Basic wheel/hub question

mereli said:

I'm looking for a new rear wheel for my bike. I have a 10-speed campy cassette now. I was looking at a wheel advertised as "Shimano 10-speed compatible". My question... will this wheel work with my cassette? Is there a difference between campy/shimano cassettes or rear hubs?

I'm pretty sure you need a Campy compatible wheel/hub.

I believe that the spline height is greater on a campy freehub body - that may not be the only difference.

mereli said:

I'm looking for a new rear wheel for my bike. I have a 10-speed campy cassette now. I was looking at a wheel advertised as "Shimano 10-speed compatible". My question... will this wheel work with my cassette? Is there a difference between campy/shimano cassettes or rear hubs?

There are two systems available that are not directly interchangeable. One is Campagnolo compatible and the other is Shimano compatible. There are special "conversion" cassettes made to fit Shimano compatible hubs that allow proper indexing with Campagnolo systems as the spacing between cogs is slightly different between the brands. Your Campy cassette will NOT fit on the Shimano compatible hub.

The differences between the rear hubs and cassettes has to do with the spline pattern. Shimano splines are shallower and have one spline that is wider than the others. Campy uses one spline that has a step on it. Some wheels (Mavic, Easton, Zipp, Campagnolo, Bontrager to name a few) allow switching out the freehub body to make a change from Shimano compatible to Campy compatible or vice versa.