Can I easily swap out a 10-speed hub (WH-501) with an 11-speed hub on a Shimano R500 rear wheel? Would I need to buy new spokes? How much time & skill would it take? Any specialized tools beyond a spoke wrench?
The details: I have a new 11-speed bike, and I have a dedicated wheel for my trainer from my old 10-speed bike. Rather than get a new wheel, I thought I might just buy an 11-speed hub & swap it over. I am reasonably good mechanically, but I have ZERO experience with something like this. It would only be for my trainer, so as long as it’s not a sudden and catastrophic break-down safety shouldn’t be an issue.
If it’s a relatively simple job and doesn’t require a ton of new tools and expenses, I’d like to do it as much for learning as to save money. Any thoughts?
If you haven’t built a wheel before, have no concept of wheel building and don’t have a wheel truing stand then I wouldn’t bother trainer wheel or not. You would be able to use the same spokes if the new hubs flange sizes are the same.
Looking up the WH 501 on the Shimano site , it is certified only for 8,9 & 10sp cassettes, which means the freehub body ( or hub shell) won’t have space for an 11sp cassette. I’m not sure what specific hub that is built around, it’s possible that you can replace that hub shell with one that supports 11sp.
To properly convert a wheel from 10sp to 11sp, you need an 11sp shell and the wheel should also be re-dished to account for the extra 1.2mm width of 11sp cassette. If you’re a noob - that probably means paying the shop to do it ( although and afternoon or two with youtube could also get you there ) and a bargain set of 11sp wheels would run about the same as paying a wrench to do it - your call on what makes the most sense.
All is not lost however - it’s worth simply sticking your 10sp wheel in the bike and seeing how it works on the trainer. You should be able to find 2-3 gears that run smoothly/quietly enough to do some steady trainer efforts. You will get skipping and grinding on other gears so it won’t be a good solution if you need to change gears on your workouts, and would be a bad idea on the road, but won’t hurt anything as an experiment on the trainer.
There is an easy and very cheap (even free!) way to get a 10 speed wheel to play nicely with an 11 speed drivetrain and 11 speed cassette. Actually, there are a few ways of doing it, and we have summarized them here:
From what I understand, the pawl design or the axle size changed on the Shimano 11 speed vs the 10 speed so they can’t even physically fit (most likely planned for Shimano to get people to buy all new parts). So, no, for Shimano specific hubs you can’t upgrade them to 11 speed officially.
Alternatively to the Darkspeedworks suggestions I took an old 10 speed hub and filed it down about 1.85mm (close to it). It took a darn long time because the hub I was filing down was an old 105 steel bodied 9/10 speed freehub body (ended up using the dremel…alot because filing by hand didn’t allow me to get in the spaces in between the splines). It worked fine for me and only minor adjustments to the derailleur are needed when swapping to my race wheel.
Or find a local swap meet to find a cheap 11s rear wheel.