Ultegra/105 STI Shifter Compatability

"John" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

My bike has a Shimano 105 group. My right shifter is not shifting

properly

Quoted message said:

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 ([email hidden]) Berkeley, California "Every day above ground is a
good day!"

"Dave Thompson" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

"John" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

My bike has a Shimano 105 group. My right shifter is not shifting

properly

Quoted message said:

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 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.

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

Quoted message said:

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.

Quoted message said:

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 [email hidden] Palo Alto CA

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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John-<< 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? >><BR><BR>

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

Peter Chisholm Vecchio's Bicicletteria 1833 Pearl St. Boulder, CO, 80302
(303)440-3535 vecchios.comvecchios.comOpen ↗ "Ruote convenzionali costruite eccezionalmente bene"

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

On 17 Aug 2003 12:33:21 GMT, [email hidden] ("Quidquid bonum tibi est, tibi bonus est." - (P.

Chisholm)) said:

John-<< Is a new Ultegra shifter compatible with my 105 rear derailleur? >><BR><BR>

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

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 ([email hidden]) Berkeley, California "Every day above ground is a
good day!"

"Werehatrack" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
"]news:[email hidden]... 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

Quoted message said:

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

Quoted message said:

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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don't respond to something, it's also possible that I'm busy.

Java Man (Espressopithecus) said:

In article <[email hidden]>, [email hidden] says...

Quoted message said:

On 17 Aug 2003 12:33:21 GMT, [email hidden] ("Quidquid bonum tibi est, tibi bonus est." - (P.

Chisholm)) said:

John-<< Is a new Ultegra shifter compatible with my 105 rear derailleur? >><BR><BR>

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?

No. The right shifter needs to be specific for the number of rear sprockets. The rear derailleur
however, may be from a 7, 8 or 9 speed series.

-------------------------------
businesscycles.combusinesscycles.comOpen ↗ John Dacey Business Cycles, Miami, Florida 305-273-4440 Now in our
twenty-first year. Our catalog of track equipment: eighth year online
-------------------------------

In article <[email hidden]>, John Dacey

Quoted message said:

On 17 Aug 2003 12:33:21 GMT, [email hidden] ("Quidquid bonum tibi est, tibi bonus est." - (P.

Chisholm)) said:

John-<< Is a new Ultegra shifter compatible with my 105 rear derailleur? >><BR><BR>

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 <[email hidden]>, Werehatrack

Quoted message said:

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.

Quoted message said:

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

(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?

--
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 <[email hidden]>, Werehatrack

Quoted message said:

(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

[and back to "modern bike's gears aren't low enough", which I've already debunked in my
previous post]

I guess you are not going to let any pesky facts get in the way of your theory. Go check out the
gearing on new bikes in your LBS and get back to us.

Eric

Werehatrack said:

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.

...you forgot to mention hills that go down.

There is scarcely a bike too highly geared from the factory to go down the hills I routinely
encounter.

You can go comfortably down the hill, or you could gain some speed, but you won't comfortably gain
speed while you're going down.

OTOH, when you have to go the other way, it may be rather hard to find a gear you can use to get up
the hill in comfort.

Quoted message said:

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.

No, it's not elite to have a cassette with spacing larger than 1 tooth between gears.

Quoted message said:

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.)

Yes, but then, you won't be elite like Fabrizio.

The engineers at bike companies probably want slightly wider ratios, but the marketing departments
likely insist on very narrow ratios. This is because narrow ratios are so elite.

Meanwhile, I'd like to continue to [censored] and moan and complain about ratios, trends, and my bike.
Does anybody mind? <G>
--
Rick Onanian

Steve Juniper said:

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.

That may be a good general rule of thumb, but it should always be tempered by experimentation and
experience.

Until recently, I always tried to spin 80 rpm or so, matching my gear to that cadence.

Then I decided to do something a little different, and found that I go faster and last much, much
longer by torquing a taller gear.

