Compatibility

[jmullen0401]

Biggest controversy among bike tech is compatibility between Campy, Sram and Shimano. I have 6 road bikes with all three different groups all 10 speed groups. One morning about a year ago I went to throw my bike with Campy centaur and the back wheel was flat. I was running late and my boys were already texting me. So I grabbed a wheel with a Sram 10 speed cassette, threw it in the back of the car and drove to the ride. When I got there I put the wheel on the bike, pumped my tyres and rolled off. It worked fine!! while riding I had to loosen the shift cable a little to get the chain to the smallest cog, but after that it was fine for 57 miles. During the ride I told my friends (2 of which are techs at the local shop) and they didnt believe me.
I am convinced this compatibility issue is a marketing myth. Since then I have even interchanged shifters cassettes and derailleurs and after a little adjusting they work fine.

Check out http://www.doityourselfbicyclerepair.com

[berserk87]

Thank goodness! When you posted about compatibility, I was thinking that this was spam for E-Harmony.com. You fooled me there.

Here's a funny one - I bought a cheap, beater Giant for my youngest daughter to grow into. I threw the back wheel onto my TT bike and rode it on the trainer last winter.

I had some shifting gremlins here and there, so I switched from indexed to friction mode and it worked fine. I found out in the spring that the wheel had a 8 speed cassette on it. My drivetrain is 9 speed. I don't know how I missed that, but I rode it all winter that way and no one died.

[Anarchist]

My commuter bike is all Campy 10, except for the back wheel which has a Shimano hub and Shimano 10 speed cassette.

The rear derailleur is SRAM Apex. It shifts perfectly. Didn't at first, until I figured out that I had to release the cable tension a bit. Once I did that, it was like butter.

[Ken Robb]

I had 10 speed Dura Ace but 10 speed Campy wheels/cogs. When adjusted to mesh best in the middle cogs I could shift into all cogs but the chain-cog interaction got quite loud when I was in the two cogs at either end of the cassette. This indicated to me that as the slight difference in spacing between the brands added up I was probably causing increased wear and decreased efficiency. I don't know if that was really worth worrying about but I hated the "unhappy" sound. :)

[FlashUNC]

Lennard Zinn has shown that the SRAM/Campy 10 speed bits are interchangeable, essentially.

Shimano/Campy is a different story.

[oldpotatoe]

Biggest controversy among bike tech is compatibility between Campy, Sram and Shimano. I have 6 road bikes with all three different groups all 10 speed groups. One morning about a year ago I went to throw my bike with Campy centaur and the back wheel was flat. I was running late and my boys were already texting me. So I grabbed a wheel with a Sram 10 speed cassette, threw it in the back of the car and drove to the ride. When I got there I put the wheel on the bike, pumped my tyres and rolled off. It worked fine!! while riding I had to loosen the shift cable a little to get the chain to the smallest cog, but after that it was fine for 57 miles. During the ride I told my friends (2 of which are techs at the local shop) and they didnt believe me.
I am convinced this compatibility issue is a marketing myth. Since then I have even interchanged shifters cassettes and derailleurs and after a little adjusting they work fine.

Check out http://www.doityourselfbicyclerepair.com

Campagnolo shifters and shimano rear ders? shimano shifters and scram ders? sram shifters and shimano rear ders?

Sorry, don think so..

[dave thompson]

Of course, one mans "working fine" can be another mans nightmare.

I suppose 'compatibility' can mean ones tolerance for impreciseness.

[m_sasso]

How about this one on my commuter:
Suntour XC Pro thumb shifters
Suntour XC Pro Microdrive PowerFLO 8 speed cassette
Shimano 6700 Ultegra rear derailleur
Shimano XTR FC M900 crank set
Sram 870 chain
Index shifts perfectly with no re-spacing on the cassette!

[ceolwulf]

Of course, one mans "working fine" can be another mans nightmare.



I suppose 'compatibility' can mean ones tolerance for impreciseness.


Very relevant, I think.

For me, anything other than perfectly silent drives me up the wall.

[oldpotatoe]

Of course, one mans "working fine" can be another mans nightmare.

I suppose 'compatibility' can mean ones tolerance for impreciseness.

Not saying the OP is full of beans..but when in a shop, had a gent come in with 8s ERGO, mated to a shimano XTR rear der. He said it 'worked fine'(it didn't) or a handful of times that the shifter didn't match the number of cogs..10s shifter, 9s cogset, 9s shifter 8s cogset..many said 'they work ok'..

The things, IMHO that work well....11s cogsets, they are all spaced essentially the same. 10s ERGO onto a shimano 9s cogset/chain..10s ERGO-10s shimano..not so well, IMHO.

[Ti Designs]

I'm pretty sure the lion's share of the R&D departments of all of the large bike component makers os devoted to making things non-compatible in the most frustrating way. This keeps consumers buying more product and keeps bike shop guys explaining to customers that negative shims don't really exist.

[gavingould]

^^^^ seconded!


it's the same with so many consumer products.

[Mark McM]

Lennard Zinn has shown that the SRAM/Campy 10 speed bits are interchangeable, essentially.

Shimano/Campy is a different story.

Zinn was speaking of mixing derailleurs and shifters. In the OPs case, it was mixing a matched derailleur/shifter with an unmatched cassette. As SRAM and Shimano cassettes use the same spacing, in this case the amount of mismatch would have been the same whether the wheel was Shimano or SRAM.

The CTC web page on rear shifting (http://www.ctc.org.uk/cyclists-library/components/transmission-gears/derailleur-gears/shimergo)gives the all the pertinent data on cassette spacing and cable travel for Campagnolo, Shimano and SRAM systems. As shown Shimano/SRAM 10spd spacing is 3.95mm C-C, whereas Campagnolo 10spd spacing is 4.15mm C-C. This is a difference of 5%, or +/- 2.5%. Over the entire range of the cassette (9 jumps), the difference is 45%, or +/- 22.5%. If the Campagnolo indexing was dialed in for the center of the cassette, the travel at each end of the cassette would off by roughly 1/4 of on sprocket spacing jump. That's close enough that in most cases you could actually get to every sprocket, and probably without much noise while running in each the sprocket. But the performance would be degraded compared to a fully matched system in severe conditions (bent or worn components, dirty or worn cables, high pedaling loads, wet and mucky environment, etc.).

[GeorgeTSquirrel]

Not saying the OP is full of beans..

Then I will, the OP is full of beans and trying to sell something. I'd be surprised if he came back and actually debated his claim.

Anyways, that said... I'm a happy component mixer of Campagnolo Athena 11 driving Shimano 9 derailleurs. It works great, mostly. RD needs to be tuned from the middle cog. Derailleur guide pulley requires lateral movement to work. It's still a little temperamental for the two extreme cogs, but I could probably dial it in a little better if I re-spaced the cassette a bit (although that could obviously create other issues).

[Keith A]

Then I will, the OP is full of beans and trying to sell something. I'd be surprised if he came back and actually debated his claim.

...Me thinks there is some truth in these words.