Boyd Reynolds

Hi Mechanics,
I'm reasonably handy, but not a bike mechanic, and I have few tools.

I bought this bike in pretty good condition on Craigslist and I'm hoping to convert it into a touring bike. This will happen in stages as I collect tools and parts.

Right now I'm hoping to change to drop bars. I have some 9 speed Sora brifters that I'd love to be able to use, but I don't know about compatibility issues here. The original hubs, derailleurs, and crank are Deore DX 7 speed. Here are the questions that occur to me right now:

Can I put a modern 9 speed cassette on this hub?

Will the derailleurs work with modern 9 speed STI?

The cassette on the bike now has a 28 tooth big cog. Will the DX rear derailleur tolerate a bigger one? If so, how big?

If none of this will work, where can I find decent 7 speed bar end shifters?

I'll have more questions as I move forward. Thanks in advance for your help.

dabac

7-speed freehub bodies can't take 9-speed cassettes, the width is different. You have two options:
1) replace the freehub body with a 8/9 speed version. Easy enough if you can pull the axle.
2) use 8 out of 9 sprockets on the 7-speed body. Even easier.

I've used supposedly 7 speed derailers with 9-speed chain + shifter + cassette w/o any issues.
Can't hep with capacity of the DX derailer. You'll have to compare lengths with the cage of a derailer with known capacity.

Boyd Reynolds

Thank you, dabac.

I forgot about the different chain, and therefore different chainrings/crank. If I change the freehub body and shifters to 9 speed, will the original DX crank be a problem? Might be easier to just switch to bar ends if I'm looking at a mostly new drive train. I like STI, but mostly I wanted to use those shifters because I have them.
How hard will it be to shift a 7 speed cassette with friction shifters?

BCRider

You could get a new freehub body to install on your old wheel. Or just buy a newer 9 speed compatible wheel.

It's a great frame but as I recall from my own 970 there were not any braze ons for easy mounting of racks. Or am I mis-remembering this? I had the sort of brownish red version if that helps.

wrk101

My 1992 950 has braze ons for rear rack, but not front rack.

I would go with barcons. Been thinking about installing drops and barcons on mine.

BCRider

Ah, fair enough. It's been some years since I stupidly sold off my old 970. It's the one bike of the 10 or so that have been through my hands that I really wish I'd kept. That frame darn near climbed the hills for me it was so good.

I'll post up a picture of a different sort of option for you to consider. Back when brifters and barcons were stupidly expensive I modified a set of MTB Rapidfire pods to fit up around drop bars and sit in near the center swelling of the bars. I rode the Canondale with this setup for a lot of years. The "tops" were a touch crowded due to the presence of the shifter pods and cables but it never stopped me from casually placing my hands there for a break. And the shifting was actually easier for me to reach considering that I always found going into the drops to be quite the stretch.

The mod I did to the mounts was to bore it out in my metal lathe. But an equally servicable job could be done with hand files or even a Dremel and some patience.

I've still got the bike but I need to get a threadless BB due to stripped out threads.

Boyd Reynolds

I probably will install a new freehub body if I can use the original crank with a 9 speed chain. The DX hub still spins beautifully, so I'd like to keep it running. If it turns out that the original wheel can't stand the weight I might replace the whole wheel. I assume my 1992 frame spacing is 135mm?

My 970 is eggplant purple. The rear has fender and rack eyelets , but the front fork has non, not even at the tips. I'll be looking for a good way to mount a front rack and possibly a fender. Any suggestions?

I hadn't considered putting the original trigger shifters (deore XT, and they work quite well) on drop bars. I'm not sure I could do it, or if I would like it, but I'll be interested in your pictures.

Boyd Reynolds

I may well go with barcons. Your 950 looks a lot like my 970. I notice that your fork has an eyelet at the fork tip which mine doesn't. Is it so buried under that big tube that it's useless?

mechBgon

I think your frame will turn out to be 130mm. If you do want to convert the rear hub to 8/9/10sp compatible, one straightforward way is to get this hub and transplant the freehub body and the axle set to your hub except for the left bearing cone (re-use the old one): https://www.cambriabike.com/shopexd.asp?id=84599

This will change your rear axle to 135mm, so it'll be an inelegant cram-fit into your frame, but hey. This will also allow your rear hub to accept 11-tooth cogs. You'll need to re-dish the wheel as well.

