Short or Medium Cage Shimano 105 5700 Rear Mech for 30T Cassette?

Updated 12 April2015

Do you need a medium or long cage rear mech to run a 30T Cassette? This was the question I asked myself recently. We're going to the French Alps for our Summer Holiday this year. Whilst I hope to be properly bike fit I am really keen to make sure that I can ride all the climbs - including the difficult ones like Mont Ventoux - without running out of energy and failing.

I normally run a 11-28T cassette with a compact chain set (as I am old!). Until last year I had never failed to get up anything using this gearing - although I failed on Hardknott Pass. I saw that as an aberration but  recently (March 2015) I failed again on Rosedale Chimney and Boltby Bank. Whilst these three climbs are special cases with very steep sections it just shows that if I'm over geared I know I am lining myself up for a failure. The climbs in the French Alps are quite different in that the gradients don't reach over 25% but the challenge is in the length - which can be 20km in some cases.

I was not as worried about the gradient but more about the duration - for example I am estimating 2 hours for Mont Ventoux. The backup plan was therefore to lower the gearing and the option was a 30T cassette. However 28T is the biggest for 105 (5700), and so the option is Ultegra where a 12-30 is available. Until last year the word "Ultegra" would mean a non-starter on cost grounds. What has changed is the introduction of Ultegra 6800 and 105 5800 ranges - i.e. 11spd. This has meant that Ultegra 6700 (10spd) is now more affordable (although not cheap). So I ordered a 12-30T Ultegra 10spd cassette.

The next challenge was whether or not my 105 5700 rear dérailleur (short cage) was up to the job of managing an 18 tooth difference across the cassette (although only 1 more than needed for an 11-28). I do have a spare medium cage 105 5700 rear dérailleur so if the short cage would not work I had a fall back plan.

The voice of the internet on the question of short or medium cage is fairly evenly split between short cage so the only way to really see was to try it.

First I photographed the 11-28 cassette on 28T in both the 34 and 50 chain rings:

34-28

50-28

This set up has worked very will for me for many 1000's miles so I am fully satisfied with it.

I then removed the 11-28 cassette and fitted the 12-30. The biggest issue is probably the big-big combination here:

50-34T

In big-big the dérailleur is on the limit and I would not use it. I occasionally use the big-big with the 28T cassette but only for a few meters at a time as the chainline is poor. It shows that with the 30T cassette I need to make sure I never go lower than the 2nd gear.

In small-big (the one I want for the Alps) it actually looks OK. In this picture I have adjusted the B Screw by about 3 full turns tighter to pull the jockey wheels away from the cassette and after this all was fine. The photo does not show it but these few turns made all the difference

34-30T (B Screw tightened)

Having fitted the 12-30 cassette all gears can be selected smoothly and without snatching or slipping, when using the work stand. This includes front ring shifting both up and down in all the most likely combinations of gears on the cassette.

This gives me a lot of confidence that all will be fine. I might be at the limit but as long as I am careful I see no issues.

 
The next steps is to actually ride it on the road - so all this review can say at the moment is that all is fine on a work stand. I'll report back when I have ridden it.

Updated 12 April 2015 - I have ridden the bike a few miles and can report all is well. More miles needed but I think all OK - just don't select big-big.

The good thing about this is I can fit the 12-30 before I go to France and then if its not as hard as I thought I can refit the 11-28 while I am there. I only need take the cassette lock ring tool and a chain whip

Major Service and Winter Recovery Actions

I normally "deep clean" my bikes once a year around Easter time (i.e. some time between mid-March to the end of April). This is a proper clean rather than a superficial clean as per here - components removed, cleaned and stripped (if required) and replacing the chain and occasionally the cassette depending on condition and mileage. On the Giant I also put back on the Cole Rollen wheels replacing the heavy but strong original Giant branded wheels the bike came with.

