8/4/15 1:51 PM

Based on the other thread this might be the wrong crowd to ask this question :)....
However I'll throw it out here.
I wasn't really in the market for a new bike but I came across a really good deal on a bike with 11 speed, so far so good.
The thing is that I have various wheelsets that I have bought over the years that I use for various races etc.... and if I go 11 pretty much those wheels won't work.
So I'm kin of on the fence about getting the new bike, just wanted to put it out there and get some thoughts.

Please no comments about the good old days days pre derailleurs ;)

8/4/15 1:58 PM

One of the reasons my new bike is 10S. ;) Although I do have one disc and one non disc 11 speed wheelset. I have a lot of 10s speed wheels. And a lot of cassettes that cross bikes practically and easily. So there is that for sure in the equation.

An option is to run your wheels with 10 of 11 spaced on those freehubs until in the future you get or build some with the wider freehub.

Not sure any of that is useful... But I am sticking strictly 10 speed bu choice.

The new frame is Di2 ready, but no immediate plans...

8/4/15 2:08 PM

This wouldn't be a from scratch build, the bike comes with 11 speed.

8/4/15 2:14 PM

But are wheels on it adequate by any or all your personal definitions? I assumed this was an aspect of the issue, correct me if I m wrong.

I have read about some creative dremeling on 10s bodies to get an 11s cassette on. but you loose plug and play wheel swapping I'd presume. That would dis-interest me on the rube fitting. As much as I am a proponent of creative rubing..

But as far as those other wheels working, same comment applies regarding running 10 of the 11 cogs/cassette spaced correctly for 11s and spaced to be correctly tight on the freehub body..

8/4/15 2:18 PM

The wheels would be good for knocking around / training, but would be pretty heavy for any racing applications.
Yeah this is partly the issue and partly that my nice collection of wheels become very obsolete with one swipe of the credit card.

8/4/15 2:33 PM

"my nice collection of wheels become very obsolete with one swipe of the credit card."

the marketing guys are masturbating reading that on their screens you realize. ;)

I kind of made the decision to stay way left of 11 speed when I got those NOS 9 speed XTR hubs for the Pacenti SL25 wheels I built. Of course the next two hubsets I bought for wheel builds were 11 speed. So instead of that feeling I got when looking at 5800/6800 groups on UK web site for drool induced prices, I have some other feeling. Not sure what it is exactly. But grabbing the Di2 Ultegra levers for 99.00 shipped was reminiscent of Vator urging Luke to the dark side admittedly. I probably need to give those away to stay safe... [or just keep as extras once my path to the dark side is complete...]

But for racing, would not the extra cog in the mix make for a little more cross over for what wheel(s) you might use for a given race/course?? In the end needing less wheels for the task? I kid partially...

8/4/15 2:55 PM

Henoch, I think you just have to suck it up and decide whether the value of the new bike outweighs possibly obsoleting the wheels.

I have 11 speed on my newest bike and 10 speed on a bunch of others, and I use several bikes, so I just keep using the old wheels for the most part. But I don't have a lot of specialized racing wheels.

The 11 speed works great, FWIW (Chorus). I use 12-27 with a 50/34 compact and really like the gears. I like the 12 for slight downhills though I could easily get along without it (I have enough weight that it's not hard to turn it over on a slight downgrade). I also have a 12-29, haven't put it on yet but might for a really hilly ride. I only have one set of 11 speed wheels but I don't race except for an occasional tt and those are Merckx Division so I can't use aero wheels anyway.

I always resolve close questions in favor of buying the bike. :)

8/4/15 3:05 PM

So you can't just pop 11sp cogsets onto 10sp hubs? I thought they were generally compatible.

For what it's worth, I mounted some 9sp wheels onto a bike that was set up for 10sp and there was just a little bit of clunkiness that could be trimmed out. I wouldn't race with that setup, but knocking around was just fine.

I'd say give it a try. Maybe borrow an 11sp bike and try your 10sp wheels on it to see how it feels?

8/4/15 3:11 PM

Mavic 9/10s wheels with a Shimano compatible cassette body will take 11s cassettes. AFAIK, no-one else made their 9/10s wheels with a wider cassette body. With 11s Shimano, the only 11s cassettes that will fit on a 9/10 speed wheel are the very wide range XT or XTR cassettes with a 40t or 42t large sprocket (the large sprocket puts the chain far enough away from the spokes that the cassette sits further inboard).

There is a description of how to modify a 10 speed wheel to take 11s cassette here (scroll down the page until you see the heading "Converting a 10-speed freehub body to 11-speed": http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/10/bikes-and-tech/how-to-convert-a-10-speed-29er-wheel-to-a-cross-disc-hoop-and-align-rotors_306588

Edit: p.s. Cassette bodies on Campagnolo wheels were already wide enough to take 11s cassettes. Any Campagnolo 9/10/11s wheel will take any 9/10/11s cassette, so there is no compatibility problem with them.

8/4/15 5:54 PM

You can use 10 speed cassettes on 11 speed wheels with a thick spacer. Unfortunately an 11 speed SRAM/Shimano cassette won't fit onto a stock 10 speed wheel. The exceptions listed above using the dremel to grind off some cassette body may work but I do not have personal experience with that.

In my case I was looking to upgrade because my stuff was old and my wheels were in bad shape. It made sense to build wheels with 11 speed hubs, as they were useable with my 10 speed stuff until I upgraded. I upgraded both of my road bikes to 11 speed simultaneously. One has Red and the other Force. Functionally, it works well and I like the additional gear. I live in an area with hills, so it is helpful to have a bit of a wider range of gears. I run a 36x50 with an 11-25 most of the time. I have a climbing race this weekend, so I threw on an 11-28. I have an 11x23 for flat races.

