy/shimano compatibility question

Hi all,

In this post:
http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26018

Mr. Livingood said:

Campy 9 speed also works flawlessly with Shimano 8 speed cassettes without adapters. Just adjust the derailleur stop to lock-out the 9th "click" on the Campy Shifter.

Now, I have a bike with a 7 speed freewheel, and think that shimano 7 and 8 speed has the same spacing between cogs on the freewheel, so this leads me to ask:

Can I use campy 9 speed shifters with a shimano 7 speed cassette/freewheel by adjusting the derailleur stop to freeze out 2 clicks instead of one?

Also, if the spacing bewtween rear cogs is the same I would assume I could use shimano 8 speed STI levers with a 7sp cassette/freewheel.

thanks,

Steve "cheapskate" W

Not necessarily...

Here is a summary of the various spacings, center-to-center... cog width... cog spacing: http://www.sheldonbrown.com/k7.html#spacing

That Campy 9 Ergo + Campy RDs and Campy 9 Ergo + Shimano RDs can be conifigured to work with Shimano 9 cassettes is more a "fluke" than a hidden conspiracy by Campy & Shimano engineers secretly sharing notes.

Same thing goes for Campy 10 + Campy or Shimano RDs working with Shimano 9 and Campy 9 working with Shimano 8.

Some of the combinations are more "crisp" than others and most of them rely on playing around with slack in spacing/derailleur travel or "spoofing" the rear derailleur's geometry by re-routing the cable at the pinch bolt.

Would a Campy 9spd Ergo lever & Campy RD work on a 7 speed Shimano Cassette? Never even considered it so I haven't tried it and cannot say. As for the Shimano 8 working with Shimano 7... again, perhaps someone else has tried it and will comment.

Thanks for the Sheldon Brown link, that and some research and I may have found an answer. I dont know why I didn't try sheldon in the first place.

here is what I found on google groups:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&selm=dDf9a.393891%24sV3.11219011%40news3.calgary.shaw.ca

those two resources should pretty much help me determine if my harebrained ideas are at all possible.

take care,

Jester

The shifters on the 7 and 8 speed Shimano systems (Shifters and cassettes) are both compatible with each other. You will just have to lock out that click.

No. Shimano 7s and 8s are different. 8s uses a slightly large body. That is why when Shimano went to the 8s years back many riders were buying just the bodies until Shimano kind of put a stop to that making riders buy a whole rear hub.

Maybe there were a few variations because I have gotten a 7 speed RSX shifter to work on a RX100 system and a Shimano 600 (8 speed) shifter to work on an old 300ex 7 speed system. Or was it RSX?