8 speed brifter w/ 7 speed freewheel

DJA- Can I use an 8-speed compatible brifter set (Sora 8sp STI) with a
7-speed cluster? What would happen with the additional gear selection?
BRBR

Yes, just adjust the upper(largest) cog limit screw on the rear der so you get
6 clicks(7s) instead of 8.

Peter Chisholm
Vecchio's Bicicletteria
1833 Pearl St.
Boulder, CO, 80302
(303)440-3535
http://www.vecchios.com
"Ruote convenzionali costruite eccezionalmente bene"

Rault- Won't work[1]. The spacing that the shifter will produce in the der
position will not line up with the sprockets across the width of the
cassette. You need to use a cassette with 8-speed *spacing* with an
8-speed shifter. The spacing on the 7-speed is wider. BRBR

It's close enough tho. Kinda like 9/10s ERGO and shimano 9/10s. 7s is 5mm, 8s
is 4.8mm. The top pulley will take care of this.

Peter Chisholm
Vecchio's Bicicletteria
1833 Pearl St.
Boulder, CO, 80302
(303)440-3535
http://www.vecchios.com
"Ruote convenzionali costruite eccezionalmente bene"

On 22 Sep 2004 13:16:53 GMT, (Qui si parla
Campagnolo ) wrote:

Rault- Won't work[1]. The spacing that the shifter will produce in the der
position will not line up with the sprockets across the width of the
cassette. You need to use a cassette with 8-speed *spacing* with an
8-speed shifter. The spacing on the 7-speed is wider. BRBR

It's close enough tho. Kinda like 9/10s ERGO and shimano 9/10s. 7s is 5mm, 8s
is 4.8mm. The top pulley will take care of this.

Maybe, if it's sloppy enough, but the three attempts I've seen (one of
my own included) produced a much less than pleasant result. It took
endless trimming to get it to shift up and down reliably across part
of the range, and it never shifted in both directions reliably across
the whole range at all. Of course, this was with Shimano gear; I
don't have any Campy, and I don't know if there's more forgiveness in
the operation of their ders.

OTOH, one of the other posters gave me a harebrained idea which I
acted on last night. I've had a persistent problem with one
particular older non-exotic Shimano der; it would shift the lower 5 of
7 gears perfectly, but was hard to get to upshift into the top (small)
two without trimming it to where it then shifted down through the
other 5 poorly. So last night, I took the cassette off, pulled the
thin spacer out from between the third cog and the main body, put it
*behind* the cassette, scrounged a thinner make-do shim from my old
stash of automotive junk, clipped it to fit the spot where the other
one came out, and put the mess back together. A few minutes spent
adjusting the cable yielded a rear der that *finally* shifted all 7
gears properly.

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Werehatrack wrote:
(Qui si parla Campagnolo ) wrote:

Rault- Won't work[1]. The spacing that the shifter will produce in the der
position will not line up with the sprockets across the width of the
cassette. You need to use a cassette with 8-speed *spacing* with an
8-speed shifter. The spacing on the 7-speed is wider. BRBR

It's close enough tho. Kinda like 9/10s ERGO and shimano 9/10s. 7s is 5mm, 8s
is 4.8mm. The top pulley will take care of this.

Maybe, if it's sloppy enough, but the three attempts I've seen (one of
my own included) produced a much less than pleasant result. It took
endless trimming to get it to shift up and down reliably across part
of the range, and it never shifted in both directions reliably across
the whole range at all. Of course, this was with Shimano gear; I
don't have any Campy, and I don't know if there's more forgiveness in
the operation of their ders.

No, really, it works. I have a bike with an 8-speed Shimano STI shifter
and it has been shifting 7 speeds just fine for a year and a half. It works
OK with a 7-speed Sachs freewheel (there was one downshift that hesitated
slightly) and perfectly with a Shimano 7-speed HG cassette. The difference
is due to the superior shift ramps on the Shimano cassette.

It also works with 8 speed barcons. This is useful for setting up a bike
w/o the expense of STI or difficulty of finding 7 speed barcons.

Difficulties with this setup might be due to cabling problems or worn
derailleur pivots. I think my barcon equipped bike's shifting went south
after cyclocross races and offroading made the derailleur sloppy.