Ok, I’ve never used a spacer of any sort when fitting Shimano 9 or 10speed cassettes to anything I own – mostly Hope Pro2’s, but there’s a few oddities like the Cotic ownbrand hubs (presumably novatech) that came on my X and an old 2008ish set of crossmaxes.

I’ve just ended up with a sh but newer set of Pro2 40T’s to build some new 26er wheels. I’ve accidentally ended up with an 11sp freehub. This has opened a puzzle. Hope tell me that a 2mm spacer makes this freehub usable with regular 10sp Shimano, other than where to get one from that’s fine, but I’ve had other people tell me I probably should have been running a spacer with any combo and that I should have a stack of them somewhere if I’ve not been fitting them.

Have I been doing it wrong/mysteriously never been finding/collecting spacers or is the person attempting to tell me so incorrect themselves? I’m leaning to the latter as my stuff tends to work pretty well, but happy to find out i’m wrong if I am. Especially if it makes stuff even betterer. 🙂

No MTB cassette requires a spacer, except on 11 speed road freehubs (as you now have).

Road is a bit different – Shimano 10 speed road cassettes need them on 9/10 speed freehub bodies, and SRAM/Shimano 10 speed do on 11 speed freehub bodies. Most recent Mavic wheels actually had 11 speed freehub bodies all along – so there’s an additional spacer in there too.

Cool – Cheers, Njee! That’s pretty much what I thought, although does throw up a slight question on my CX. I’ve got a regular 135mm MTB disc hub there (the above mentioned Cotic CC brand on Alex and Shimano 525 on Flow) and 5700 105 10sp cassette. Indexing isn’t perfect but I put that down to crap setup and never looked more closely. Should I be looking for a spacer for those?

Ta!

Most recent Mavic wheels actually had 11 speed freehub bodies all along – so there’s an additional spacer in there too.

Except for the one I’ve now got, which doesn’t seem to need any spacer on my 9sp cassette.

No MTB cassette requires a spacer

I had a set of Mavic Crossrides that came with a spacer that had to be fitted behind the cassette for correct function pretty certain it was a common theme on Mavic factory wheelsets.
Never had to run a spacer on other wheel builds though.

I had a set of Mavic Crossrides that came with a spacer that had to be fitted behind the cassette for correct function pretty certain it was a common theme on Mavic factory wheelsets.
Never had to run a spacer on other wheel builds though.

You mean the Mavic wheels I mentioned…?! Sorry if not clear…

all in here

… but in general, up to 10sp no need for spacers, as with 5700 on an M525 or Pro2?

Sorry…

Awesome, Cheers Iain!

To think I was never worried about any of this until the weekend!

Worth noting Iain’s link is all road stuff. MTB 10 speed didn’t need the spacer, and I don’t think they have the deeper splines for 10 speed specific freehub bodies.

njee20 – Member
Worth noting Iain’s link is all road stuff. MTB 10 speed didn’t need the spacer, and I don’t think they have the deeper splines for 10 speed specific freehub bodies.

Yeah – I’v enever needed a spacer for a road cassette on a DH freehub, AFAIK

That’s what I love about standards – there are so many of them to choose from. 😉

Having read through, I’d concluded that was probably the case but ta for confirming.

Basically I just had a sudden fear attack of “have i been very stupid and just getting away with it … so far?” 🙂

So, I’ll take from the DH experience also that the CX is good to go.

I’ve always just (possibly naively) assumed that if the cassette fits, lockring bolts down and cassette has no slop on freehub all will be well, but started wondering if there was a positional also. Stupid, I suppose when I consider that imperfect dishing (for example) could easily make more than 1mm difference in centreline of cassette…

I’ve got a regular 135mm MTB disc hub there (the above mentioned Cotic CC brand on Alex and Shimano 525 on Flow) and 5700 105 10sp cassette. Indexing isn’t perfect but I put that down to crap setup and never looked more closely. Should I be looking for a spacer for those?

There should be a 1mm spacer behind the cassette that comes with the 5700 cassette.

Yeah, sorry if my road link was confusing. Someone posted it ages ago when I was having a similar personal debate, but with road kit !