That is my observation about _me_. Every person's body and psychology is different; and each should
feel free to experiment to find what works. Also, each should repeatedly experiment, especialyl with
things like cadence which don't cost anything other than a few minutes.

Yes, I said psychology. I meant it in so far as whatever excites you will help your riding...and
finding my lower cadence, as well as finding my new long-distance ability, excites me to no end.

After taking my longest ride ever on Saturday, my legs continue to feel it; I am supressing the
excited urge to ride right now, lest I damage my muscles.

--
Rick Onanian

Quoted message said:

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.

If 18% or greater grades 1/4 mile or longer are normal cycling, then why do you post your ride
reports detailing the long grades? Why are there so many web pages describing bicycle rides over the
Sierra passes? Sorry, I think this argument is a red herring.

Pat

Patrick Lamb said:

Quoted message said:

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.

Quoted message said:

If 18% or greater grades 1/4 mile or longer are normal cycling, then why do you post your ride
reports detailing the long grades? Why are there so many web pages describing bicycle rides over
the Sierra passes? Sorry, I think this argument is a red herring.

I don't get your tangential reference to ride reports. Right here in my area we have plenty of
roads with 18-20 percent grades for more than a quarter mile. My point is that first you proposed
lower gears and then say that the purpose of keeping cadence at what I see as artificially high
levels, levels that riders imagine are effective. I propose they are not and that no one in fact
rides that way, and I do so from many rides I have taken in the mountains with other riders,
tourists and racers.

paloaltobicycles.coms10.htmlOpen ↗

Here I am with the California State Road champion a week after he won the race. He did not spin up
these hills nor did I. We rode as TdF riders do today at less than 60rpm here and on the Gavia,
Stelvio, Grossglockner and Gerlos, all passes with longer steep sections. Lots of these roads are on
that web site and many more.

Jobst Brandt [email hidden] Palo Alto CA

(Eric Murray) may have said:

I guess you are not going to let any pesky facts get in the way of your theory. Go check out the
gearing on new bikes in your LBS and get back to us.

If 95% of the bikes were being sold by an LBS, that would be a relevant place to look. I suspect
it's more like 5%.

More relevant to the road bike segment is what's in stock at the local major sporting goods stores
and (in snobbish neighborhoods) bike boutiques. Of course, road bikes account for relatively little
of the overall bike sales, but it's my observation that at these two categories of store, the
majority of sales of that class will take place. And if the stock on the floor at the local places
which meet that description are any example, the ones being pumped out by these big sporting goods
chains and bike boutiques (the latter of which, as far as I am concerned, lose their right to LBS
status by virtue of selling status instead of bikes) often tend *not* to have a deep enough low
gear. Yes, I've looked.

Usually the same stores also have touring (sometimes termed "performance"; go figure) bikes with a
deeper low end as well, but the salescritters are all too willing, ready and eager to drive the
testosterone-endowed customer right into the sport bikes with the tall gears when they'd be better
off in a touring or hybrid unit. It's really just as much the customer's fault, though; they go in
saying they want a bike that can go fast, and the salescritter sells them what they asked for.

I don't blame the stores in such an instance entirely, but an LBS would probably have steered the
customer to a more appropriate unit because their people know more than just what it says in the
glossy brochures that the makers provide. And the problem isn't really with the manufacturers
either; they make what their wholesale customers tell them is needed to put on display in the
stores...but who's doing the buying for a chain like Oshman's? A cycling specialist, or a
marketing droid?

