Ultegra/105 STI Shifter Compatability

"John" wrote in message
om...
My bike has a Shimano 105 group. My right shifter is not shifting
properly
and must be replaced. Found a good price on a new Ultegra right shifter.
My question: Is a new Ultegra shifter compatible with my 105 rear
derailleur?

Thanks
John Myers

If your 105 is 9-speed, then Ultegra 9-speed compatibility is 100%.

I think most bike dealers treat most buyers as young racer wannabes and wind
up not providing a sufficient range of gearing - especially for people
living in hilly areas.

Rule of thumb: A trainer once suggested to me that if you can't sustain at
least 72 rpm on your steepest fairly long typical hill, your gearing is most
likely too high.

I switched my triple 105 Buenos Aires 12-27 to an XT 11-34 and really like
the range. I rarely use the 34, but appreciate having it. Inexpensive and
easy to do. Most of my rides here average over 100 feet/mile with typical
climbs to 18%. A few at 33%, but they're short.
--
Steve

Steve Juniper )
Berkeley, California
"Every day above ground is a good day!"

"Dave Thompson" wrote in message
news
"John" wrote in message
om...
My bike has a Shimano 105 group. My right shifter is not shifting
properly
and must be replaced. Found a good price on a new Ultegra right shifter.
My question: Is a new Ultegra shifter compatible with my 105 rear
derailleur?

Thanks
John Myers

If your 105 is 9-speed, then Ultegra 9-speed compatibility is 100%.

Steve Juniper writes:

I think most bike dealers treat most buyers as young racer wannabes
and wind up not providing a sufficient range of gearing - especially
for people living in hilly areas.

I think they don't ride bike, at least not in the hills and over
longer distances.

Rule of thumb: A trainer once suggested to me that if you can't
sustain at least 72 rpm on your steepest fairly long typical hill,
your gearing is most likely too high.

Well that's the kind of stuff they pass out in bike shops except that
these people never watch a major road race in mountains where 50-60
rpm is common among professional racers and tourist turn definitely
believe that if they ride for any length trip. TdF pictures on TV are
not slow motion.

I switched my triple 105 Buenos Aires 12-27 to an XT 11-34 and
really like the range. I rarely use the 34, but appreciate having
it. Inexpensive and easy to do. Most of my rides here average over
100 feet/mile with typical climbs to 18%. A few at 33%, but they're
short.

I'm sure you don't turn 72rpm on any 18% or greater grade a 1/4 mile
or longer. I've watched many races and seen tourist riders on passes
like the Gavia and Gerlos and the only riders I saw pedaling that fast
were substantially under-geared (less than 1:1 aka 20t-30t) riders
making little headway. I suspect I never saw them again because they
never got up the hill. The same is true for hiking. The quick-step
guys don't climb steep trails but talk about it.

Jobst Brandt

Palo Alto CA

On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 03:06:37 GMT, "Steve Juniper"
may have said:

I think most bike dealers treat most buyers as young racer wannabes and wind
up not providing a sufficient range of gearing - especially for people
living in hilly areas.

Rule of thumb: A trainer once suggested to me that if you can't sustain at
least 72 rpm on your steepest fairly long typical hill, your gearing is most
likely too high.

I switched my triple 105 Buenos Aires 12-27 to an XT 11-34 and really like
the range. I rarely use the 34, but appreciate having it. Inexpensive and
easy to do. Most of my rides here average over 100 feet/mile with typical
climbs to 18%. A few at 33%, but they're short.

And I'll add that in my opinion, for current road bikes in the hands
of an average user, the gearing as supplied by the factory tends to be
too high for anything but flat or mildly rolling terrain. I think that
part of the current overwhelming popularity of the mountain bikes is
directly attributable to the extra-low gears that are widely and
commonly available on them.

Apparently, this has been true for quite a long time.

