I’ve just fitted a short cage 105 10 speed mech and shifter, SLX cassette and lindarets road link to my Cotic X. I can’t get it to work. I’ve set the limit screws and cable tension and worked from there but I can only get smooth shifting halfway along the block, then the other half doesn’t work, I either get a double shift thena blank shift or can’t get the chain out of the top or bottom cog.

If I use the barrel adjuster on the mech whilst shifting through the cassette is works, as if the shifter wasn’t pulling the right amount of cable per shift. Shifter is 5600 and mech is 5700,should that be an issue?

I’ve tried the b tension in both extremes and everywhere inbetween, moving the chainring to change chainline, tried removing the lindarets link and no change at all.

One thing I did notice is on my mtbs when holding the chainstay I can only pivot the mech towards the bb whilst the 105 mech will move either way.

I’ve spent 2.5 hours trying to sort this and have a million other jobs the bikes need doing so am on the verge of losing it here, please help!

Whoops I should read more closely.

Is the drop out straight.
And do you have the cable clamped to the mech correctly.

And by straight, i mean actually straight. Not eyeballed.

How many teeth had the cassette got? The 5700 short cage rear mech will only deal with a 30t maximum low sprocket. It’s flight path profile will be different to an MTB one designed for large low sprockets.

Have you a spare 9 speed MTB rear mech you could try?

On a normal mech hanger that sounds like it’s bent. If it all worked before the Lindaret doofer went on then as ghostly above, I’d make sure everything was properly straight, clean and tight.

Cheers for the suggestions.

Mech hanger in very well eyeballed straight, will check that properly but it was shifting seamlessly beforehand, the lindarets would worsen any misalignment but it doesn’t work without it now anyway.

It’s an 11-36 but the whole idea of the lindarets is that it makes this exact combo work.

The cable does come out of the mech barrel adjuster at a funny angle, only going straight right at the top of the cassette, but there’s no other way it’ll clamp that I can see. I do have a pic I could email if anyone was kind enough to take a look

Send pic, email in profile

I’m lost here….you say you’re really busy, yet willing to spend hours getting a short-cage road RD to work on an MTB cassette with a ‘Lindarets’ (whatever that’s for…doesn’t a Cotic X have a mech hanger ?)

What’s the attraction in using a short-cage derailleur ?

Can you not just get a cheap SG road derailleur off eBay, or possibly a 9spd MTB derailleur ?

cp, thankyou very much, I’ll send the pic through.

And thanks to all the other helpful replies.

DiscJockey, Someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning eh? I didn’t say I was busy, just that I have a lot of work to do on bikes, I wouldn’t say that qualifies as ‘busy’. I bought the Lindarets link as it allegedly works, going by reviews and user reports so why not? The advantage is that you don’t have a long cage dropping down picking up grass and other debris, it looks tidier, helps with chain retention and short cage mechs seemed easier to pick up when I was looking.
If you don’t know what one is google is your friend, if you aren’t interested don’t bother replying! I know nothing about hub gears, but when someone posts asking a question about an Alfine hub I don’t reply saying ‘well you should have fiteed a rear mech’ do I?

Another thought… what’s your chain length like? I had mine short enough to wrap round the big sprocket and the mech wasn’t at full stretch, but it was still too short for the mech to shift off the larger sprockets of its own accord. I had to add a link, which made the mech look well off what it could deal with, but shifting came back to normal.

Also, long cage rear mechs. they work well!

still, the lindarets thing is a bit of a bodge, it doesn’t modify the articulation of the mech. a short cage road mech is designed really to follow the path of close ratio cassettes, rather than the much bigger range of an mtb cassette.

Are the rear mech and cables new?

My money is on that or the lindarets bodgy thing/short cage mech.

It is a bit of a bodge, but so are expander sprockets and I wouldn’t be without mine!

Anyway thanks for the suggestion re chain length, the mech is quite stretched once at the top and now you mention it I can see how too much tension would make it not want to drop off that top sprocket, and maybe compromise shifting at the top end, forcing me to compromise the rest of the setup.. Damn Sram and powerlocks, adding or removing a link didn’t use to be a pain!

Mech is secondhand but seems near new, cables are all new, as is cassette and chain. I’ll have a word with the bike shop I got the lindarets from, see if they’ve successfully set any up.

