Friday, May 2, 2008

CamManoAm

A couple of months ago Lennard Zinn reported in Velo News that he had successfully used a Campy Shifter with a SRAM Rear Derailleur on a Shimano/SRAM spaced drive train. I thought this was a great idea because for a while Michelle has been thinking of switching her cross bike from SRAM Rival to Campy because she likes the Campy levers better for her small hands. Not wanting to use her for an experiment like this I used it as an excuse for me to guinea pigs myself and build a cross bike I've been wanting for a while.

This is the Frank-N-Bike I came up with.



The bike is built around the now re-built, smashed Campy Record shift lever Mike Creed left at the shop when he stopped by to have it replaced before the Tour of California. It's all Campy "Red" (race grade) guts with a "normal" white body now. I paired it with a Shimano Dura-Ace 7500 right hand brake lever that I used for my left hand brake lever (I just routed the brake cable to the back of the bar and it lined up fine). It's a pretty nice feel too, yeah they are a different shape but they are very similar in size.



On the other end of the machine I have a SRAM Rival rear derailleur pushing and pulling a Dura-Ace 10sp chain up and down a 12-27 Ultegra cassette, mounted on a Dura-Ace hub. I'm about to take it on it's madden voyage to the Baylands, but in it's around-the-block test rides it was shifting like it was built to work together. I think the key is using the Shimano Cassette and Chain together, their hyperglide ramping and chain shape makes for some awesomely smooth shifts.


For the filling in this wacky sandwich I choose to avoid the front derailleur and went with a 42 tooth chain ring on the trusted Shimano Dura-Ace Octalink Crank with the Ultegra BB, with a chain keeper for a little extra insurance.


Now it's testing time to see if this really works under power.

More details later, I'm going to go ride my bicycle

1 comment:

brian said...

Glad to see those black XT cants found a home.