Hi Guys,

Shifting from 10 speed to 11 speed on one of my bikes. Selling the 10 speed to someone who is currently on Tiagra 9 speed.

Hitch is that I am getting everything except the crankset in April, but my crankset comes in May.

1. Can I swap everything out on my bike but retain my 6700 crank till the 11 speed crank arrives?
2. For the buyer, can he swap out everything to 10 speed and retain the 9 speed crank till I give him the 10 speed crank?


If above are possible, which chains should I/he use? If I use the 11 speed it should be OK I guess, but will he be OK with a 10 speed chain on his FD and cranket?

Use 10 speed and 11 speed chains for most efficiency with the corresponding 10 and 11 speed cassettes. I am using "10 speed" crank with 11 speed everything else and works flawlessly so you should be fine. I don't think you really need a new crank. I haven't used so called 9 speed cranks with narrower 10 speed chain but I suspect that will work fine for the buyer as well.

Thanks so much.

Well, new crankset is already ordered, and I need it to 'match' the rest of the groupset. Plus, I sold the 10 speed as a complete group, so I have to give my crank.

You and he will be fine. You can run an 11-speed set up on 10-speed chainrings, and you can run a 10-speed set up on 9-speed chainrings.

For awhile, a lot of chainrings were rated as 9/10 speed. Now they have moved to 10/11 speed.

And as DOS said, your chains and cassettes need to match 10/10, 11/11.

As mentioned for the most part you shouldn't have any issues. There is little difference between them all. That said I have run into very specific issues that have crept up in the past. Super short chainstays and chainline made running 11 spd crank on a 10 speed system a bit of a PITA with a lot of jumping under load - even with an 11 speed chain. Problem never fully went away until we went back to 10 speed rings and chain.

So not always a slam dunk but for the most part you should be fine.

So if I want a compact crank to go with my old 7800 setup I could use a new 11-speed 105 crank?

I was told 11sp cranks can be used on 10sp setups. I'm running a compact DA9000 crank on a 7900 without any issues.

Yes.