The timing for this is that in theory by this time of year we should be in the better weather, the salt is gone from the road and it should be a bit drier. However this year my Giant was in a quite dreadful state and I had been deferring the clean for a number of weeks and finally I could put it off no longer. There were a number of jobs that were making the bike quite borderline. Firstly the brake pads (both front and rear) were very worn, both brake calipers were stiff and would not spring back properly (I had had to strip the front one several weeks earlier to free it off), the chain was way over 1% worn and recently I had discovered that the rear dérailleur was very stiff as the upper pivot, whilst not seized, was stiff enough that when in the small chain ring could not rotate enough to take the tension up. This the list of jobs was quite extensive. Alongside all of these jobs I would also fully clean the bike with some T-Cut and polish.

Firstly the brakes - here's a couple of pictures showing the wear to the rear pads - there was some life left in them but not a lot:

Rear Pads

Another view of rear pads but also the level of road muck on the calipers

I stripped both calipers back down again and carefully lubricated the main areas. However I think now that these calipers might be starting to decline - there is clear sign of aluminium corrosion after 5 years of all year round use and this means that they are never going to be trouble free any more and need a lot of regular maintenance through the years- this compares to having been on the bike and doing nothing to them for the first 4 years or so.

I fitted replacement brake pads - not new but not that worn - so some bedding in of the pads will be needed over the coming miles.

The most difficult job I could see was the service of the rear dérailleur - I have cleaned the jockey wheels but not done any other jobs. Fortunately Google is our friend and on the Park Tools web site was an excellently detailed article on how to do the job: http://www.parktool.com/blog/repair-help/rear-derailleur-overhaul

The first problem was getting the dérailleur off the hanger - the age old problem of steel/aluminium corroding together - after over a year of it being fitted it was extremely tight to remove - it was not possible to undo it using just a simple Allen key. I used as much releasing agent as I could but still could not shift it. In the end I needed a bit and socket wrench to get the leverage up. Even then it was tight and I was concerned that I might fail the hanger itself. In the end it did come off but was tight.

Following the instructions from the Park Tools site I decided to mount an Allen key in my vice to hold the dérailleur

Mounting the dérailleur

Disassembly was exactly as per the Park Tools site. I expected the B Plate to be under more spring pressure when I removed the C Clip but there was very little in the event. (It was also easy to rebuild the unit because of this as well).

The Upper Pivot Dis-assembled and laid out

The problem was that there was a light film of rust and dry lubricant between the body and the pivot pin. After cleaning the inner diameter and the bush and applying some grease all was well again. Re-assembly was the reverse of dis-assembly although it took me 3 attempts the get the B-screw plate aligned correctly despite having sketched the component layout as I took it apart. Fortunately I had a 2nd identical (but long cage) unit to compare against.

After this the rest of the jobs were pretty straightforward - I was going change the rear dérailleur cable any way but as I was removing it found fraying inside the shifter and part way down the length - normally I moved the rear cable and fit to the front dérailleur but just binned it this time. So I ended up fitting new cables to both front and rear. 

I also fitted a new chain as planned - another KMC X10 with split link. I normally keep the old split link and put it with the puncture kit on the bike as an emergency spare, but this was was absolutely spent - as was the chain.

It took a bit longer to do than previous years as I had to service the brake calipers and dérailleur as well compared to previous years, but the bike looks clean and shiny again

I expect the bike to stay fairly clean now with only light cleans until around September when the autumn weather begins. From that point the dirt will build up and the wear rates will start to accelerate again.

What I have found is that chain wear is minimal from March to October as the chain stays dry and clean, but then as the weather turns wet and the roads muddy the grit and muck gets in the chain and all the wear occurs over the winter months.

This is supported by comparing the wear rates of the Giant (year round use all weather) and the Scott (mostly spring-autumn use in drier weather). Both use the same chains but the Giant's chain is total scrap at over 1% use after normally 2500 miles compared to 0.5-0.75% wear on the Scott for similar mileage.

