Bicycle Mechanics - possible to combine 10 sp campy chorus with friction?

howdy...

I have an older Merckx with Campy and i'm looking to upgrade the rear derailleur. Can I put a newer chorus 10 speed derailleur on the bike? i have friction/downtube. Is this setup compatible?

Dont why it shouldnt work, as long are u using it in friction mode all should work fine.

Friction shifting is the most tolerant type there is. It will allow you to mix-and-match nearly any components.

cool. i didn't know that. i thought maybe some derailleurs were set up for only one thing or another. i guess the derailleur really doesnt care -- it's just being pulled or not.

The derailler doesn't know and doesn't care how many cogs are on the cassette. I think St. Sheldon wrote that the "speed" designation of deraillers is meaningless. For indexed systems the "speeds" are in the shifters.

But to answer your question: it should work fine. On my tri bike I used DA friction bar ends on Ultegra 9 speed cassette with a 105 "10-speed" rear derailler. No issues at all.

The derailler doesn't know and doesn't care how many cogs are on the cassette. I think St. Sheldon wrote that the "speed" designation of deraillers is meaningless. For indexed systems the "speeds" are in the shifters.

But to answer your question: it should work fine. On my tri bike I used DA friction bar ends on Ultegra 9 speed cassette with a 105 "10-speed" rear derailler. No issues at all.


Actually I was wondering less about the speeds and more about the interfacing of a new campy derailleur with an old friction shifter itself. In my mind, I was thinking that a given derailleur might be either index or friction-oriented. But I think I might be learning that a given derailleur can be set to work one way or another.

Obviously quite newbish here -->self<-----

decadyne:

You answered the question yourself in post no. 4. It just gets pulled by the cable. (And that's not a newbish question.)