My early-70s-vintage road bike has a 14/34 freewheel and 39/52
chainrings. Surveying the road bikes in the "sport" category of a
major retailer, I found that the typical highest gear ratio supplied
had become taller by a fair margin in the intervening 30 years, and
the number of available ratios had nearly tripled from 10 to 24 or 27,
but that the lowest gear combo was *also* typically slightly taller
than on my '73. Logically, with such an expansion of the number of
gear ratio selections, I'd have thought they would have extended the
range in both directions, but such is quite clearly not the case.

Meanwhile, since I've got a 14/34 on the rear now, by swapping just
the crankset and chainrings for a triple, and mounting a front der to
match, I can get a *larger* range than most current bikes are supplied
with. I find that quite amusing. (Yes, I'm aware that I may have to
swap the BB as well; I'll jump that curb when I come to it.)

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On 17 Aug 2003 12:33:21 GMT, ("Quidquid bonum tibi
est, tibi bonus est." - (P. Chisholm)) wrote:

John- Is a new Ultegra shifter compatible with my 105 rear
derailleur? BRBR

yes...ensure that the old and new shifters match in 'speeds', 8s or 9s...

Ultegra and 105 shifters and derailleurs are fully compatible for all
indexing generations of these components. There's no functional
justification to "match" them.

-------------------------------
http://www.businesscycles.com
John Dacey
Business Cycles, Miami, Florida
305-273-4440
Now in our twentieth year.
Our catalog of track equipment: seventh year online
-------------------------------

Good comment!

Even in the TDF the average rpm rate is clearly around 90, slowing to maybe
70 significantly only on the steepest climbs where they just don't have low
enough gears (as discussed by the commentators during one particularly steep
TDF climb segment). As Joe Friel ('Cyclist's Training Bible') says, high
rpms for speed and endurance, lower for those shorter distances where more
power is needed briefly.
--
Steve

Steve Juniper )
Berkeley, California
"Every day above ground is a good day!"

"Werehatrack" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 17 Aug 2003 03:06:37 GMT, "Steve Juniper"
may have said:

I think most bike dealers treat most buyers as young racer wannabes and
wind
up not providing a sufficient range of gearing - especially for people
living in hilly areas.

Rule of thumb: A trainer once suggested to me that if you can't sustain at
least 72 rpm on your steepest fairly long typical hill, your gearing is
most
likely too high.

I switched my triple 105 Buenos Aires 12-27 to an XT 11-34 and really like
the range. I rarely use the 34, but appreciate having it. Inexpensive and
easy to do. Most of my rides here average over 100 feet/mile with typical
climbs to 18%. A few at 33%, but they're short.

And I'll add that in my opinion, for current road bikes in the hands
of an average user, the gearing as supplied by the factory tends to be
too high for anything but flat or mildly rolling terrain. I think that
part of the current overwhelming popularity of the mountain bikes is
directly attributable to the extra-low gears that are widely and
commonly available on them.

Apparently, this has been true for quite a long time.

My early-70s-vintage road bike has a 14/34 freewheel and 39/52
chainrings. Surveying the road bikes in the "sport" category of a
major retailer, I found that the typical highest gear ratio supplied
had become taller by a fair margin in the intervening 30 years, and
the number of available ratios had nearly tripled from 10 to 24 or 27,
but that the lowest gear combo was *also* typically slightly taller
than on my '73. Logically, with such an expansion of the number of
gear ratio selections, I'd have thought they would have extended the
range in both directions, but such is quite clearly not the case.

Meanwhile, since I've got a 14/34 on the rear now, by swapping just
the crankset and chainrings for a triple, and mounting a front der to
match, I can get a *larger* range than most current bikes are supplied
with. I find that quite amusing. (Yes, I'm aware that I may have to
swap the BB as well; I'll jump that curb when I come to it.)

--
My email address is antispammed;
pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail.
Yes, I have a killfile. If I don't respond to something,
it's also possible that I'm busy.

