I have a nine speed cassette and derailleur and BB7 (mountainbike) calipers, and I want to use a drop bar. Does anyone have a solution? Gevenalle on do 10-11-12 speed, and the Surly Corner Bar is heavy, expensive and not out yet. Any ideas?
Microshift barend shifters + Tektro levers. Works on my Vagabond.
Good point, I was trying to avoid bar end shifters if possible tho!
Wolf tooth do a thing called a taipan that changes pull ratio for the mech.
Article here has some options
https://bikepacking.com/gear/guide-to-mullet-drivetrains/
*Tanpan
Thanks, that Wolftooth Tanpan looks useful. Now I just need to sort out the brakes!
9 speed? as in a 9 speed MTB derailleur?
You can just use 9 speed road STI (9 speed they were interchangeable).
Or you can run 10 speed road sti and a 10 speed mtb cassette and your 9 speed mech.
Brakes wise... the BB7s will be V brake pull. You'll need to get some road pull BB7. Or some of those shimano road pull calipers that are rated in the gravel crowd as better and cheaper than bb7.
Or go bar end shifters and tektro v brake pull drop bar levers.
Or some of those shimano road pull calipers that are rated in the gravel crowd as better and cheaper than bb7
That must be the easy to please section as I thought the shimano cable brakes were utter turd and replaced them with Spyres which were far more powerful and incredibly easy to set up, unlike the 3 Allen key shimanos and their stupid one side actuation.
We hired some bikes with Shimano cable discs on holiday. They were spectacularly useless.
They were badly set up then. Most single piston mechanical brakes are VERY set-up dependant.
I’ve got 9 speed deore mech with 2x9 tiagra brifters. Brakes are shimano 105 level and work absolutely fine. Compressionless outers make all the difference. The callipers cost £17 an end. Cables were like £25 I think.
As above the 9 speed mtb mech would work equally well with 10 speed road stis.
Ypo, you can use any Shimano shifter of 10 speed or less apart from Tiagra 4700 which randomly has the same cable pull as 11 speed.
For brakes, set up is more important than model. As above, good cables make a huge difference.
I'm specifically on about Shimano BR-R317. Not all are equal.
10 speed gevenalle in friction mode, I know that works because I ran it until I fitted a 10 speed cassette.
Prior to that I did This... which worked.
Mine are the 517 calipers. Yes it’s a pita that two or three different sized Allen keys are needed to adjust- one for the cable one for the fixed piston another for the free stroke. But they do work well once set up.
I bodged a MTB trigger onto a drop bar - not dissimilar to this, but I used a 31.8 seat post front mech mount as a bracket rather than shave out the existing on...
Found a (terrible) photo of my old set up
Some excellent advice here, I really appreciate it!!
Knowing about the 9 and 10 speed compatibility is incredibly useful, looks like I'm going to go down that route- probably with the Gevenalle brifter, so I can eventually move over to 10 speed
What about those microshift x 10 speed brifters?
Have Gevenalle 10 speed with a 9 speed slx rear mech and 10 speed cassette. I wanted hydraulic disks for a CX commuter bike but wish I'd waited and got less of a bodge. Works OK but looks strange and the gear lever gets it good and proper during a crash.
I use a mix of older 105 and XT on my tourer. 105 3x10 shifters and front mech. XT 9 speed rear mech. XT trekking 48/36/26 chainset, 11-36 cassette. Brakes, I tried the first gen Shimano road calipers, BB5r and have settled on Spyre. Also have some additional crosstop brake levers which I wouldn't do without.
Those Microshift look good- they're quite hard to find for sale in the UK tho..
Actually OP, you can still get 9 speed gevenalle CX https://www.bikemonger.co.uk/gevenalle-cx-shifters-for-road-derailleurs-10392-p.asp
There's not cost saving over 10 or 11speed however, so it's down to whether or not you can put up with friction mode until you but a new cassette/chain or do you simply commit to 9 speed?
I love my gevenalle (and my hacked copies) but they're not for everyone, and they're certainly not cheaper than a Shimano STi.
I run 10 speed Gevenalle with BURD RD, with the spacer for 9 speed off-road for chain offs, and 10 speed when I switch to nice road wheels. I'd may upgrade to 11 speed speed now. as I have some nice 11 speed wheels.
I've been waiting patiently for Gevenalle shifters to come back in stock- but I looked on their website and unfortunately there is no option to choose 'long pull' ( ie mountain bike brakes) any more. Does anyone know any more about this? Have Gevenalle stopped making mountain bike brake compatible brifters?