Originally Posted by
zacster
Every wheel is different and this sounds like a custom job so all bets are off. If you have 10mm of extra spacers then you have plenty to space to play with, but I don't see how you'd have that much. On a standard 7sp hub you run out of room. On a 10sp Shimano hub you run out of room for 10sp Campy if you want to do a conversion. It just doesn't fit. I did put a 10sp Campy spaced cassette together to work on an 11sp hub and that had the extra needed. If you can make it fit, great. The thing with re-dishing is that if the rim has been stressed a certain way for 30 years it could just taco if you re-stress it differently. But yours isn't that old so maybe not a problem. And if you've built your own then you know what needs to be done.
I actually measured things last night; the dropouts are definitely 126 mm spaced. The spacer that I thought looked very large is a 5 mm spacer (edited my earlier post to reflect that). According to what I've read elsewhere, that should be enough room to move the hub body and freehub over to give clearance for a 9 or 10 speed cassette. Amazon says the cassette and rear derailleur I ordered have shipped, so I should be able to confirm that the axle needs to be re-spaced after the weekend. In the meantime, I think I'll just go ahead and order the new freehub body and plan on swapping that out when the rest of the drivetrain components have arrived.
Originally Posted by zacster
The thing with the tension on the frame is that these 128 frames were made to accept a 130 wheel. They come from the transition period so the manufacturer can use either. I've stressed a 126 steel frame for a 130 wheel and it's been working for about 15 years at this point. I think that's long enough to declare success. I understand the discomfort with aluminum though, I felt that way myself, but that was also when I thought it was 126. When I measured 128 I figured why not? It has only been this way for a few months so we'll see.
Yeah, if it were a steel frame, or if this bike was actually 128 mm
and not 30 years old, I might approach things differently. Part of the reason I feel good about re-dishing the wheel is because I know the spokes and rim are only 7 years old and that this bike has seen limited use in that time.
The main motivation for adding a 9-speed drivetrain is that my wife was unable to ride this bike for the last year or two because of its stupidly aggressive design. When I met her (8 years ago), she was riding a 52/36 with 11-21t x 7 speed cassette, in an area with very hilly terrain. We worked with a friend at a bike shop to get her a compact crankset, but the best we could find for the cassette was 13-26t. In the last couple of years, the aggressive racing position, lack of low gears, and hilly terrain (combined with her love of crossfit), have done a number on her knees & back. She's been doing a lot of work off the bike to rehab her joints, get more flexible, and gain more core strength, but it's clear we needed to change some things on the bike to avoid re-aggravating her injuries. This bike also has a lot of sentimental value, and we're not quite ready to make it an art piece hanging on the wall.
Now that we live somewhere with a lot of flat terrain with some nice climbing available, we decided to overhaul everything. To make the bike rideable for her again, we re-evaluated her position on the bike, changed the stem & saddle (went from 3~4 inches of saddle to bar drop to about 1 inch), and decided to modernize the drivetrain. She said the first couple of test rides in the new position felt great, so I think we're moving in the right direction.
The next step is getting her some lower gears by trying to fit a cassette with a 32t cog. Updating to modern cranks should also give her the option of smaller chainrings, if needed, but we're doing this one or two steps at a time. The ideal outcome here is to end up with a 9-speed 105 drivetrain that has a compact crankset (50/34t) with an 11-32t cassette. A stretch goal is to get a 10-speed drivetrain on this old frame, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that one.