Road Fan

I have a set of Ultegra 6500 road wheels, nicely made by Wheelsmith, with a pair of Mavic Open Pro rl. oad rims, nice silver! Spokes are butted and feel light but I have nit checked them,

My question is about what cassettes can be used on this rear wheel? I don’t see any compatibility issues in using the front wheel. The rear is a 130mm OLN. I vaguely recall a bud telling me it is limited to 9 speed cassettes of a certain type. I’d like to gear the bike to 46/30 and 11/32. The frame is a maybe 1970s Mercian King of Mercia with very laid back frame angles and it looked like lowish trail. I’ll set it up for road rides, including pavement and farm/gravel roads. Probably 700c/38 mm tires, with fenders. Kinda Retro Roady.

I’d like to adapt it to accept a Campy 10-compatible freewheel and set the bike up with bar ends,. Here I have a few choices, so not a problem. I could possibly go with Ergopowers, with some creativity on cable guides and stops

I also ask whether the freehub is compatible with any SRAM freewheels,

roadcrankr

Sounds like a fun project. You're a bit all over the map here. I can address a few things.
- The freehub will accept 10sp Shimano and SRAM, but will require a thin spacer.
- If you go friction bar-end shifters, no need to try the Campagnolo cassette route.
- a 70's Mercian would likely need to get spread from 120/126 to 130. I've never done it.
- that sort of gearing range will need a long cage derailleur.

Liam_Lucas

What's the maximum number of speeds and specific type of cassette that can be used on the Ultegra 6500 rear wheel with a 130mm OLN, particularly for gearing it to 46/30 and 11/32, considering a possible adaptation for Campy 10-compatible freewheel?

veganbikes

You cannot adapt any Shimano free hub to a freewheel of any kind and Campagnolo doesn't make a 10 speed freewheel I think the max they did was a 7 speed like most manufacturers at the time. In the end if you are trying to put a cassette on a Shimano hub it will be a Shimnao compatible cassette. It is possible someone at some point in the past made a conversion kit to make a campagnolo compatible free hub body that fits on Shimano hubs but I don't recall anything.

In the end though you should be able to run up to a 10 speed cassette on it just not Campagnolo as they use a different spline pattern however you can find hubs that are Campagnolo compatible pretty easily.

KCT1986

The FH-6500 is a standard 8/9/10 speed freehub, what Shimano calls HG-M. As for cassette fitment, any HG spline from Shimano & compatibles will work, with rear spacer in some cases. Nothing unusual for cassette requirements. Your 'bud' may be mistakenly.thinking of some of the 10 speed freehub that had limitations.

The method that the freehub body attaches to the hub shell is a little different than common for Shimano. In the future, if you need to replace the body, do some research.

Shimano rear hubs of this era just use HG freehub bodies. Unlike some of the boutique brand (DT, WI, Hope, ...), Shimano doesn't offer multiple option of freehub bodies (Campy, XD, XDR,,,).

Road Fan

Sorry, I don’t know those constraints. I want the bike to be 10 or 11 rear, and double in the front. If the Ultegra 6500 only needs a spacer to accept a Shimano 10 speed . That sounds easy!

For those whom are worried, the frame has been cold-set to I30 old, and this was very well-done under the guy I bought it from.

Road Fan

Actually I consider posting a question on BF to be part of doing my research. But I appreciate the encouragement, and I’m glad to have gotten some help. But actually I don’t need to change out the freehub body, as far as I can see.

Monoborracho

I don’t think it needs a spacer for 10 speed….but it will need a spacer on the backside for a 7 speed cassette.

Also, the 126mm rear spacing, if it is, and it might be 120….the 126 will accept your 130mm rear axles with hardly a blip. When 130’s came out they actually had a bit of a bevel so you could fit into a 126.Forget all this “cold set” of bending the frame. If your rear dropout has a set screw in the back you use that to center the axle. My 92’ Schwinn Paramount with 126mm rear has been running Ultegra 6500 wheels for the last 15+ years.

Russ Roth

I don't think you've gotten a clear answer of what you're looking for. A shimano 6500 hub will take a 7,8,9 or 10sp shimano or sram cassette. It will take a shimano 11sp cassette but only if it goes to 34t as the large rear cog, it will not fit an 11-32 11sp cassette. Campagnolo cassettes use a different spline interface for the freehub body of the hub. Campy used their own spline from 9-13sp and it is not compatible with shimano/sram, so cassettes and wheels don't interchange. Shimano also never made a campy freehub body to fit their hubs and if anyone else ever did I never heard of it. A shimano or sram 10sp cassette can't be used with campagnolo 10sp because they used even spacing between all the cogs and the same cog thicknesses while campagnolo had a slightly different cog thickness and variable spacing between the cogs, kits were made to change the spacers in a shimano cassette to work with campy shifters but the one I bought never worked quite right.
11 speed changed some things, supposedly campagnolo will shift through a shimano or sram 11sp cassette and while the results aren't perfect, they're supposedly good enough. I've never done this so I can't say this is completely true. But it would suggest that you could use an 11-34 shimano cassette on your 6500 hub and it should shift reasonably well with campy shifters. I wouldn't bother trying to use a 10sp cassette on that hub with campy shifters unless someone like Miche has made a shimano splined campy compatible cassette which seems like something they should have but I've never seen.