mixing 9 and 10 speed components

[Johnny P]

I have a 9 speed bike that I use for commuting. I'm thinking of putting a 10 speed crank from my other bike on this one and upgrading the later. Will a 10 speed crank work with a 9 speed cassette? I'll also be mixing Shimano with Campy. Any ideas? :confused:

Thanks,
JP

[Dave]

I have a 9 speed bike that I use for commuting. I'm thinking of putting a 10 speed crank from my other bike on this one and upgrading the later. Will a 10 speed crank work with a 9 speed cassette? I'll also be mixing Shimano with Campy. Any ideas? :confused:

Thanks,
JP

You'll probably have the best luck with a 10 speed chain, but you need to specify what other parts you intend to mix. Shifters, RD and cassette should all be the same brand unless you want to buy a J-tek shiftmate to use mismatched shifters and RD.

[RudAwkning]

I just threw my old DA10 crank onto my friends DA9 equipped bike. The only thing we had to change (apart from the crank of course) was the chain, from a 9sp to a 10sp.

[Louis]

I just threw my old DA10 crank onto my friends DA9 equipped bike. The only thing we had to change (apart from the crank of course) was the chain, from a 9sp to a 10sp.

What happened when you tried to shift the 9spd chain on the front? Or was it a different problem? I assume that if you just left the 9-spd chain in one ring it worked fine?

Thanks

[Marcusaurelius]

I've been mixing and matching shmano cranks with campagnolo 9 speed parts for some time now. First, I tried a dura ace 10 speed crank with 9 speed campagnolo parts and later I tried an ultegra 10 speed crankset and both worked great. I also tried 10 speed dura ace crank with some campagnolo 10 speed parts and it worked fine.

I like just about all campagnolo parts but I prefer shimano cranks to campagnolo cranks even though I think the older alloy chorus/record cranks are mighty cute.

Cheers

[RudAwkning]

What happened when you tried to shift the 9spd chain on the front? Or was it a different problem? I assume that if you just left the 9-spd chain in one ring it worked fine?

Thanks

When riding in the 39 ring, gears 12-14 (on a 12-27 cassette) would cause the chain to slap into the pins on the big ring. With the 10spd chain, we were able to cross chain all the way to the 13, with nominal noise in the 12.

After a minor FD derailleur adjustment, the shifting was fine.

[Onno]

I'm also interested in this, thinking of putting a shimano 10 speed crank on my DA9 equipped bike. My fear would be that a 10 speed chain would cause more problems for the cassette and derailleur than the 9 speed chain would cause to the new crank. Is this wrong?

[John]

I've had good luck using the 10 speed shifters with a 9 speed cassette. I do this for hillclimb races where I need the extra gearing by using a mtn cassette....and I don't want to spend the $$ on the IRD wide range for the few times a year I do this. I have found the 9sp chain to work better in this case.

A simple re-route of the shifter cable as it attaches to the rd is all that is needed. Link that shows pics from Sheldon Brown below.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/derailer-adjustment.html


Slightly off topic, anyone know of "power link" types for the SRAM 10sp chains that ARE removable like the 9sp ones???

[PaulE]

Slightly off topic, anyone know of "power link" types for the SRAM 10sp chains that ARE removable like the 9sp ones???

Lickbike.com says on their site that the Superlink IV Ultra Narrow Link for Campagnolo 5.9mm chains will also work on SRAM 10sp chains. I have one on order and I'll let you know when I get it. I like to take the chain off the bike and really clean it every once in a while.