showlow

Hey all. I'm building a light tourer/cross/randonneur bike for a friend. I've been trying to source quality used parts when I can to fit his budget. I just got a great deal lined up on a good condition XT cassette, crank, RD, FD, and chain (exactly the parts I need and none I don't conveniently). The thing is, we're going to be stuck with bar end shifters because brifters would just cost too much and I'm not sure how reliable or finicky they would be on long rides. Shimano makes bar-end shifters for 10 speed but they cost quite a bit as well, and they don't have a fall back friction option for the rear cassette which I think is bogus. This had me considering Silver shifters which cost half as much and would be super reliable.

So... Have any of you ever used Silvers with 10 speed XT? Is the spacing just too close for dedicated friction shifting?

Thanks!

- Tim

fietsbob

probably .. how about 8 speed cassettes instead? I use friction shifters on 7 speeds.. the 8th is similar to 7+1

showlow

I'm asking about 10 because I have those parts mentioned above lined up.

Airburst

I used friction shifting on 8/9ths of a 9-speed cassette for a while, as a way to get more gears onto a 7-speed freehub (8 sprockets from a 9-speed cassette fit on a 7-speed freehub body), and I had absolutely no trouble with the 9-speed spacing. Given that, I reckon I'd be able to handle a 10-speed rear end with the same shifters no problem.

I actually have Rivendell bar-end shifters, not sure what model though as I got them on eBay. Lovely pieces of kit, I'd recommend them as far as friction shifting goes.

davidad

The problem with 10 sp. friction shifters is the precession needed for the shift because of the narrow spacing.

zebede

I don't know if this works with 10 speed but its an alternative idea.

Find a junk 9 speed cassette, disassemble and take spacers and put them on 10 speed cassette (minus 1 cog).
Then you could have your fancy cassette and buy a 9 speed bar end (w/friction).

Its been a while but I did some of this with 7 and 8 speeds and it worked.

desertdork

I haven't used the "silver" shifters, but I suspect you'll run out of shifter travel before the RD can reach the lowest cogs. Dyna-Sis RDs are designed to match shifters with more cable pull for increased leverage. Someone had mentioned they had successfully worked around this by modifying the shape of the shifter pod, but I'd switch to an earlier (non-DynaSis) RD.

cycle_maven

Yes, I agree with Fietsbob- 8 speed is the magic number for friction shifting. You can use a modern freehub without spacers, and 6-7-8 speed chains, which are stronger and cheaper than 9 or 10-speed, and it's not so fiddly that you will need super-fine motor control to find a single gear. So yeah- get the silver shifters and use an 8-speed drivetrain.

If you have to use the XT derailleur, and it one of the new Dyna-sys ones, then you won't be able to use the silver shifters. Too much cable pulled per gear on Dyna-sys. If you have to go that route, I would recommend trekking bars and a Dyna-sys shifter pod.

Bill Kapaun

Successful friction shifting depends a lot on ergonomics of the shifter and the appendage(s) you use to manipulate them.
When I had Deore (Dearhead) friction shifters on my Rockhopper, shifting got more precise as I went from 7 to 8 to 9 speeds.
Shifting 7, I'd push it a bit, then a bit more and then a bit more.
8 I'd push it a bit, then a bit more
9 was a shift without a bit more probably 90-95% of the time.
When I got my 2nd bike with trigger shifters, my friction shifting skill went down the tube big time to the point I put triggers on both bikes.

showlow

Well, we sprung the 100 for new BS79 bar end shifters to match the 10 speed XT drivetrain we bought used. But I read a new term in one of the replies. This Dynasis stuff has me stressed out that these parts won't be compatible. I don't know if anything I bought is Dynasis. Not home to check right now.

Is there any reason that BS79 shifters wouldn't work with 10 speed Dynasis?

RubeRad

Check out Dia-Compe friction shifters, Rivendell Silver's are just the same rebranded (I heard one guy ordered Dia-Compes and got them in a box that said "Rivendell Silver"), and might be cheaper.

cycle_maven

Yes, there is a reason, as a couple of us tried to tell you before- Dynasys (10-speed mountain) shifters and normal shimano 10-speed road shifters (dura-ace, ultegra, 105, tiagra) pull different amounts of cable for each gear. Dynasys pulls nearly twice the cable, so your brand-new road shifters will only shift about half the cassette. You will now need a new derailleur. Get a 9-speed Derore LX; 9-speed mountain rear derailleurs are compatible with 10-speed road shifters.

Maybe the front will work, and maybe not- All the shimano mountain shifters pull more cable than road shifters, but the front bar-end shifter is friction, so it might have enough range to shift all three rings. You might need a new (road triple) front derailleur too, though.

