Funny how I never went through this process during the 126 to 130 rave, but I stayed with 8 speed until just a couple of years ago and then bought all new 10 speed!
I have access to an Ultegra 9 speed cassete, but run 10 on my rig. I’m almost certain that the answer is no, but can I just add another cog in there and work with the spacers and use that 9 speed or is it toast? I run my shifters in friction mode, b/c…well…I’m an old fart and that’s what I like. Custom tweak every gear. Heck I only use about 3 gears anyway right in the middle of my cluster so I could still use the 9 in friction, but would love to make it a 10 if possible.
Ideas?
I just put a new 9 speed chain on a friends bike recently and found out it needs 9 speed chain pins, not the 10 like I had, which leads me to believe the chains are different widths…which means I’m probably stuck with making it a 9?
Yeah, and it’s not like 7/8-spd when all the cogs were loose so you could get an aftermarket spacer kit that would adjust the net spacing (spacer + cog thickness) from Shimano to Campy or to add an extra cog. With 9 & 10, several of the cogs are mounted together on a fixed carrier so the spacing can’t be “compressed” enough to fit another cog onto the cassette body.
I mix and match a lot of 9 and 10 speed stuff since I just run friction shifting as well. Why do you want to add a 10 cog if you say you don’t even use the ones you have? Frankly, I’ve found 10 speed kind of useless because in most cases you have to use an 11 or 12, which–unless you ride with a group often and hammer at 35 mph–are a waste of space.
The first six cogs are loose, with the smallest two usually fitting together and the middle four (probably 14-17 teeth cogs) with nine-speed spacers. If you don’t get much for it when trying to sell, you can always keep the middle cogs which you say you use the most and swap them out on your 10 speed cassette when those cogs wear out. The easier thing to do would be to throw the 9-speed on there for training and pull out the 10 for races. Or the other way around.
Which begs the question then, I can run my 10 speed chain over 9 speed cogs? I was just thinking for some reason the actual teeth might have a size, height, width issue on the 9 speed end that wouldn’t work with my 10 chain.
I’ve never had an issue with 10-speed chains on 9-speed cogs, but the other way around causes problems because the chain is just a bit too wide. There are definately some advantages to running 9 speed, not the least of which is that chains and cassettes are very cheap. If they made an easily purchased 10-speed cassette with a 13-28 then I would only use 10-speed, but most 10-speed cassettes have 11 or 12 tooth cogs, which I find useless.