Anyone use a Road Link?

[trener1]

Hi,

I am wondering if anyone uses a Wolf Tooth road link or something similar?.
I am interested in using a larger cassette for some climbing with my short cage rear derailuer.

[nublar]

Have you maxxed out your b screw or inverted it? You can also change the derailer cage on some RD's.

[GScot]

I have set up my wife's gravel bike with a goat link and XT derailleur, it works perfectly. And also requires a Tan Pan that changes the cable pull to match the mountain group. That works fine with a 38 front and 11-46 on the back. I have a road link also and set it up to run a 34-50 with an 11-40, all ultegra 6800. It tuned up fine on the stand and I rode around the neighborhood to make sure it was OK but never ended up using the 11-40 in conditions where it would be useful.

So the short answer is yes, works fine. Make sure you get the chain length right.

edit to add: I missed the short cage bit. It might allow a couple more teeth but the cage length is the mechanical storage for extra chain. Moving it around is going to do little to change your gear range capacity.

[Elefantino]

I use a road link with a Chorus 11 RD and an 11-34 Shimano cassette. Found that it works best with a KMC chain, oddly.

[trener1]

I'm pretty sure it's a short cage, it is 7800 so pretty old, did they make anything other then short cage back then?

[Ttx1]

I used the Roadlink with a short cage Chorus 11 RD and the Campy 32 cassette with good results.

[dem]

If your problem is cassette clearance, a roadlink will help.

If your problem is chain capacity (when you size for large-large and then small-small is floppy) it will NOT help.

I use it with a mid-cage RD-6800 and a 50/34 crankset and 11-40 cassette.

[mktng]

Have used one. Have one installed on my wife's bike. They work well. Do as intended.

I'm not a huge fan of maxxing out the B limit screw.

Sent from my Mi 9 SE using Tapatalk

[jemdet]

I'm pretty sure it's a short cage, it is 7800 so pretty old, did they make anything other then short cage back then?

Yeah, 7803 was a triple designation with a longer RD cage. Plenty of standard pull MTB RDs as well.

[bikinchris]

Yeah, 7803 was a triple designation with a longer RD cage. Plenty of standard pull MTB RDs as well.

Which means you could actually get an MTB rear derailleur to work without a road link.

[kohagen]

I use a Road Link with an Ultegra mid cage RD and it works on a 36 cog without any problems.

[NeauDL]

I have experience with two road bikes set up with mountain cassettes. The Road Link works perfectly, as described, and I'm happy to have a 34 front with 42 rear on one bike and 30 front with 36 rear on the other. Switching to a road cassette requires removing the link and putting on a shorter chain (5 minutes work, including cleaning) but does not require adjusting the derailleur cable or shifter.

[speedevil]

I'm using a roadlink with a DA 7800 RD (short cage) to clear a 12-30 cassette. It clears the big cog just fine and shifts like it should.

As has been mentioned it does nothing for chainwrap capacity, and I have some sag in smalll-small. That's not a combination I use anyway, so it's not a problem I need to solve.

FYI - I did swap the 52t big chainring for a 50t, which allowed me to remove a set of links. This helped with the sag, but didn't eliminate it. I now have 50-39 up front, and 12-30 in the back.

[jtbadge]

If there is a derailleur compatible with your shifters that natively handles the gearing range you want, makes so much more sense to go with that.

An XT/XTR 8-9 speed RD will handle the extended range and wrap chain much better than a short cage with RoadLink.

[sonicCows]

I'm running a roadlink with a mid-cage SRAM RD on 46/36 up front with 11-36 (11sp) in the rear.

If your problem is cassette clearance, a roadlink will help.

If your problem is chain capacity (when you size for large-large and then small-small is floppy) it will NOT help.

I use it with a mid-cage RD-6800 and a 50/34 crankset and 11-40 cassette.

Shimano's tech docs say a RD-6800-GS has a total capacity of 37T, but seems like you're running with 45T (50-34)+(40-11). How are you finding the performance? If you switched the CX gearing (46/36 front) looks like you'd still exceed the listed "capacity".

[dem]

I'm running a roadlink with a mid-cage SRAM RD on 46/36 up front with 11-36 (11sp) in the rear.



Shimano's tech docs say a RD-6800-GS has a total capacity of 37T, but seems like you're running with 45T (50-34)+(40-11). How are you finding the performance? If you switched the CX gearing (46/36 front) looks like you'd still exceed the listed "capacity".

Works great, barely any tension in small-small, and Large-large is close, but I don't use those combinations. I suspect it helps that it is a legit Shimano XTR rear cassette - it shifts like butter compared to the previous IRD 11-36 I had on there.

Just came back from a climbing trip in Owen's valley and it got a workout: https://dennisrides.com (6th, 7th, and 14th hardest road climbs in the USA)

[cabriggs]

I needed help climbing too so I put one on my Spec Diverge along with an 11-40 cassette and a longer chain. The derailleur is an RD-5800 medium cage. Works great.