TrailCat

Hi everyone,

I recently bought my first reasonably decent (well compared to my past runabout hacks) bike from ebay, a Raleigh C500. The previous owner had fitted new wheels and Vredestein Slicks on it which I love. The cassette has 10 cogs and the gears were the entry level Shimano Tourney 3 front 7 on rear.
Being such a newbie, I didn't take much notice of the cassette count. It looked good and it was rideable which is all I was interested in.
Until last week when I decided to upgrade my gears.

I came across some cheap 2nd hand parts a Shimano Alivio RD 8 speed and finger/thumb trigger shifters with V brake lever attached (I'm still learning terminology ok), and after watching and reading many articles I fitted them on yesterday. I figured I could fit an 8 speed on a 10 cog cassette because of the previous RD worked. And it did work. Well not fully. Some gears will not shift onto the cogs.
I have a feeling it could be the original Tourney FD not being suited for an 8speed?
So I bought a Shimano LX FD that I will fit this week.

Ok so what I am wandering is, will my bike be way out of its' 'comfort zone' in working as it should? If that makes Any sense at all.

I'm just getting back into riding since childhood and I mainly ride bike trails 3-4x a week if that helps.

JiveTurkey

The shifter, cassette, and chain need to match number of gears (though you can actually have a higher-speed/narrower chain). They come in 7/8-speed, 9-speed, and 10-speed)

The RD doesn't care; it just goes where the shifter tells it to. (This assumes we're not talking about old Dura Ace or new Dyna-Sys/10-speed MTB gear.)

For best shifting, the FD and chain should be the same speed.


Regarding your gear:

You can keep the Alivio shifters, get an 8-speed cassette, use any of the RDs you mentioned.

The Tourney FD may actually work better than the LX because the Tourney is designed for 7/8-speed whereas the LX is designed for 9-speed. If the LX is Dyna-Sys (10-speed), it won't work at all (incompatible cable pull ratio).

You may need a new 7/8-speed chain if it's too worn for a new cassette and/or too short.

If the current brakes are older-style cantilever, they won't be compatible with V-brake levers. Some levers allow anchoring the cable in two spots (one for cantilever, other for V). You could also get V-brakes to replace the cantilevers, if you do have cantilevers.

Canker

I'm a bit confused but I'll say this
7/8/9 speed RDs are interchangeable while 10 speed RDs are only 10 speed in the mtn bike world.

SweetLou

Front derailers don't care how many cogs are in the back. There is a difference in the amount of pull a front derailer needs if it is a MTB or a road bike derailer. But if the tourney worked previously the new flatbar shifters should work fine.

Now, with the rear setup... I am not sure what is going on here. You had a 10 speed cassette but were using a 7 speed shifter? Now you kept the 10 speed cassette and using an 8 speed shifter? This is confusing, but the shifter must match the cassette. If you have an 8 speed shifter, you need an 8 speed cassette. In general, the derailer doesn't care, it is dumb. It just does what the shifter tells it to do. There are exceptions (8 speed Dura Ace, Dyna Sys) But I am thinking you don't have such a derailer. So the derailer and shifter should be fine, you just need te proper cassette.

TrailCat

So after going for a ride I think I understand what you all are saying now,
the RD does work in the sense that it shifts gear, the trigger shift does click down as if it is changing, but,
the chain is only moving to wherever it wants to on the cassette!

So basically, in the lowest gear, the chain starts on the 2nd from largest cog then as I move up in gear it either moves to he next cog as it should, or stays on the same cog. When I get to the highest gears the chain jumps a cog. And in the last gear the chain ends up on the 2nd from smallest cog.



Although I may not feel the full effect of each gear change, it still feels like a smooth ride. I don't know whether that is because I have only ridden cheap crappy bikes or because I don't know much about bikes.

If I kept it as it is, would I do damage in the future?
Personally, I'm rather proud of myself for installing everything so I don't want to take it all off again.

Cheers,
Priscilla

TrailCat

Correction- when it is in the highest gear the chain ends up on the 3rd to smallest cog and Not the 2nd from smallest as I thought.

shoot, does that mean I end up with only 7 working gears on the rear?

dabac

What parts are on the bike now?
Is it the 8-speed shifter and the 10-speed cassette?
In that case, you can only get 8 rear gears.
Or do you have an 8-speed cassette too?
In which case it should work, but you may need to either adjust the high/low limit screws, or the cable tension - the initial clamping point. Do a net search for "rear derailer adjustment" and go to it. Park Tool has a good one and so has Sheldon Brown.

TrailCat

Currently, there is the 8 speed Alivio RD on a 10 speed cassette. The cassette came with the bike when I bought it 2nd hand from someone who had fitted different wheels and tyres.

I figured I could fit the 8 speed Alivio RD and 8speed trigger shifter on after realising the original 7 speed Tourney and twist shifter was working on the 10 speed cassette.

The only part I haven't replaced (yet) is the front derailleur, I have an old Shimano LX that I can fit on this week, it is FD M550, which, after research, it suits triple cogs at the front. plus, I believe the current Tourney FD is ****e hence I want to replace it.

dabac

Well, with an 8-speed shifter, you can only choose 8 places to point the chain at, so you shouldn't be getting more than 8 gears, even if there are more sprockets at the back. With the 7-speed, you only had 7 positions to choose from. Thing is, the spacing - the sideways gap from one sprocket to the next - is different between 7/8/10, so you might not always hit the same one. Where your derailer will try to point the chain may be right between two sprockets.
The 7-speed may well have swept the whole range, but there's no way it would have let you hit each sprocket consistently.
For end-to-end coverage, adjust the limit screws.

TrailCat

Yeah, just as I thought.
i shall ride with this set up until I either get an 8speed cassette or I get annoyed with it.

Thanks for your help!

dabac

If it's rattling a lot, or the chain skips, make the change sooner rather than later, as that will mean faster wear.

Canker

suprised it works at all. 10 speed and 8 speed cassette have different spacing. 8 speed cassettes are dirt cheap.

Far Side of 50

You need to go on Sheldon Brown's website at Harris Cyclery and read about freewheels and cassettes ((( Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Frame and Cassette Spacing Crib Sheet ))) and the crib sheet for cassette spacing. 5 speed cogs for Shimano Index Shifting cassettes and freewheels are spaced further apart than 6 speed systems and as you go up in number of cogs the spacing between the cogs gets closer. Your shifting is determined by your shifters BUT the shifter expects the proper spacing between the cogs. You can use as many cogs on your freehub as you can fit as long as you use the proper spacers between them AND as long as you use the correct type of final cog or lockring to hold everything together.

If you want to use the 8 speed shifters you can buy 8 speed spacers and use 8 of the cogs BUT you must use the correct, last, small cog to hold everything on the hub body.

I learned this when I pulled apart 6 speed Uniglide, 7 speed Hyperglide 13 to 28 and 7 speed Hyperglide 14 to 28 freewheels and changed cogs and then investigated switching over to a Uniglide freehub to do my custom gearing.