Originally Posted by
Jacque Lucque
Not quite so. The vast majority of modern freehubs have spacing for 9 speed cassette's and if you wish to run 8, you use a spacer in it's place. This is the case with the hub I am going to be using.
As for the spacing, I'll wait and see!
That would be the case if you were using a 9 speed shifter with a 9 speed cassette that had one cog removed. Then you would use the limit screws on the rear derailleur to lock out the top or bottom gear on the shifter.
But you would not be able to reliably use a dedicated 8 speed shifter with a 9 speed cassette that had one cog removed, the cable pull on the 8 speed shifter is different than the 9 speed shifters.
Almost ALL modern freehubs since the early 8 speed days are the same size due to the overall physical size of the 8-9-10 speed cassettes being the same with the only differences are the smaller spacing and thinner gears on the higher speed cassettes.
But comparing a real 8 speed cassette to a 9 speed cassette minus 1 gear is completely different and would use a different shifters and setups. Apples and oranges.