A real LBS will tell a prospective customer both the up side of a pure sport road bike and the down
side, but a boutique will sell the customer whatever he asks for, and tell him he has made a wise
choice without the slightest admonition that the choice has its drawbacks...and the sporting goods
stores often have no guidance to offer at all. There are exceptions; the local REI has at least one
guy in the bike department who knows which pedal is left-hand threaded and why you don't want to
run in the small/small cog pair, but at the big sporting goods store a couple of miles down the
road (where they have probably 5 times as many bikes for sale) it would be amazing to me if the
department had someone in it who could spell derailleur. And yes, the same store had three (of 5)
road bikes in there with no lower gear pair than 39/23; that's probably OK here in Houston, where
the steepest grades you'll find are on a traffic overpass, but they buy for the whole chain from a
central location; those same choices would be wrong for Austin. On the other hand, I didn't see a
single MTB in that display that had a low cog pair higher than 32/28, and many were lower than
that. And the MTBs outnumbered the road bikes by something like 8 to 1. Has the public's choice
become clear?

People outside of the cycling enthusiast market are buying a lot more MTBs than any other category.
Some of that's really image, but if you ask people why they bought an MTB, the answers tend to run
to ride harshness, ride position, and, yes, gearing. MTBs typically have lower gearing than either
road, touring, or (as the industry seems to have euphemised them) "comfort" bikes. (If harshness and
position were really the serious issues, the "comfort" bikes should be dominating, but they're not.
I would tend to put image ahead of reality in that area, though.) I've heard the "racing bikes are
just too hard to ride" refrain from non-enthusiasts too often over the years, and while the
definition of "hard to ride" varies, gearing is mentioned as often as not. Some of the people making
that particular complaint, in my opinion, should buy a fixed-gear bike and be done with it, because
what they're *really* griping about is the fact that they don't remember to shift down out of the
top cog when coming to a stop, but they gripe a lot less with an MTB. (I was married to one of these
untill not too long ago.)

So, would more road bikes be sold if they were marketed with "touring" gears more often? The only
way to find out would be to try...and it looks like there's way too much resistance to road bikes in
the marketplace right now for that to be an experiment worth staking any money on. As a result, the
manufacturers who are aiming more narrowly at the real racers (and grabbing volume from the
wannabes) by gearing tall probably are just reflecting the reality that they see; I can't really
blame them for not wanting to try to *change* it, since they most likely are making more bike sales
in the MTB division than they ever had when road bikes were popular.

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Werehatrack said:

If 95% of the bikes were being sold by an LBS, that would be a relevant place to look. I suspect
it's more like 5%.

Road bikes? Where else can you even FIND a road bike?

Quoted message said:

More relevant to the road bike segment is what's in stock at the local major sporting goods stores
and (in snobbish neighborhoods) bike boutiques. Of course, road bikes account for relatively
little of the

Huh?

I guess it's different in Texas, but here in Rhode Island (and nearby Massachusettes) the only place
to get a road bike, or any bike manufactured by a real bike company (not a
Huffy/Magna/Next/Roadmaster/etc), is at an LBS.

The exceptions are the borderline market, that is, Mongoose (which can be found at LBS and
sporting good chains) and the newly-acquired GT/Schwinn, which can be found at Wal Mart and [censored]'s
Sporting Goods.

In fact, the _only_ road bike I've ever seen anywhere other than a LBS is a low-end Diamondback
model at [censored]'s Sporting Goods, which very recently put up it's first few stores in this area. I had
never heard of them before.

They keep a stock of one of these bikes, as far as I can tell, in each store; there is no price tag
on it, and it's generally not obvious that it's even for sale. It looks more like a display, they've
usually got it hanging on a bike rack they're selling, or something.

I asked how much, and found it was something like $325. That's great, if it's any good; I'd rather
pay $325 for that than $600 for a bottom-of-the-barrel Trek that's not any better. Luckily, I bought
a nice Giant that I love, instead (before [censored]'s showed up). 😉

Quoted message said:

far as I am concerned, lose their right to LBS status by virtue of selling status instead of
bikes) often tend *not* to have a deep

I'll concede that some LBS's are not run well, and so are almost as bad as department stores. At
least you can be sure you're getting a quality bike, usually put together safely, even if you then
have to fool around with making it fit and changing the gearing...

--
Rick Onanian