I have just got to do the same job to the Scott but this won't take as long - not least as the brakes and dérailleur are all OK.

Building a New Bike - Part 3 - Observations

I wrote about building a new bike here and here. These 2 posts are more of an overview but I found some interesting things on the way that I thought I'd share. These are in no particular order.

Carbon Steerer on Focus Cayo
My Focus Cayo had a carbon steerer, not aluminium as I had assumed

Frame Stiffness
The Scott frame stiffness seems higher than the Focus - this was with the crude "press foot against the crank" test. From this I could detect not frame movement. Compared to my Focus a very small amount was visible and for the (Aluminium) framed Giant the movement is very clear.

Bar Tape
I had forgotten how to wrap the bar tape around the shifters. A quick search on YouTube brought up this link - it was excellent and better than the ones I had watched before:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=J6g3-55iVU0

To quote one of the comments: "ive watched 5 bar wrapping vids now. this one is the best. no nonsense Australians getting shit done" - spot on

Steerer Misaligned
On the first ride I realised the steerer was misaligned - irritating and felt really odd.




Front Dérailleur 105 5700 Shift Load
Front dérailleur shift load. I wrote 2 posts about this here and here. In fact these are the 2 most visited posts on this blog by far so I guess I am possibly not the only person with possible issues. Briefly whilst the outcome of fitting 5700 series components for the rear was an improvement of the 5600 shift quality and feel the front dérailleur was a disappointment with a much high shift effort than I expected. Despite much fettling I could not get it anywhere near as good as the shifting with a 5600 set up. A problem, but not associated with the 5700 shifters is that as the cables are hidden under the bar tape, there is no room for a cable barrel shifter. The Focus did have these fitted for both front and rear on the down tube but the Scott did not. So I bought one of these (in black):

For what they are they are expensive at around £7 but without it I would have failed to get any form of sensible adjustment on the front

Here it is fitted:

However I am pleased to report that after this fettling the front shifting is now as I would have expected - light, precise and smooth shifting. I cannot see what has changed compared to the Focus as the shifters are the same, and the basic cable routing is also the same and the front deraillieur is the same. I did make another change in that I replaced not only the inner cable (as last time) but also the outer cables as well - with a Shimano set. It really has made a difference and is what I would have hoped it would be from new.

Kool stop brake pads
I needed some new brake pads for the Giant, but chose to buy some new pads for the Scott and move the Focus pads to the Giant. The Focus had the original Shimano 105 5700 pads from last year. They had lasted very well but this is because they seem quite hard. After some perusing of internet forums (fora?). I bought some Kool Stop Dura 2 inserts (black)


 

First impressions are extremely positive - significantly improved braking performance and what seems to be good modulation. Time will tell how they last. Apparently Dura 2 are:

"The Dura2 insert is our newly designed road pad. The pad is thicker than our standard Dura type for longer life, has a 7.65 mm contact width for narrow rims and cut outs for reduced weight."

New Cables
I fitted full new cables (inners and outers) for both gears and brakes. It just goes to show that improved shifting and indexing can be achieved with new parts - whilst the inners were changed around 18 moths earlier the outers were the originals and were over 3 years old.

Ride feel
It does "feel" different - a non-engineering metric but it rides differently

Weight
The weight came out at about 400g less than the Focus. I was hoping for a little more. The bike is now (fully equipped) just a shade of 8kg. I am pretty happy with this.

Seat post
I thought I might need a new seat post - in the end I didn't as it was the same size as the Focus.

Cutting cable outers
I was going to buy a "proper" tool. But didn't. I very carefully cut all the outer cables using a small (junior) hacksaw with new blade. No problems for the brakes cables but I needed a lot more care to get a smooth finish for the gear cables which were made of wrapped separate wires. The finish came out OK in the end.

Torque Wrench
I had bought a 3/8" torque drive a while ago (torque wrench). I used it for some of the components. It is amazing how tight some screws actually need to be - much tighter than you would have thought.

