Campagnolo 9- and 10-speed mixology

[smontanaro]

I'm trying to get prepared for my next project, building up a rinko bike using an 8-out-of-10-on-5 setup. Weird, yes, obsolete, mosdef. My plan is to use a 8 cogs from a 10sp Shimano cassette with Campagnolo 10sp spacers on a Grand Bois cassette hub. While not entirely straightforward, I think I can pull that part off, as the bits are easy to find and not terribly expensive if the experiment fails.

More interesting for me would be figuring out compatibility between 9-speed and 10-speed parts. If I understand correctly from perusing the web (Branford Bike, most especially), the post-2000 9-speed rear derailleur should be compatible pull-ratio-wise with the 10-speed derailleur. Either would work for this exercise, right?

The gearing I have in mind would probably require at least a mid-length cage, but those seem to be uncommon in 9/10-speed. (I see a medio – 72.5mm – cage in the 2008 Veloce catalog.)

Moving on to shifting... Are downtube 10-speed shift levers available (downtube shifters make rinko-izing a bit easier)? I see bar end shifters for time trial, which are apparently relatively easy to convert to downtube use, but were actual 10-speed indexed downtube shifters available? If not, I could use brifters or learn to friction shift the narrower spacing via the downtube.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by smontanaro

I'm trying to get prepared for my next project, building up a rinko bike using an 8-out-of-10-on-5 setup. Weird, yes, obsolete, mosdef. My plan is to use a 8 cogs from a 10sp Shimano cassette with Campagnolo 10sp spacers on a Grand Bois cassette hub. While not entirely straightforward, I think I can pull that part off, as the bits are easy to find and not terribly expensive if the experiment fails.

More interesting for me would be figuring out compatibility between 9-speed and 10-speed parts. If I understand correctly from perusing the web (Branford Bike, most especially), the post-2000 9-speed rear derailleur should be compatible pull-ratio-wise with the 10-speed derailleur. Either would work for this exercise, right?

The gearing I have in mind would probably require at least a mid-length cage, but those seem to be uncommon in 9/10-speed. (I see a medio – 72.5mm – cage in the 2008 Veloce catalog.)

Moving on to shifting... Are downtube 10-speed shift levers available (downtube shifters make rinko-izing a bit easier)? I see bar end shifters for time trial, which are apparently relatively easy to convert to downtube use, but were actual 10-speed indexed downtube shifters available? If not, I could use brifters or learn to friction shift the narrower spacing via the downtube.

Correct..

Don't know the grearing but a 'mid cage' probably would be fine unless you have a triple crank.

No, no 10s downtube shifters made. Easy to use Bar-Ends altho you need the backing plates. The ones made for last gen, 'big barrel' retro friction shifters would work. NOT the RH one for Retro-friction DT shifters, the 'tab' isn't tall enough. A gent on this forum made some..don't recall who that was.

[Mark McM]

As you noted, 2000+ 9spd derailleurs are essentially identical to 10spd derailleurs (same geometry, same cable travel ratio, etc.), so later 9spd derailleurs work perfectly with 10spd shifters. 10spd derailleurs were made in 3 cage lengths (short, medium, and long). I probably have an extra medium or long cage 10spd derailleur if you are interested.

Re-spacing a Shimano cassette with Campagnolo 10spd spacers can work, but the spacing won't be 100% the identical. As noted in Sheldon Brown's spacing crib sheet, Shimano 10spd sprockets are about 0.1mm narrower than Campagnolo 10spd sprockets.

I don't believe there were any Campagnolo 10spd down tube shifters; however,the levers and indexing mechanisms were identical between down tube and bar-end shifters, they only differed in the mounts. Also note that on bar-end shifters the lever stop is built into the bar-end mount, whereas on down tube shifters the lever stop is on a washer that fits over the square portion of the down tube shifter boss. So moving a bar-end shifter to the down tube is just a matter of unscrewing the lever from the bar-end mount, then adding the lever stop washers and screwing the lever onto the down but boss. If you don't have OEM lever stop washers, you could probably use generic ones. Also note that 8spd, 9spd & 10spd bar-end/down tube levers are the same, just with different indexing rings. Indexing rings are interchangeable, so you could, for example, swap the indexing ring from a 10spd bar-end shifter into an 8spd down tube shifter.