I think that your concern about your existing stock of 10 speed wheels is common and is preventing wide scale adoption of 11 speed gearing.

8/4/15 7:04 PM

Yes, its why I'm not going 11. You can either buy new cassette bodies, or where they're not available, ship the existing ones to someone with a lathe to take off 1mm. Finally, you can use an 11 spd cassette with a cog removed and block out the 11th shift with the limit screws if you're ok with 10 spd on the non-11 wheels.

8/5/15 4:11 AM

some wheels you can just update the freehub body from 10spd > 11spd so all is not lost.

I have 10spd 11-25 (52/36) Ultegra on one bike and 11spd 11-28 (52/36) DuraAce on another, so basically my 10spd ratio with the addition of the 28.

One other benefit (mine are both mechanical setups) is that the 11spd shifters are just so much easier and smoother to operate than the 10 speed ones, especially the FD and the newer brakes are much better IMO as well.

I know opinions vary, but I still love spinning out my 11T cog on the downhills.

Last edited by Tim123 on 8/6/15 4:02 PM; edited 1 time in total

8/5/15 9:41 AM

1st I've heard that about the shifters/shifting. I do have a set of the newer pull calipers with some older pull STIs and quite like the power there.

Back to the STIs, I have two 7800 STI setups and the front smooth buttery flawless shifts. I also have a set of the between groupo ST-R700 STIs also 10 speed. Rear flawless, but the front was nothing like the 7800s... until I put a 7800 front DR replacing the Ultegra DR, the improvement in the buttery shift dept is major FWIW. Still a touch more tactile than the 7800, but very close in that buttery feel.

8/5/15 10:02 AM

Does the bike you are considering have Campy or Shimano shifters? I took a small step towards 11 speed using Campy shifters and a Shimano rear der on a 9 spped wheel. I'll post details if you like.

8/5/15 10:25 AM

Ok I've done a bunch of these. Even using the older 8 speed bodies. You just need to dremel off a very small amount of the material on the inboard side of the cassette body (which the large cog rests against). Go gently, you don't need to take off very much to make it work.

8/5/15 10:56 AM

I'm pretty interested in hearing about this, can you shoot me a email? hgetz at me dot com

8/5/15 11:13 AM

Not saying you should not PM about what you know. But how about sharing the data in thread so others participating might benefit. Especially should less threads wind up being engaged on the lock ring....

Considering a 10s cassette uses a steel spacer, I guess you are already part way there. But depending on the hub flange diameter and dish of a given wheel, moving the business end of the DR and chain closer to the spokes maybe an issue. And probably limit screw adjustments needed from wheel to wheel an issue? But I think we already see this from one brand to the next hub wise anyway...


You can always go back to using a plastic poke protector to be safe, ;). Not that you would have room for one...

8/5/15 4:14 PM

Shimano Shifters

8/6/15 11:39 AM

Something I had not thought of until recently.

Re: Close Ratio cassette and gearing. With a lot more shifting and the angle of ones carpel tunnel... Is a close ratio setup going to make for more wrist comfort issues in the long term? Or on the ling ride for that matter. 6+ house VS 2 hour rides etc.
The shifts on STI do make for a wrist bend each shift after all...

I don't get as much hand/wrist discomfort on the bar con bikes it seems on longer stents.

opinions?

8/7/15 2:00 AM

I find with SRAM shifters that my wrist doesn't move at all when making a shift - for both upshifts and downshifts I push the shift paddle with my middle finger while the rest of my hand remains in an unchanged position on the hoods and brake lever.

8/7/15 5:29 AM

Yet another reason/time Shimano is screwing it's users.
Just another reason I use Campy, same freehub body for 9sp, 10sp and 11sp.

Just saying

8/7/15 8:07 AM

quote:

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Just another reason I use Campy, same freehub body for 9sp, 10sp and 11sp.

---

8/7/15 9:10 AM

My wheels started as Campy 8sp, for $50 I was able to buy a new Campy 9sp freehub body for my Campy wheels.

But again, Shimano did the same thing moving from 8sp....

8/7/15 9:17 AM

Shimano 8,9,10 all on same freehub as well. Unfortunately @ 11 the romance ceased. As said already, another reason I have a lot of 10 speed and will for a while, even the new build is 10s. Still have a few 8s and a few 9s n the mix.

8/7/15 10:49 AM

"Yet another reason/time Shimano is screwing it's users.
Just another reason I use Campy, same freehub body for 9sp, 10sp and 11sp.

Just saying..."


Like the good old days, Shimano vs. Campy devotees!

I would say that Shimano at least held out through 10s with the same freehub body width, to the benefit of wheel strength (prior to their adopting 2/3 spoking on certain of their high-end wheels. Just that Shimano and Campy had different dates of occurrence when their freehub body widths made a change, and when their rear derailer actuation ratio changed.
I'll ding Shimano only for their brief copy-cat foray into the world of alloy freehub bodies and stressed OS 4-bearing axles, ugggh.

And I got lucky with my 8s Record Titanium gruppo, which adopted the newer freehub body (alloy, with deeper splines) some years ahead of the 9s gruppos!
Lucky, that is, until a replacement ti cassette is needed, forced upgrade looking like... ...or piece together an 8s replacement using 9s cogs(?).