That's probably the reason you got s good deal on it. 10-speed mountain stuff is incompatible with most everything.

fietsbob

Dynasis ? sounds like Scientology to me..

showlow

This sucks. Oh well, I guess all this stuff is going on eBay now. All we need is a decent 9 speed mountain group...

cycle_maven

Well, maybe just the derailleurs- the other stuff is fine; the cassette, crank and chain. Somebody will need a Dynasys RD, for sure, and they're top-of-the-line so you might get good $ for them. And maybe you can pick up a lightly used LX RD and a 105 triple FD at the same time.

showlow

Yeah... that is what I was thinking. It's probably going to work out fine. I may even come out ahead considering I only paid 230 for an entire XT group minus shifters. It's just embarrassing because it wasn't my money.

Mr. Fly

Apart from the Dyna-Sys incompatibility, you may also want to return that BS79 and see if you can find a set of 7800 series BS78 bar-end shifters. They're probably discontinued but you can probably score a set locally or on eBay. Why? Because these are the last non-Dyna-Sys 10-speed bar-end shifters that can also switch to friction mode.

There are also newish XT rear derailleurs that are not Dyna-Sys and will therefore play well with any indexed Shimano-compatible 10-speed shifters (e.g., Microshift has a model that is also index/friction switchable - BS-T10). Look for something no later than model RD-M772 (RD-M773 is Dyna-Sys).

showlow

Yeah, I noticed that but chose to ignore the issue because I thought the BS79s were the way only way to mak nthe 10 speed mountain group work.

I can't be the only one who is peeved by this. What about monster cross, touring bikes, hybrid bikes or any other situation when you would want to mix a mountain drivetrains with drop bar oriented shifters? Going into this I was pretty certain that if the speeds of the shifters matched the speeds of the derailleurs then it would all work together. I see now that this Dynasys compatibility thing has been an issue for years but I don't know how I could have known.

Anyhow, I'm probably going to liquidate everything and just try to find 9/speed components instead.

RubeRad

If you're starting over, you might want to take a look at Retroshift. You could buy them with their microshift-rebranded shifters, or you could keep the BS79s and mount them and use them with whatever new derailleur(s) you get.

surreal

I'm super peeved about it, and it's basically made me rethink my position of Shimano, indexed shifting, and the bike industry in generally. I used to love that, with a little research, you could cobble together an awesome touring "group" by mixing/matching different Shimano bits from their mtb and road catalog.

It's still possible now, but much harder, and you'll need to look for used/NOS rear derailers if you want top-shelf stuff. Same with the shifters, if you want a friction option. The new GS-sized derailers will wrap 39 to 41 teeth, which is pretty good, and can take a 32t big sprocket out back.... but it's not quite enough to run a "trekking" crankset (48/36/26) with a mtb cassette (11-32), which is what I tend to shoot for. I could possibly set it up within tolerances, and simply avoid cross-chaining and be OK, but my OCD won't allow it....

If I were you, I'd keep all the XT stuff, and the 10speed bar-cons, but I'd sell the XT rear derailer and hunt down a 9 speed Deore, LX, or XT SGS-sized rear derailer....

showlow

Thanks for echoing my irritation. Makes me feel better. Maybe SRAM or Campy will still makes stuff that would make sense for my purposes? I have limited funds and my experience is sorta limited to what I can afford to experiment with under my shade tree.

I actually already canceled the order for the 10 speed bar-cons. I canceled the order with Jensonusa before it even shipped, so the money should be going back to my account soon. I would consider the idea of putting a 9 speed RD on this stuff with the 10 speed barcons but I have OCD too and I just kinda prefer that all my numbers match. Plus, this stuff is top-of-the-line and if I can pull down enough from eBay I can buy all new NOS parts in their place.

Digging deeper for NOS stuff is what I'm doing now. Part of me wants to keep this group for myself and maybe put it on a mountain bike one day, but the fact remains that I didn't buy it with my own money, it was my friend's money, and he was trusting me to pull this thing together soon (still haven't told him). I'm probably just going to front some of my own money for 9 speed Deore components, and then give him my Dura-ace bar end shifters from my bike and buy a set of 9 speed Dura-ace down-tube shifters for myself that I've been eyeing. In the end he'll get a tough, reliable 9 speed mountain group with friction shifting as a fallback.

I have the 10 speed group on eBay. I'd post a link but I don't know if that's allowed in the forum rules. Pic of the group is attached.

showlow

I like the look of those. Seem pricey though. The order for the BS79s was cxl'd and what I'm probably going to do is give him my Dura-ace 9 speed barcons as hand me downs and buy 9 speed down-tube shifters for myself. This will keep the price down and give him the kind of shifting he'll need.

SlowJoeCrow

For monster cross and gravel bike a lot of new builds are using SRAM since their 10 speed road and mtb parts inter-operate and so far the 11 speed stuff also works together. Their new CX1 group is actually a factory combo of XX1 and Force 22 for single ring cyclocross.

surreal

Yeah, but it's a shame about the road components not supporting a triple, although it all works well if ou use their bar-cons, which have a friction front with ample throw for triple cranks...