May 16, 2020

Bicycle Repair - Cassettes

I am working on my wifes Trek road bike. It has a 10 speed rear cluster (12-30) along with 2 gears up front (50 and 34). The rear cluster is marked CS-4600, which is "Tiagra" which matches the front gears which are boldly labeled "Tiagra".

I want to get the wheel from her old bike to work on this new bike. The old bike had an 8 speed rear cluster (12-25) along with 3 gears up front (52, 45, and 30). The old cluster was unmarked -- it just said HG-50, but odds are it was a "105".

I picked up a used Ultegra rear cluster (11-25) and swapped it onto the old wheel. However, the cogs are loose and shift back and forth. The word is that I need a 1mm spacer behind the cassette. So, that is on order and work on that wheel will have to wait.

I did some reading online about opinions on Tiagra vs 105 vs Ultegra. The concensus seemed to be that they all perform pretty much equally well, but the Ultegra will save some weight (on the order of 75 grams). One comment was that the place to go for the better grade is the chain itself, not the cluster.

A note on wheels

The old wheels that I am fitting the 10 speed cluster on are "Rolf Vectors". I am reading that Rolf used be be affiliated with Trek (and the old bike was a Trek, so this makes sense). Rolf is now "Rolf Prima", no longer affiliated with Trek, and do not have parts for the old wheels. The vectors were considered excellent and bulletproof wheels, so they are worth retaining, but if they get busted, then they get tossed, which is fine given that they are at least 10 years old.

The new wheels are Bontrager, without any model designation I can see anywhere. They are also on a Trek bicycle, albeit a newer model.

Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's mountain bike pages / tom@mmto.org