Bar-cons are the best answer to your front shifting situation, because your Sora brake/shift lever will not actuate your Deore DX front derailleur correctly, and as you can see from looking, your bike has a pretty freaky front-derailleur cable setup with that housing stop tacked onto the FD. Bar-cons, being friction shifters, will make that a non-issue.


In the bigger picture, you could get a Surly Long-Haul Trucker frameset and you'd have a true touring frame with long stays to get the rear panniers away from your heels, plus front lowrider mounts, 26" wheels on your size I believe, 135mm rear end, bottom-pull FD cable routing, etc etc. For $470, all the shackles come off.

wrk101

+1 Rear is 130. Used MTB wheels are cheap, really cheap. I am currently running 135mm rear on my Trek 950, its what I had available. I am still running 7 speed with it, just have a spacer behind the cassette.

+1 MTB FDs don't have the same cable travel as road FDs, and the cable routing is odd on my 950. Really better off with barcons.

Boyd Reynolds

OK, what I think I've learned so far today:

My hub will not take a 9 speed cassette as is, but will take a 9 speed compatible freehub body. This will change the spacing from 130 to 135, but that will probably work in this frame. This could be done for less than $20.

The 9 speed STI shifters will work with that setup and the current rear derailleur, but not the front derailleur.

Things I'm still wondering about:

Will my DX crank work with a 9 speed chain? I imagine that I can change the FD pretty inexpensively if that's the only barrier.

What is the biggest cog my DX rear derailleur will tolerate? I do eventually want a lower low gear than the 26 front and 30 tooth rear for pulling my fat ass and camping gear into the Santa Cruz mountains.

On that topic, can I easily change the 26 for something smaller? Do I want to? The numbers are a little beat up, but they look to be 26/38/46.

What barcons should I be looking for? It sounds like that's the easiest way to go at this point. I haven't used them, but I don't think I'll have too hard a time adjusting. I searched for 7 speed bar end shifters in a couple of places and got nothing. What else will work? What is reliable and not too pricey?

I marvel at how helpful this forum is. You are saving me piles of time and money with a few keystrokes. Thank you and thank you again.

mechBgon

It's possible that a 9-speed chain would be narrow enough to "skate" on the tips of the chainring teeth of the middle and small rings, which is like having a car transmission suddenly slip into neutral. If that's the case, well... it's nothing money can't fix in the form of a 9sp-compatible crankset.

The Deore DX rear derailleur may manage a 32-tooth cog, possibly even a 34. If possible, could you shift the bike to its lowest gear (granny ring, 30-tooth cog), pedal it a few times so the RD finds its resting place, and then post a photo of it from the side? The limiting factor will be whether you can get the upper RD pulley to not reach through the chain links and start "rumbling" on the large cog of your cassette. There's an adjusting screw on the upper pivot that can boost the spring strength to increase that tolerance somewhat.

A smaller granny ring leaves more chain slack, which generally results in the RD pulley cage rotating clockwise, bringing the upper pulley closer to the cogs. So this is another factor in the question posed in the previous paragraph... how large a cog can the RD handle before it starts to grumble in your lowest gear, even when the upper pivot adjustment screw (B-tension screw) is maxed.

For 7sp Shimano-compatible bar-cons, one option is to look for Shimano 7-speed bar-cons on ebay. Alternately, you could get these mounts, and mount any Shimano downtube shifter set on them: https://www.treefortbikes.com/product...ter-Mount.html Technically there are downtube shifters in everything from 6sp to 10sp, but in practice everything beyond 7sp is scarce... if you needed 9sp bar-cons, you'd probably just have to get a brand-new SL-BS77 set at about $130. Ouch.

The cheapest option would ordinarily be downtube shifters, but since your frame has no downtube shifter mounts, that's not going to work. I did just remember the next-cheapest option, which is Shimano's stem-mounted indexed shifters. Shoot, we might even have a set left over in the basement at the LBS, I could look if you wanted some.

dabac

Haven't tried DX, but LX of the same era will happily accept a 9-speed chain.

