In WMB this month they are experimenting with a shimano 10 speed flat bar shifter and 10 speed road cassette.
What are the options for shifters and cassettes? will a 9 speed mech still work or does that need to be 10 speed also?
A 9 speed rear should work fine- Its the shifter and cassette that have to match.
The front will be fine if you use a road chainset and front mech/ or a mtb chainset with a left hand MTB shifter pod and front mech.
Been using 10sp thumbies/Dura Ace rear mech for as long as 10sp has been around.
Works a treat.
Ultegra and DA cassettes plus whatever 10sp chain takes ya fancy.
Haven't used it with a 9sp rear mech but no reason why it shouldn't work.Can always fine tune with longer/shorter barrel adjuster/cable clamp point.But I doubt that you'd need to bother.
Actually,thinking about it - I did used to use an older XTR rear mech,but the DA was better [as you might expect with a shorter cage]
whats a good flat bar shifter (not thumbie)
I'm sorry to say I cant give you any specific advice other than saying that any of Shimano's ( I'm assuming we're talking about Shimano here) right hand 10s units should be fine.
As I've hinted though, where you may run into slight issues is with what front chainset you want to use.
I've bodged left hand MTB pods to work with a road double in the past, but I dont think its do-able the other way .
There is only one 10 speed shifter pod, the SL-R770.
can a 9 speed be adapted? add another ratchet stop?
The cable pull between a 9 and 10 shifter is different. A ten speed cassette manages to have an extra sprocket but be 1mm more narrow than a 9 speed hence the amount of cable needed to shift changes.
can a 9 speed be adapted? add another ratchet stop?
no, the indexing is closer. think about it the block is the same width as a 9 so the cogs are a diddy bit closer together
Just that it said in a mag that a racer was running 10 spped with an adapted 9 speed shifter
Maybe it's a downtube or bar-end shifter that's adapted. That'd probably be easier to adapt than a rapidfire type.
A downtube is shifter is easy to convert, just flick it to friction and it will shift anything from 5 to 10 speed.
the rotating ratchet inside the shifter - could it not just be replaced with one from an r770 (spare from madison?)
maybe or maybe not?
The complete lower half of an SL-R770 is available as a spare but that is £60.
[url= http://www.shimano.com.au/media/techdocs/content/cycle/EV/bikecomponents/SL/EV-SL-R770-2476_v1_m56577569830609221.pdf ]SL-R770 exploded diagram[/url]
I should add, if you've got deep pockets a SRAM XX cassette will also work,
But lets be honest If you're going that far you would be better off waiting for 10s XTR.