9 speed chain on 10 speed cogs: possible?

[Simon Brooke]

I've upgraded a lot of parts on my good road bike, significantly including
the shifters. I've consequently got a nice pair of 10 speed Campag
shifters sitting idle. My winter bike has friction downtube shifters.
Obviously I need to respace or replace the cassette to run with 10 speed
shifters, but do I also have to replace the chain? Will a nine-speed chain
actually damage a 10 speed cassette, or will shifting be very poor?

It's not that I can't afford a ten speed chain, but there's at least a
couple of thousand miles life left in the current nine-speed.

--
[email protected] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; All in all you're just another nick in the ball
-- Think Droid

 

[Chris Gerhard]

Simon Brooke wrote:
> I've upgraded a lot of parts on my good road bike, significantly including
> the shifters. I've consequently got a nice pair of 10 speed Campag
> shifters sitting idle. My winter bike has friction downtube shifters.
> Obviously I need to respace or replace the cassette to run with 10 speed
> shifters, but do I also have to replace the chain? Will a nine-speed chain
> actually damage a 10 speed cassette, or will shifting be very poor?

Or you can down grade the 10 speed shifters to 9 speed. The job is quite
simple. Although I would just buy the new chain.

>
> It's not that I can't afford a ten speed chain, but there's at least a
> couple of thousand miles life left in the current nine-speed.
>

Nine speed chain on a 10 speed cassette will damage the cassette and
probably won't run.

--chris

 

[Pete Biggs]

Simon Brooke wrote:
> I've upgraded a lot of parts on my good road bike, significantly
> including the shifters. I've consequently got a nice pair of 10 speed
> Campag shifters sitting idle. My winter bike has friction downtube
> shifters. Obviously I need to respace or replace the cassette to run
> with 10 speed shifters, but do I also have to replace the chain? Will
> a nine-speed chain actually damage a 10 speed cassette, or will
> shifting be very poor?
>
> It's not that I can't afford a ten speed chain, but there's at least a
> couple of thousand miles life left in the current nine-speed.

I'd expect the chain to work, but rub adjacent sprockets much of the time.
Damage would be insignificant but the experience would be noisy, I would
think. (Not actually tried it myself). Shifting: I don't know, maybe OK.

It's interesting that Campag's marketing mentioned noise when they
introduced the Ultra Narrow chain to replace the previous slightly wider
10-speed chain. 9-speed chain is wider still.

~PB