Originally Posted by
Arrowana
Cantilevers and road calipers have the same cable pull, so brifters will work fine. V-Brakes have a different cable pull and either need the correct levers, or travel agents.
Freewheels and cassettes use totally different attachment methods, so a hub will only work with one and not the other. If you do get a new wheel, make sure it has 135mm spacing for MTBs and hybrids, not 130mm for road bikes. The spacing between 7 and 8 speed is the same, so if you set it up right you could use the 8 speed shifters with the 7 speed freewheel. I've done the reverse and used 7 speed shifters on a 8 speed cassette on my Schwinn, and it works great.
Fascinating...so what I'm getting from this is that initially, I should be able to simply swap out the stock bar, shifters/brake levers and brakes for the drop bar, ST-2303 brifters and cantilever brakes and they would work fine with the current derailleurs and rear hub. If I wanted to actually upgrade to the cassette I chose, I would then also need to buy an extra 700c wheel that has hybrid/MTB-style spacing of 135mm and would accept the 8-speed cassette. This would leave me with the stock 7-speed wheel & hub, which I could leave the stock tire on, and use for outdoors, and have the optional 8-speed wheel with the indoor trainer tire mounted for use with the trainer. Is this all correct interpretation of the above? I even have the original skewer that came with the bike that I could reinstall in the stock wheel/tire/hub set and move the skewer that came with my trainer to the newly assembled 8-speed wheel & cassette set!
Could anyone kindly provide an example of an appropriate wheel to go with the said cassette? If the derailleur and brifter combination will work with both wheel setups, I'd prefer to have that option available--I had a really difficult time and a terrible experience trying to get that Continental indoor trainer mounted on the wheel the first time and would love to be able to avoid having to do it more than once more!
-Ed
PS Thanks to everyone so far for all the advice; this is really helpful and I can't wait to get this project really moving!