Chain Length 
Despite fitting all the same drive train components the chain is about 1 link too long now - on the Focus it was exactly right. I am not going to make any changes now, and will resolve when the chain needs a change. As its too long in small-small which I don't use its not a problem for now.

Building a New Bike - Part 2 - The Build

In a previous post I discussed the new Scott CR1 Pro frame I had bought with the objective of moving the components across from my Focus to the Scott. I have now completed this successfully. This post is a report of the whole process.

I'll document some more details in another post - this is mainly just photos showing it going together. For example in other posts I have commented on the high shift load for the Shimano 5700 front dérailleur and this will be covered in the next post (here).

Firstly of course firstly I needed to get the frame:

It came within a few days well packed

The frame and fork unpacked

The Frame with the protection still in place

Frame and fork

Frame and fork

As I wrote in the first post Cult Cycles fitted the headset and cut the fork for me. I then went on holiday for a week so the frame sat in the loft. I knew I needed some additional parts so I ordered these from Wiggle at the end of the holiday for delivery in the week I came back.

The first main activity was to strip all the parts off the Focus and clean them thoroughly. I also weighed them reasonably carefully (see here). However the cheap digital scales:

I used seem a bit inconsistent and I don't fully trust them. It's easy to re-weigh the same parts and get different results. The resolution is also on 0.01kg so not great discrimination for some of the lighter parts.

It took 2-3 evenings to strip the parts from the Focus and clean them, before I started on the build of Scott. Here's the build at a very early stage:

The frame in my Park Work Stand with seat tube fitted to given some strength to the seat tube. The stem is a temporary part to hold the fork in place

Before any parts fitted (with the recycling bag in the background)

With the correct stem, handlebars and shifters fitted. Also front and rear brake calipers and front and rear dérailleurs and chainset. The cable outers are still connected to the shifters to give an indication of length.

Front on view

The wheels are now fitted

Almost finished. Chain fitted. All cables installed. Gears indexed. Brakes adjusted. Bar tape fitted

I fitted an in-line cable adjuster for the front deraillieur given the issues I had with the front mech on the Focus

Cable outer length might need a little optimisation

The drive train

The massive seat stay/seat tube interface

Detail of the front of the bike

Finished

The massive bottom bracket area

Total build time - about 6 hours over 2 evenings and a Saturday morning.

Drive Train upgrades:

"Don't by upgrades, ride up grades"

I like to do a bit of bike tinkering - the good thing about my two bikes is that they are not excessively expensive in the scheme of things and I can afford a few upgrades now and then. What normally happens is that I get something new for the Focus and the original Focus parts move down to the Giant. As a result the Giant is a bit like Trigger's Broom - I have had the same bike for nearly 4 years, but the only original parts are: frame and forks; brakes; handle bars, seat post, saddle and cable outers. Everything has either been upgraded or replaced as it wore out (the most recent example of wearing out being the bottom bracket, see earlier).

Rear Dérailleur Upgrades

As a result of all these progressive upgrades the Giant ended up with the original 105 mid cage rear dérailleur from the Focus - a perfectly good piece of equipment and probably a lot better than many people have but my issue was that it never quite looked right, and this was why I had swapped it from the Focus in the first place. I was therefore hankering with changing it. 

I did this by buying a new 105 5701 rear dérailleur for the Focus and moving the 5600 dérailleur from the Focus to the Giant. This was relatively straightforward and did not really have any major implications. Although I expected the 2 dérailleurs to be basically the same geometry and differ in appearance actually the 5701 dérailleur is slightly different. The jockey wheels are further apart that the 5600 model and actually the jockey cage is about 1/2 way between the 5600 short and medium models. I guess this is what is needed to work with an 11-28 cassette range which the 5701 model supports "officially". However I never had any issues with a 5600 short cage working with an 11-28.

