I have recently built a cx bike, and am, currently using flat bars till i can afford drops and sti's, I need to buy a new front mech though, is it possible to get one that will work with my 3 speed xt shifter, and then later on, with a 2 speed road shifter?
Probably not - mtb shifters have different pull ratios than road shifters for the front mechs (whereas shifters for the rear can be mixed between road & mtb). You would have to get flat bar road specific shifters or an mtb front mech instead.
um, I might just sell some bits to buy some drops and sti's now. Would a mtb mech be likely to work though, if i got it in the right size? its a very thin seat tube
Yes, for the last 4 years I have used XT shifters and 105 chainset and mech's on a Roadrat.
is that with a triple or double chainset though?
iridebikes - what are you selling?
Ooops - see my post below 😳
um, well, I'm not sure, ive just been looking at the price of road sti's, they are rather expensive... But I could sell a set of xt 9speed shifters, and rear mech, in terms of drivetrain. What do you need?
With LX & XT shifters the tiagra front mech I have moved about 1.5 times as far as it should do, bought some Shimano R550 flat bar shifters & it's perfect. All on a triple road chainset.
ah bugger - need road stuff
The chainsets don't matter.
Road levers need road mech and off road stuff needs off road stuff. Older kit is more tolerant. You can get flat bar stuff for road kit but its a bit hard to find, you really need one of those big thick shimano catalogues for that. If you want to go road shifters spending money on a mtb mech will be wasted.
I just changed from risers to drops on my 29er, I tried all the MTB kit (standard 3x9) first with the Shimano Ultegra STIs first just to make sure.. in my experience you'll need:
triple road front mech - they are all BP so you'll need a DMR Mech Verter or Speen Umlenker if your frame is TP (the Umlenker strains the LH shifter and chew the cable so I switched to the former)
road cable disc calipers (I could've switched to cantis or spent a small fortune on a STI/hydraulic adaptor!)
my rear mech and chainset remain unchanged and work fine with the road STIs