Campy Mirage frankenstein shift trouble

[[email protected]]

Hi All,

I have 2007 10s Campy Mirage/Xenon QS on my son's road bike. The
crank, however is not Campy. I wanted short 150mm crankarms, so I used
a "Bulletproof" cheap crankset with 110 BCD rings. I used a NOS SR 34T
inner ring and a 44T outer ring which I believe is a BMX ring for
3/32" chains. The front derailleur is a Compact Mirage. I chose
Compact because I thought it would match the radius of the smaller
rings better. The outer ring is on the think side and has no pins or
ramps, so I had no expectation that shifting would be great, which of
course it is not.

I was about to bite the bullet and go find some "real" 110BCD rings,
but during some fiddling on the stand, the chain would pretty
consistently not shift down to the small ring and would skate along
between the rings.

I don't want to buy new rings if they won't make any real difference.
But maybe a non-CT front der would help.

So will real rings with pins/ramps help the skate problem down to the
small ring in addition to making shifting onto the big ring easier? Or
should I just hit the faces of the crankarms with a file to get the
rings closer and call it a day? Will a non CT der maake any
difference?

Joseph

 

[Hank]

On Jun 12, 9:13 am, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> I have 2007 10s Campy Mirage/Xenon QS on my son's road bike. The
> crank, however is not Campy. I wanted short 150mm crankarms, so I used
> a "Bulletproof" cheap crankset with 110 BCD rings. I used a NOS SR 34T
> inner ring and a 44T outer ring which I believe is a BMX ring for
> 3/32" chains. The front derailleur is a Compact Mirage. I chose
> Compact because I thought it would match the radius of the smaller
> rings better. The outer ring is on the think side and has no pins or
> ramps, so I had no expectation that shifting would be great, which of
> course it is not.
>
> I was about to bite the bullet and go find some "real" 110BCD rings,
> but during some fiddling on the stand, the chain would pretty
> consistently not shift down to the small ring and would skate along
> between the rings.
>
> I don't want to buy new rings if they won't make any real difference.
> But maybe a non-CT front der would help.
>
> So will real rings with pins/ramps help the skate problem down to the
> small ring in addition to making shifting onto the big ring easier? Or
> should I just hit the faces of the crankarms with a file to get the
> rings closer and call it a day? Will a non CT der maake any
> difference?
>
> Joseph

Yes to all of the above. I've never been able to get good shifting out
of a CT FD. On my CX bike, I've got a 50-34 Veloce CT crank, and I'm
using a regular, pre-QS Record double FD with Veloce QS shifters, and
it shifts well.

In a 10s setup, you definitely want pins, as the chain is so narrow,
there's nothing protruding to grab the ring. Old fogeys may say that
they never needed 'em back in the day, but they did - the pins
happened to be on the chain, instead.

I'd start with any old (with the current clamp style) Campy FD. If you
have one lying around, or can find a used one cheap, but it's the
wrong clamp size, just pop the circlip off, and you can interchange
the FD to different mounts. Like I say, on a double, the whole QS/non-
QS thing has been irrelevant.

Barring that, I'd next try a ramped/pinned outer ring designed for 10s
setups. A 10s ring will actually be thicker below the teeth, with the
arm interface recessed, to prevent skating.

A 10s 44t outer will be difficult to find. I think TA makes them, so
they won't be cheap, but will be excellent quality. Wiggle.co.uk has a
46t TA Zephyr ring for GBP33.50.

 

[JG]

A Campy triple front derailleur might do the trick, as the 30-42(-52)
road triple is close to your 34-44...

JG

 

[[email protected]]

On Jun 12, 10:24 am, Hank <[email protected]> wrote:

> In a 10s setup, you definitely want pins, as the chain is so narrow,
> there's nothing protruding to grab the ring. Old fogeys may say that
> they never needed 'em back in the day, but they did - the pins
> happened to be on the chain, instead.
>
> I'd start with any old (with the current clamp style) Campy FD. If you
> have one lying around, or can find a used one cheap, but it's the
> wrong clamp size, just pop the circlip off, and you can interchange
> the FD to different mounts. Like I say, on a double, the whole QS/non-
> QS thing has been irrelevant.
>
> Barring that, I'd next try a ramped/pinned outer ring designed for 10s
> setups. A 10s ring will actually be thicker below the teeth, with the
> arm interface recessed, to prevent skating.
>
> A 10s 44t outer will be difficult to find. I think TA makes them, so
> they won't be cheap, but will be excellent quality. Wiggle.co.uk has a
> 46t TA Zephyr ring for GBP33.50.

I agree with the idea that you often just need a plain
double front derailleur to shift doubles. If you look at the
ders used on MTBs in the 46-36-26 days, they were a
lot plainer and less shaped than today's triple ders.

If you just need pins to avoid skating and provide a
mild aid to upshift, you can add pins to a ring yourself.
Get some small setscrews, like 3 or 4mm. Drill a few
holes in the ring and tap them for the setscrews. Stop
the tap a bit short of going all the way through - this
makes the last thread tight, so the screws won't ever
come loose. I did this to aid upshifting on some
plain rings with STI triple (indexed) front shifting and
it worked fine.

Ben

 

[Tom Kunich]

<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>
> I was about to bite the bullet and go find some "real" 110BCD rings,
> but during some fiddling on the stand, the chain would pretty
> consistently not shift down to the small ring and would skate along
> between the rings.

The problem is that the cranks were made for a 6 or 7 speed setup with a
much fatter chain. Either replace the cranks with a 9-speed or higher crank
or have someone mill off 1/32" from the inner ring mounting surface.

 

[[email protected]]

On Jun 12, 7:24 pm, Hank <[email protected]> wrote:

> A 10s 44t outer will be difficult to find. I think TA makes them, so
> they won't be cheap, but will be excellent quality. Wiggle.co.uk has a
> 46t TA Zephyr ring for GBP33.50.

Those cats at wiggle won't ship to my location, so once again eBay is
my friend. I got an FSA allegedly 9/10 speed 46T outer ring and a
Mirage front der for less than wiggle would have taken for the TA
ring.

The bike had it's maiden voyage today. My son kept it in the small
ring, and just sort of got used to the position and the brifters, etc.
Just back and forth on the tiny road outside my house. Tomorrow we are
going to the parking lot at school to get used to turns and that sort
of thing. Fun!

Joseph