Advice on altering a cassette?



CyclinYooper

New Member
Jan 9, 2011
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Hello, it seems like someone on here will know how to answer this!

I have GT Series 4 road bike; it has a 50/34 crank and the stock cassette was an HG-50 12-25. I do lots of hill climbing, so I upgraded my wheels (Mavic Ksyrium Equipe) and put an HG-50 13-26 cassette on, for a little better climbing range.

Here are the sprockets on each:
12-25: 12,13,15,17,19,21,23,25
13-26: 13,14,15,17,19,21,23,26

Since I changed, I've definitely liked the step from 25 to 26 for my bailout gear. However, I'm finding that I don't have a good high gear for really fun down hills (where you really want to fly). More specifically, I'm finding that I never use the "14" and the "13" isn't high enough ... I feel like I need an "11" or "12". I was thinking something like this:
12,13,15,17,19,21,23,26 (a combination of the two cassettes)
or like this...
11,13,15,17,19,21,23,26

I'm really leaning more toward the custom "11-26" if possible. But, I dont' know how build it, where to get the appropriate 8-speed cogs, etc.

Thanks, Scott
 
You can certainly mix and match the cogs from different cassettes.

A local bike should be able to sell you the cogs you want.
 
You can certainly try, assuming the bike shop could get hold of individual sprockets from Shimano....

I don't see any bike shop breaking a perfectly good cassette just to give you a couple of sprockets.

Secondly cassettes are usually designed as a unit (hence why you can rarely find individual sprockets). Each sprocket is "timed" with respect to its neighbours so that shifting is optimised. This is probably a small point but it could cause issues.

Thirdly you have to bear in mind the potential for mismatched wear on individual sprockets (and the potential for the chain and sprockets not meshing).

Fourthly bare in mind that a two tooth jump etween smaller sprockets is a much bigger jump in gear than two teeth between larger sprockets.