following from my thread yesterday here

I have ordered new 5600/5601 levers. Now the ones I am taking off both say 5600 on them, but the product desription of the new ones says 5600/5601. Looking at the Shimao Tech docs, it suggests that the front is labelled 5600 and the rear is 5601. That seems to make sense and stack up with the description of what i have bought……however i am wondering if the ‘new’ 5601 rear is any different, and if it is, whether it matters, to the existing 5600. I don’t actually need to replace the rear (right) one as it works fine, but seeing as I am getting 2 new shiny ones I would ideally replace them both, as i am retaping etc anyway.

Thanks

As long as they are X6XX they will work together.

They updated something because there was a fault with the 5601 model IIRC.

As above they should work. In my experiences of mixing 105 and ultegra of various vintages I’ve never had a problem

druidh – thanks for that, yes, they are both 10 speed setups, mechs are both 5600, brakes are canti’s anyway (cx bike), so hopefully all good. Darned expensive though 😈

5600 were the original 105 10 speed levers. The left lever was double / triple compatible but this caused issues with ratchets breaking. So Shimano updated the levers to 5601 (double) and 5603 (triple) to overcome this problem.

Mister P – that explains a lot, as my 5600 ratchet has never been great and totally failed yesterday (it’s on a double). Hopefully the new ones are better, cheers