Really? OK, so maybe I had 26-32, but I've done some vicious climbs, and I haven't felt that lower gearing would have helped much.
To me, it's the continuous effort that's eventually the killer.
I'd have to get a trike or something before being able to benefit from a lower gear.

LesterOfPuppets

Yeah, 26x30 sounds plenty low for road riding to me also. Especially if you run some 26"x1.25" slicks on there, that's a pretty low gear, even with a touring load.

On my roadified MTBs I always wish I had a 50T or even more big ring.

Boyd Reynolds

Here is a picture of the RD and cassette as requested. I turned the adjustment screw all the way in before I took this one, which slowed the shifting down some. That probably means I can move to a bigger cog, right?



I hear you guys saying that 26/30 is small enough. I don't actually know from experience that I need a lower gear, but the folks on the touring forum all think so. I intend to use this bike to travel with camping gear. 30lbs of bike, 240lbs of me, 50lbs of gear and water means a load of 320lbs. I expect to be lugging all that through at least the Santa Cruz mountains, and hopefully beyond.

At this point it seems like the prudent option would be to switch to barcons and leave the rest of the drive train alone. I can save my pennies for an all new drive train with the super low gears if I decide I need them later.

mech, thanks for the offer of stem shifters. I have a prejudice against them from my childhood stem shifters and safety levers indicated a crappy bike, while downtube shifters and aero levers indicated a "racing" bike.

I'll look at the jagwire adapters if I can't find 7 speed barcons. I think I'd be OK with friction barcons if that's what I can find. Do they all have a friction setting? If so, I can use any barcons at all, right?

mechBgon

A 32 might work back there, or a 24 in front. I guess the worst that can happen is it rumbles in low gear and then you know you should get a new rear derailleur, right?

I could see wanting a super-easy low gear when you're on a tour. With a full camping load, plus doing quite a lot of mileage day after day on a less-than-optimal diet, you might be pooped as you crawl uphill to your next campground for the night. If you end up never using your lowest gear, then no harm no foul.

The Shimano downtube and bar-con shifters can be switched from indexed to full friction mode by just turning the D-ring by hand, so if you'd be open to a friction shifter setup, then anything from 6sp to 10sp would work with any possible rear setup you might end up with.

One way to get some good low gearing, while leaving the rear stuff alone, would be to slap on a compact-drive crankset. Some of them are darn cheap, like a Shimano Acera, which is 8-speed-ish and comes with a 22-32-44 (edit: oops, the one in my link has a 42, not a 44). Here's one for $46 that fits a 122mm spindle, probably the same length your bike's got right now: https://aebike.com/product/shimano-ac...r7591-qc30.htm OK yeah, steel chainrings, heavy, technically a downgrade, but it'll drop your low gear big-time for a small investment. You'd want to adjust your front derailleur height and perhaps shorten your chain if the extra slack causes rear grumbling, but that's minor stuff.

wrk101

+1 Running friction will make your search easier. Also look at the various European bike supply houses, they tend to have a lot more choices on bar cons, and shipping isn't bad on small parts.

BluesDawg

Friction bar end shifters work great on 7 or 8 speed cassettes. I had Suntour barcons on my roadified 970 with 8 speed and an old XT RD.

Boyd Reynolds

That looks like the same frame I'm working with. Very cool setup! I scoured the local shops today and came up with a single Suntour ratcheting bar end shifter. I also got tubes, tires (Ritchey Tom Slicks 26x1.4) rim tape, and the struts I needed for a rear rack I already have. I'll be able to ride it with the flat bar and xt shifters tomorrow. I still need:
another barcon
drop bars - I think I'll use the Nitto Randonneur, as it comes in 25.4 diameter
rode brake levers - the LBS has some unmatched levers that I can probably have for free
front rack and mounting hardware - The fork has no eyelets, even at the tips. I haven't figured that one out yet
bags - I have some grocery-getter open top Jandd bags that I can use for commuting in the good weather, but I'll need something more serious to travel with
I'm going to leave the rest of the drivetrain the way it is for now. Later this summer I'll load it up and climb some local hills to see if I can use the current setup or if I need to go lower.