In article ,
says...
On 17 Aug 2003 12:33:21 GMT, ("Quidquid bonum tibi
est, tibi bonus est." - (P. Chisholm)) wrote:

John- Is a new Ultegra shifter compatible with my 105 rear
derailleur? BRBR

yes...ensure that the old and new shifters match in 'speeds', 8s or 9s...

Ultegra and 105 shifters and derailleurs are fully compatible for all
indexing generations of these components. There's no functional
justification to "match" them.

Are you saying that you can use an 8 speed brifter on a nine speed
cassette?

Rick

In article ,
John Dacey wrote:
On 17 Aug 2003 12:33:21 GMT, ("Quidquid bonum tibi
est, tibi bonus est." - (P. Chisholm)) wrote:

John- Is a new Ultegra shifter compatible with my 105 rear
derailleur? BRBR

yes...ensure that the old and new shifters match in 'speeds', 8s or 9s...

Ultegra and 105 shifters and derailleurs are fully compatible for all
indexing generations of these components. There's no functional
justification to "match" them.

Unless you are expecting it to work with your existing cogset, I
assume that's what Peter meant - you'd need shifters, cogs and chain.

In article ,
Werehatrack wrote:

And I'll add that in my opinion, for current road bikes in the hands
of an average user, the gearing as supplied by the factory tends to be
too high for anything but flat or mildly rolling terrain.

Apparently, this has been true for quite a long time.

My early-70s-vintage road bike has a 14/34 freewheel and 39/52
chainrings. Surveying the road bikes in the "sport" category of a
major retailer, I found that the typical highest gear ratio supplied
had become taller by a fair margin in the intervening 30 years

You are not comparing equivalent bikes.

Racing bikes in the 70s typically came with a 52-42 front
and 13-21 rear. A 13-24 rear cluster was still considered 'wimp gears'
when I started racing in the mid-80s. Real he-men used a 21t cog.
At least 39t small rings were common by then.

"racing 10-speeds" not intended for actual race use
usually had the same 52/42 front and a 14-26 or 14-28 rear.
(largest cog handled by the Simplex or Campy deraileurs).
About the same low gear as the 39-24 combination.

Your 39/34 was probably a touring bike.

If anything, the low ratios on sport/race bikes are lower now than they
were in the 70s or 80s. Even on double chainring bikes there is typically
a 12-25 on the back and always a 39t small ring. But most sport bikes
(80% here in the California bay area) these days are sold with triple
chainrings. For example I recently got my wife a Bianchi Vigorelli.
It came with a 52/42/30 front and 13-26 rear cluster. This is typical
for current sport bikes and low enough for just about anything short of
loaded touring.


Of course the high gears we have now are way too high for most non-racing
riders, but that's a different subject.

Eric

On Mon, 18 Aug 2003 00:38:56 GMT, (Eric Murray) may have
said:

Of course the high gears we have now are way too high for most non-racing
riders, but that's a different subject.

Indirectly, though, that is the subject in a nutshell. In too many
cases, racing (or too-close-to-racing) gears are being sold where they
are not the most appropriate choice for the majority of the market.
Too-tall high gears wouldn't matter (much) if the lower end went deep
enough, but as is made apparent by the fact that lower-geared
inefficient bikes are making people happy where taller-geared
efficient ones didn't, I have to think that the impression of the
public's perception of the road bike as being geared too high is
relevant. Probably 99% of potential bike buyers will never need or be
able to fully use competitive-level gearing, but yet that's often what
is being sold to them on the upper end of the range; at the lower end,
the opportunity for more useful expansion seems to be gettting
ignored. Not always, but often enough, from what I can see. At some
point, increasing the number of gears without increasing the range of
the ratios just means that the rider is shifting more than one gear at
a time *most* of the time. If we have 11-speed cassettes in a couple
of years, and 33-speed systems, an increase in complexity will
certainly be realized, but will utility improve with it if the same
overall top and bottom ratios are present as on a current 24-speed?



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