A search will likely turn up more answers than you will get here over the holiday weekend. That said I have run Shimano DA 10 speed with a FSA compact crank for about a year with no issues at all. To start you off the minimum you need is a 10spd cassette and 10spd chain, the shimano DA 9 front and rear derailer work just fine if you already have them and want to save a few bucks for now.

thanks for the response...that helps.

cheers.

Sorry, I forgot to mention this but you will also have to swap out the shifters if they are STI or if you use bar end shifters and use the indexed shifting. If you use the friction shift on the 9 speed bar end shifters they will work for 10 speed. Hope that helps.

//does anyone have any experience running compact cranks with the new shimano 10 speed groups? any problems/issues/concerns? //


Search for some of my previous posts on the subject. I ran into a problem with one bike that wouldn't shift well up front until I switched to a 10spd front derailleur- the cage on the 10spd is about 1mm more narrow than the 9spd derailleur - the more narrow cage was necessary to keep from throwing the chain when shifting from little to big.

Additional concern with the FSA's is that their early rings weren't 10spd compatible- they had to switch to slightly more narrow rings. there is an alpha-numeric code stamped on the chainrings that will tell you if they are compatible or not, send an email to FSA to figure out which you have.

Another issue with compacts - depending on your chainstay length and cassette range you want to run - is that, in order to not have any slack in the chain with the little-little combination, the big-big will over-stretch the derailleur. this can be solved with using a triple (long cage) rear derailleur, as talked about in one of slowman's articles from a while back. the downside is you have to buy another derailleur, and it doesn't look as cool. Alternatively, just remember not to cross-chain your gears and you'll be fine.

aside from the above, I've had great luck with the FSA's, use them on my road bikes, and have upgraded a number of friends to them as well.

Good luck,

Jeff