Here are some pictures, before and after for the Focus and after for the Giant (I used my phone so they are not great quality):

 Focus:

5600 - Small Front, Smallest Rear

5600 - Big Front, Smallest Rear

5700 - Small Front, Smallest Rear

5700 - Big Front, Smallest Rear

5700 - Big Front, Biggest Rear

With the 5700 deraillieur the chain looks a little short - this is because the chain is the same length as used for the 5600 model and this shows that he cage is longer, however I don't have a photo of the 5600 in Big/Big to provide a direct comparison.

Giant:

Giant - 5600 Short Cage, Big Front, Smallest Rear

Giant - 5600 Short Cage, Small Front, Smallest Rear

Giant - 5600 Short Cage, Big Front, Biggest Rear

Note I don't ride it in Big-Big! Given that I was going from a 27-25 tooth and taken off a long cage mech I took out a few links without measuring up, with hindsight I should have checked. However the chain is almost at the end of its life so I'll measure up a new chain in the coming month or so.

Giant - 5600 Short Cage, Small Front, Biggest Rear

Cassette Selection

I also knew that the rear cassette on the Giant (also originally from the Focus) was at over 6000 miles and that the gears I used most (3,4,5) were pretty worn (there was a noticable deterioration in shift quality and so needed replacing. Again not being a super powerful rider some of the gears were pretty pristine whilst others were pretty worn. However it does not seem possible to replace the individual gears and if possible it works out at a lot more cost than a new one - a symptom of our throwaway society I guess.

The choice of what to get was a much more difficult decision than the mech as there is a choice of 4 105 10 speed cassette ranges to choose from, namely:

11-25, 11-28, 12-25 and 12-27

The gears are:
11-25: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25 
11-28: 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 17, 19, 21, 24, 28
12-25: 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25
12-27: 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, 24, 27

I run an 11-28 on the Focus and a 12-27 on the Giant (originally from the Focus as well). I was not that keen on the 11-28 and really only wanted a 12-28 for the 28, not the 11 as I can't exploit the 11 tooth gear as I am not strong enough. Ideally I would have liked a 12-28.

The choice of a new cassette for the Giant was quite difficult. I use the Giant in the winter and throughout the year to commute so don't do very long or hilly rides. During the Winter of 2012/2013 I was managing with the 27 as the lowest gear quite satisfactorily and even managed some of the local climbs on the 25 when it wouldn't shift down to the 27 on one ride.

This suggested that on most rides I could manage with the 25 as the bottom gear. I also felt that a 12-25 would force me into a slightly higher gear and build a little more strength as it is too easy to bail out onto the 27 or 28 when it was there. I also was slightly keener on the 16 tooth the the 12-25 has that is missing on the 11-28 and this makes quite a jump for an distinctly average rider like me.

The alternative view was that if I rode a 11-28 on the Giant as well I then had a spare for the Focus and had the same gearing on both bikes meaning better consistency.

Any way after a lot of dithering I got a 12-25.  Cosmetically it looks a lot better (see pictures above). I have not yet ridden many miles on it yet but I have commuted to work on it and did not really notice any difference. I felt that I changed gear more often - partly because I found all the gears a little closer and also because I am not as bike fit at the moment as I have been. Only time will tell

In reality of course its not impossible to build a 12-28 or other combinations - although it would be quite expensive.  The biggest 3 gears are all on a unit carrier and all 4 cassette ranges have a 21 as the smallest gear on that carrier, and all use a 19 as the next gear, so given enough money and time one can build a cassette with ant combination of 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 19 and then select 1 of the 4 3 gear sets.

Shimano 105 Shifters Revisted

Caution - Work in Progress!! 

Further update here: Building new bike part 3 observations

A while ago I wrote a short piece about the experiences I had when I fitted Shimano 105 5700 series shifters to my bike to replace the 5600 series originally fitted.

