Help needed on wheels swapping.
 

Hello again fellow riders!

Another day, another reach out for help. :D

I just ordered Shimano R500 wheels with road 23mm tires for my Cannondale CAADX cross bike, so I can swap them with stock tires depending on where I am going to ride.

Now I have couple questions:

- should I get another cassette so I can have road set with cassette already in it?
- would another cassette work better for road than current Tiagra 12-28, 10 speed?

Thank you in advance!

Certainly and maybe.

Having another cassette makes wheel swaps faster and cleaner because you don't have to touch the cassette.

The cassette you use depends on the terrain you ride, your fitness and your pedaling style (spin vs mash). Only you know all those factors. If you feel that your current cassette does not have low enough gears, get a new one with lower gears. If you never use the 28t cog then get a 12-25 or similar. If you find yourself often wanting a higher gear than you have, consider an 11-xx cassette.

Why stop at a cassette? Just get a bike to go with your road tires.

To your two questions yes, depends on where you ride but n + 1 bikes is also a good answer.

Hopefully your rims are the same width as those installed - I love the wheel swap concept, but my spare rims are narrower, which forces me to adjust brakes with every swap. So I change tubes instead.

I would certainly recommend having a cassette on both wheels. Makes for a fast, easy swap, perfect for lazy guys like me.

Get two wheelsets using the same hubs and similar rims.
That's what I did with Ryenolds Assault and Attack. No fuss changes.

Yes.

Yes. 12-23. It has 16 and 18 cogs so there aren't any big jumps.

Great, thank you!

Thank you! This seems complicated to me right now: on average flat trail I'm using around 7 to 9 (9 being the smaller / faster), but once I go up hill, depending on hill grade I can be back to 1 (the largest and slowest). In addition, when I go down the hill, sometimes I wish there was another gear so I could go faster.

Hold your horses! :-) But I hear you. I wish I could just get another pure road bike. I got this cross bike because I wanted something not too fancy, something versatile that I could take to different places. If riding in groups and on roads turns out to be what I really want, then I guess I will have to get pure road bike.

Thank you! May be one day I will get pure road bike. For now I will have to go with wheel swapping. :-)

Hmmm... I did not even think that rims can be different width. Thank you. I will have to look into that. Hopefully are close.

If second set of wheels is not similar to what I already have, I will have to get two similar wheel sets.
That should eliminate "fuss changes". )

Thank you! How will 12-23 work going up hills comparing to 12-28?

The Tiagra 12-28 is
12,13,14,15,17,19,21,23,25,28

So try climbing without using your lowest two gears, 25 or 28.

I do like having a 16 gear instead of the wide 15-17 gap. But I would need more than a 23 cog on the local hills here.

As it looks like 100 votes are in favor of dedicated cassette for second wheel set, now it's time to find this second cassette.