Check for sloppiness in the mech and alignment of the mech hanger I would suggest. And I trust you’ve used nice cables not cheap ones?

Yes, good cables. I’m thinking the chain may be short as most likely cause.

Anyhow a surely longer cage mech wouldn’t relocate the upper jockey to allow it to clear the 36t, just give more capability which I don’t need with a single chainring.

surely longer cage mech wouldn’t relocate the upper jockey to allow it to clear the 36t

it does exactly that, they have more clearance for bigger sprockets. get an mtb 9 speed one for even more clearance than a 10 speed road long cage one.

Aha, so is it the mech body that’s different or does the longer cage have an offset pivot on the outer cage?

My cross bike has a 105 short cage mech (I think, quoted max cassette size was something like 28t) with an 11-36 cassette and works fine. The major difference I suspect to yours is that this is run 1x. The offset top jockey wheel on the cassette means it pivots out the way in the same way the newer 11 speed mtb stuff does.

If you are 1x then make sure the chain is as short as it can practically be as that helped. If 2x, then I suppose the same, but you won’t get the same movement of the jockey wheel.

If you’ve tried that lot then sorry, not sure I can help!

surely longer cage mech wouldn’t relocate the upper jockey to allow it to clear the 36t

it does exactly that, they have more clearance for bigger sprockets. get an mtb 9 speed one for even more clearance than a 10 speed road long cage one. [/quote]

My understanding, having been reading up with a view to doing something similar to the OP, is that cage length is only changing the capacity of the system not max sprocket size.

i.e. max 30t listed for 105 5700 in both long and short mode here : http://vid.artscyclery.com/pdf/Shimano%20105%205700%20Rear%20Derailleur%20Installation%20Manual.pdf

No smart insight into what might be going wrong in this case since the Lindarets link ought to address the problem but interested to hear if it gets worked out as its more or less what I’m planning to try and do!

Cheers all, at least I now have some ideas to try out.

What gary has written above was my understanding of cage lengths, which I’m pretty sure applies for mtb mechs, but maybe not for road mechs

I’ll report back later once I’ve had a go, gary if it doesn’t work you can buy my lindaret link 😆

just seen your email from this morning in my spam – you’ve got the cable clamped to the wrong side of the clamp bolt.

Proper numpty moment then. I’ll stay off the homemade wine next time I’m building a bike!
Cheers cp

chrishc777 – yes, sorry – I was being a bit grumpy there 😉

I just know from my own experience, sometimes it’s better just to buy the correct items. It might cost more, but the time you save tinkering is worth money too…

Reading the other posts, it sounds like you’re running a single chain-ring setup on a CX bike. I did consider this, but only as a full XT or X01 drivetrain, i.e. no ‘in-between’ older parts, just compatible bits. But I didn’t want to go 11 speed. My own CX bike has a compact up front and a long-cage Ultegra rear mech, and it works perfectly with a 12-32 cassette. 34 x 32 is low enough for anything in my opinion.

Good luck….

For those folks saying that it is a bodge, and not a good one, I am running a med cage 10spd 105/shifter with a Praxis works 11-40 and a road link. It worked, right out of the box with no more hassle than setting up a normal mech and shifter build. It shifts as well as my 29er 12-36 clutch mech set up. It may be a bodge(not my view BTW) but its a good one 🙂

I’ve just bought a Roadlink – going to try it with an 11-36 11 speed cassette and a 105 medium cage mech

I have a 1×9, road link / short cage road mech / 11-36 and it works perfectly too

So, it lives!

I switched the cable round the right way which helped a bit but didn’t fix it.

I then added one link to the chain, any more and the chain would have been slack in the 11t. At this point I could shift through the block but it wasn’t crisp shifting.

Out of curiosity I removed the lindaret link and a couple of barrel and limit adjustments later, b tension all the way off and shifting was perfect!

Given the above experiences I take it the road link works for some setups and not others, worth noting in all the online pics I saw the link angles backwards whilst on my cotic it sloped forwards, maybe to do with the hanger itself.

Anyway thanks again for the help, hope this thread can serve as reference to others in future!

Weird I’ve run both a 36t and a 40t cassette on a short cage 105 mech/single ring no problems.
Lindarets published that some hanger types won’t work. Think it’s on their site.