The reason for the change/upgrade was that I really wanted to upgrade my other bike (Giant Defy 4) to 10 speed and whist I had the cassette, chain and dérailleurs for the bike I did not have any spare shifters. As these are by far the most expensive part of the drive train it took a long time to decide on the correct strategy to get 10 speed on both bikes for the least amount of money but best compromise seemed to be to upgrade the shifters on the Focus and move the original shifters to the Giant.

The Focus came with the 5600 series parts, but at the time I was looking into this the newer 5700 series had been around for about a year. Part of the decision was also that it appeared increasingly difficult to get the 5600 parts, although they were slightly cheaper. From what I could make out the most prominent differences between 5600 & 5700 parts were that the 5700 had the shifter cables running under the bar tape alongside the brake cables whilst the older 5600 has the shifter cables coming out of the side of the shifters.

Here is a picture of each:

5600

5700

More subtle differences are apparently a more ergonomic shifter design and different pull ratios for the brakes and front dérailleur, although seemingly not the rear dérailleur. Because of this it is seemingly necessary to run a full 5700 system with the new shifters.

The pull ratio change was difficult one to find out more about. Given the physical dimensions of the shifters and the basic geometry of the brake caliper it was hard to see how different it could be. A search of the internet was not particularly helpful either. All of them basically say what I have summarised above.

After much heart searching (and internet price comparisons) I bit the bullet and bought a pair of the 5700 shifters for the Focus. I did also decide to get a 5700 front mech as these are relatively cheap.

I waited until the bad weather around Christmas 2011 (when I had some spare holiday to use) and fitted the parts to the bikes. Given that it was winter I did not ride the Focus for several months but the Giant carried on being ridden. I didn't notice any change to the Giant compared to the Focus (after all it has the same parts fitted), although up-shifting on the rear is not always as crisp as I remembered - it will either not quite shift up a gear and need a slight extra nudge, or will shift up 2 gears when only one is requested. I think this is due to a little wear on the right shifter but also because the medium cage (GS) rear mech is not as stiff as the short cage. Any way I live with it as I think it's one of those jobs that could absorb hours without making it any better.

However on the Focus all was not quite as well. Firstly the upgrade was completed before Christmas so it was not ridden. Testing the bike in the work stand suggested that the front mech was quite stiff to shift up to the big ring and sprung back very "positively" when dropping onto the small ring. Its really hard to get a good feel in the workstand as your hands are not in the normal riding position. I had a fiddle but left it until I planned to ride it again when I would have a better view.

Because of the weather I did not ride the bike until early March and this really highlighted 2 things - the back brake was pretty well in-effective and the lever load for the front mech was very high.

The back brake issue is discussed here: Shimano 105 5700 mechanicals (as is the first draft of this review) and seemed to be related to a rusty brake cable. My view of the front brake performance comparison between the original (6600?) Ultegra and the new 5700 105 calipers is that if there is a difference its almost undetectable, and probably more affected by rim/brake pad combination than the pull ratio.

I have also looked more at the front mech load - it "feels" at least twice as hard to shift up a gear than the 5600 combination. With the cable disconnected and moving the mech by hand it does not feel excessively stiff, but via the shifter is harder than the older model. The cable routing around the bottom bracket is identical to the initial install, and learning the lesson from the rusty brake cable I have checked the cable - both for rust, cleanliness, smoothness of outer cable, cable radii etc and can see nothing wrong. I am sort of resigned to it. Most of the time where I live I can ride on the big ring most of the time so its not that I am making dozens of changes a ride.

Despite the disappointingly high front shifting load the rear shifting is excellent - much better than the 5600 (and I am still using a 5600 105 short cage rear mech) - up and down it never misses a shift, very slick and positive.

When I do another major service I will probably change both inner and outer front cables regardless and try that to see if it makes any difference. I am not sure if the cable run from under the bottom bracket affects it - I'll post a photo another time, but it's the same as before.

So - does the pull ratio change make a difference?

• Front brakes - no
• Rear brakes - no
• Rear mech - no
• Front mech - I can't tell but the shifting load is high

Hope this helps