Originally Posted by
Wiggle
You're pretty close to replicating the Trek 520s drivetrain there. You shouldn't need the shiftmate.
I was looking at this a bit and it seems to get MTB crankset and gearing with brifters you need to stick in the 9 speed world. The right shiftmate might allow a 10 speed arrangement to work but the companies offer 10 speed only seem interested in going for bar-end shifters.
The 520 uses a Sora front derailleur rather than a MTB derailleur but maybe the MTB derailleur is fine there.
Thanks for the reply Wiggle. I'm definitely not looking to stay at 10 speed and have accepted going to 9 speed. The shiftmate 7 is actually designed for the front shifter/derailleur in order to convert the 9 speed road pull ratio to a 9 speed MTB ratio up front (the rear is apparently already fine 9 speed road to 9 speed mtb). I suspect you're right though that I may not need it given the reputable brands specing a couple of their models using this combo without the jtek. The trouble is money and time
If I order all of the parts and end up needing the shiftmate I could be waiting a few weeks for that to arrive in the mail. This is still better than the worst case scenario where one or more components simply do not work and I'm left trying to sell them on craigslist. The touring market (at least those of use who are beginner builders) is left in the dark when putting their rigs together and its tough to go ahead and order all of these parts on a hunch.
I still feel that the only question mark in my setup is the integration between the sora shifter and the mtb front derailleur. The other possibility is the integration between the sora shifter + sora front derailleur and an MTB crankset. If I go with a friction shifter setup (Microshift) this problem is removed but I'd still really love to keep the brifters (hence this post).
I'm hoping someone on this forum who has direct experience with a similar setup can chime in and give me the confidence to proceed with the sora brifters.
Thanks again for your input Wiggle, I truly appreciate it.
-Alan