mustangsailor

Hello All..new to the forum and hope to learn a lot here. I am relatively new to the road cycling world and am loving it. I recent got an indoor trainer for the winter months, and a trainer wheel from my brother in law, but it does not have a cassette on it. I have a 2015 Giant Defy 5 and need a cassette for the trainer tire. I know that what the bike has now is the SRAM PG850 11x32, 8-speed, but my question is, can i get a cassette with more "speeds" that will work with the shimano claris derailleur? If so, how big can I go....9 speed...10...11? If I can't go any larger, that's fine too, but I thought that a few more options would be great.

Thanks for any insight you can provide.

Erik

noodle soup

the derailleur isn't the big problem here. Your shifters are 8 speed, so the cassette must be 8 speed as well.

mustangsailor

Thanks....didn't even think about the shifter itself....

VegasTriker

It is more than just cassette and shift mechanism. The width of the chain is different for each of the choices you mentioned so you would have to change the chain as well. Hard to say if the chainrings would work on a narrower chain. It's why I often point out the advantage of having more choices when somebody lists a bike with 2 X 8 or 3 X 8 gearing and asks for an opinion about buying it. The more gears you have, the more likely there will be some overlap (gears approximately the same) but the more likely you are to find a comfortable cadence under all conditions.

dalava

whatever you do, to minimize any hassle when swapping between the trainer wheel and the real wheel, stick with the same speed. If the shifter/chain/cassette/rear derailleur on the real wheel is 8-speed, then make the training wheel 8-speed as well.

Psimet2001 

8 = 8

AlexCyclistRoch

Even if you "polish your spacers", you'd still need to upgrade the shifters.