IRD triple front derailleur question
 

I've got an IRD Alpina-D triple front derailleur installed presently with my triple 9 speed drive train and everything works fine. Do you think if I switched over to a 10 speed chain and drive train, it could handle the slightly thinner 10 speed chain adequately? For what it's worth the crank is a 46-36-24
As always, thanks for your input.

Probably, but why tempt the gods? What, pray tell, do you hope to gain?

(And to answer the question directly, we would need to know what you are using to shift it.)

Personally, ? It just try it and not ask the Internet for permission to try , first .

What would I gain, why one more cog obviously, sorry, now putting away the smart a$$ and childish person in me, actually it would allow me to make all three bikes as 10 speeds so I wouldn't have to be changing out cassettes all the time on the several wheel sets that I've built. I'm likely changing out my shifters anyway so it would be easy to just buy another 10 speed chain, got the cassettes already and would just mean resetting my LX rear derailleur if I can make that IRD front derailleur work.

I've got standard Ultegra STI 9 shifters presently but would be picking up some Shimano 10 speed sti shifters (not sure what level at this time, maybe the Tiagra because they've got the barrel adjusters built in which would be convenient).

I would think it might only need a little tweaking the stops if possible, or do the new Tiagra front shifters pull a different amount of cable than the Ultegra shifters from 6 or 7 years ago? Thanks, I do appreciate the help.

I'm not asking for permission but it could save me some coin by picking the brains of others that have far more experience and probably already worked thru it.

I love Friction shift levers they work with Just about anything

Not adventurous stick within Shimano stuff Road = road Mtb = Mtb

micometers of chain width is probably meaningless

IRD is a Brand of Merry sales Imports ` in So San Francisco & They have a telephone.. they can be asked directly.

http://commerce.merrysales.com/msc/a...=&Tp=&FgtPass=

Actually, that's a pretty good justification. (One of not very many.)

If you're going to change the shifters too, then the index will also change. The FD is just a dumb lever. The smarts are in the shifter. I'd say you can keep the FD, and good luck.

I think the derailleur would be fine. I've used 9 speed Shimano front derailleurs with 10 speed chains and it worked well. One problem might be your chain rings as some designed for 7-8-9 reportedly do not work well with 10 speed chains. I have no experience with this.

I like that derailleur a lot --and use it on two of my bikes (with another in my parts drawer for a future build). Both are currently running 10 speed drive trains (with one still using a "9-speed" crank). But, on both bikes, I dropped the large ring and am running a "sub compact" crank arrangement (bottom two rings of a triple crank). I think your conversion will have no problems.

Always my approach.

I've made so many things work after being told they wouldn't, plus I love to tinker... :beer: