How big of a doofus am I?

[false_Aest]

Being an art kid is tough. Being an art kid with a cycling addiction is much more tougher.

I'm upgrading my 10 year old Ultegra to Ultegra SL. It's fancy and nice and stuff.

But I'm almost out of cash. I figured that I'd peruse the 'bay for a cassette. There's a few used ones on there with "under 500 miles" on them. How bad is it if I mix new chain and chainrings with an old cassette?

In a similar vein, I have a used 42T inner chainring that I considered replacing the 39T on my cranks. It has about 2k miles on it. Am I being stupid?

Am I wasting the "newness" of the Ultegra SL by using a used cassette and (possibly) chainring?

[csm]

chainring... probably ok
cassette.... get a new one.

[johnmdesigner]

New chains and old cassettes will slip under load.
You won't know until you buy it and then you are screwed.
Check out some of the overseas prices for new (Ribble, Wiggle, PBK).
Shimano more expensive because of the current yen-dollar rate. Still some places are offering discounts and free shipping.

[markberra]

PBK has ultegra cassettes for $40 with free shipping I cant imagine you would do a whole lot better on the bay

[Louis]

Unless it's NIB I'd stay away from an e-Bay cassette. A while back I bid on and won an XT that was advertised as as "very low miles" or some such thing. Ha. It was worn big-time. Plus it had been listed as 12-34 (what I wanted) but it really was 11-34. Happily the seller took it back with no problems (based on the 11 vs 12 issue).

Louis

[RPS]

In a similar vein, I have a used 42T inner chainring that I considered replacing the 39T on my cranks. Do you have a double SL and not a triple?

[zmudshark]

PBK, Ribble & Wiggle are your friends, as long as the British Pound is weak, as compared to the US Dollar.

[runtimmyc]

How bad is it if I mix new chain and chainrings with an old cassette?


It is not that bad to mix an old cassette with an old chain, I'm not sure how many miles you can put on a chain versus a cassette... but it is much higher for the cassette (if you replace the chain regularly).

That being said, it is very unlikely that a cassette on ebay only has 500 miles on it when it is advertised as having 500 miles. Buying used cassettes is like buying used bibs, you just shouldn't do it.

[false_Aest]

Buying used cassettes is like buying used bibs, you just shouldn't do it.

That is the best summary....