mikemelbrooks

I am keen to try one of the Shimano Cues cassettes. Does anyone know what size spacers they use? I understand that the spacing is the same whether 9 10 or 11 speed?

Iride01 

Spacers for the cassette to the hub or spacers between the cogs? Yes the spacers for the spacing of the cassette to the hub might be the same depending exactly on what your free hub body length is, but the spacing between the cogs is unlikely to be the same between the various 9, 10 or 11. Shimano only shows the 11 speed being compatible with other 11 speed components. And likely the same for any others.

But I just did a hasty check on Shimano's tech doc site. I'd never heard of CUES before.

What is it that appeals to you about it? Are you wearing out your other cassettes?

frdfandc

Cues is a newer lineup from Shimano. It replaces Alivio, Acera, and Altus groupsets, along with 10 and 11 speed Deore. It also gets some trickle down tech from XT/XTR like Shadow and a clutch for the rear derailleur. Shimano also claims that approx 40% of entry to mid level bikes will have Cues installed. Just to name a few changes and benefits that Cues is getting from higher end components.

Here's a good article in detail on Cues that I found.

https://flowmountainbike.com/post-al...rain-groupset/

Arrowana

Cog spacing is in between 9 and 10-speed hyperglide. A CUES/Linkglide 9-speed cassette is slightly narrower than a 8/9/10-speed hypergilde cassette, a CUES 10-speed cassette is slightly wider than an 8/9/10 HG cassette, and the CUES 11 speed is even wider. Not currently feeling motivated to dig out a bike with a Linkglide cassette to measure it, but since the base of the cog is thicker than normal, I'd expect the spacers to be at least as thin as 10sp HG, if not thinner.

mikemelbrooks

I ride a tandem and it's pretty heavy on its drive train, the ability to interchange between different Cues parts IE run an 11speed rear derailleur with ten speed shifter on a 10speed system means that the spacing between cogs is the same with I presume a larger end spacer but without going out and buying the cassette I can't seem to find out what size the spacers are.

mikemelbrooks

Oh go on measure one please! 🥺

Racing Dan

According to the compatibility chart, any linkglide cassette 9/10/11s will fit on a 10s freehub without a spacer, or on a 11s road free hub with a 1.85mm spacer.

https://productinfo.shimano.com/#/co...544&acid=C-649

Not sure what the OP is looking to achieve?

Iride01 

The thing for CUES that I read seemed to indicate that it will bring more compatibility between the newer 8,9,10 and to a certain extent 11 and 12 speed stuff. So among CUES component groups there is more compatibility of components between the various speed groups. It's not something that is magically backward compatible for things that are old style Shimano 8,9 and 10 speed.

But I still haven't looked hard for information about it and the articles I find on it are scant of detailed info.

Some of the CUES cassettes seem to indicate they are made tougher to wear longer, but that seems like it might be more just a salesman speak for writing ads, as they claim longer wear for a lot of stuff that isn't CUES.

mikemelbrooks

The linkglide 10speed cassette is available in 11 - 39 teeth which afaik not available in other cassettes, and would suite the tandem well. I would like to change the 11-36 I have currently to the linkglide 11-39 and keep the rest of my shifters and derailleurs the same. I do realise I would have to change chains but I already run an 11speed chain on my grx 10 speed winter bike with no issues.

Arrowana

Ok, dug one out for you. Spacers are roughly 2.15mm wide, and center of one cog to the center of the next cog is roughly 4.15mm, which will be the more useful measurement for what you are hoping to achieve.

Correct, the 9-speed cassette has an extra spacer behind the largest cog, so even though it fits on an 8/9/10 freehub body just fine, in terms of shifting the cassette is effectively more narrow. The 10 speed has an extra cog riveted to the largest cog, sticking out a bit past the freehub body. The 11 speed has 2 cogs riveted on to the 9th cog, sticking out even further past the freehub body, and requires a hub that was designed with 11-speed Linkglide in mind, otherwise you will likely run into issues with the derailleur cage hitting the spokes.

Using the your old shifter and derailleur will not work, or at least won't work without something like a J-Tek shiftmate. To get a properly indexed drivetrain without using the Linkglide shifters and derailleurs, you will need to find the correct mismatch of shifter and derailleur. For example, I got a functioning drivetrain with a 9-speed 11-36 Cues cassette, 11 speed chain, 10-speed Shimano Dyna-Sys MTB shifter, 9 speed Sram 1:1 derailleur. However, because the 9 cogs are packed in a slightly smaller space, the low limit screw needs to go in further than normal, and it hits against the parallelogram when attempting to shift into the smallest cog. Grinding away the spot on the parallelogram where the screw was contacting fixed this. The same drivetrain with a 10-speed 11-39 Linkglide cassette and a RoadLink added should also work without having to grind anything.

These two pages should be useful for trying to come up with a working combo for your bike: https://sheldonbrown.com/cribsheet-spacing.html https://bike.bikegremlin.com/1278/bi...compatibility/
According to the second one, the Dyna-Sys shifter is intended to work normally with a derailleur that has a ratio of 1.2, while the Sram 1:1 derailleur has a ratio of 1.1. Finding a shifter with a slightly higher ratio than the derailleur seems to be the trick.

Haven't put enough wear on them yet to know how true this claim is, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is at least a little truth to it. Shimano's marketing also claims it shifts under load much better, which is absolutely true. I've got one setup with a Bafang mid-drive kit, and it even shifts fine with 500w of power put into it. On the other hand, Shimano's marketing claims it will reduce the amount of parts a bike shop has to stock, which is complete BS, as there are already millions of bikes out there with Hypergilde drivetrains, and they will continue to exist and need service for decades, even if new bikes were to completely switch to Linkglide.

mikemelbrooks

Thank you very much. I have a lathe and can make spacers to suit. The fact that some of the the sprockets are riveted together is not so good. Btw Shimano 11speed spacers are 2.18 mm. Thanks again!

Arrowana

You are welcome. Make sure to share the end result with us, would love to know more about possible ways to get Linkglide cassettes working with non-Linkglide parts.

Turnin_Wrenches

I applaud Shimano for its attempt to consolidate / simplify what was a complicated and confusing mess of lower to mid-tier groupsets. Short-term it will cause a disruption; longer term I think it will be a good thing. Time will tell.

I haven't encountered any CUES components in the wild, nor have I had the opportunity to work on any of the CUES stuff at the shop. I'm sure it's coming and I look forward to checking it out.