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MTB trigger shifters with road FD?

The Bridge

The Bridge

Chimp
Nov 11, 2009
6
0
Missoula and Portland
I've noticed that mountain shifters are way, way cheaper than comparable flat-bar road shifters. Since I'm going to be using a mtb rear mech and cassette anyways, I was hoping to take advantage of this. The only problem is that I have 53,39t crank, so I need to use a road FD (at least from everything I've heard). Is it ok to use SRAM mountain trigger shifters with a SRAM road FD?
 
w00dy

w00dy

In heaven there is no beer
Jun 18, 2004
3,417
52
that's why we drink it here
As long as you're using mountain stuff made for the same gear count you should be fine.

A 9 speed road derailleur just has a different cage shape than a mountain one to deal with different size chainrings.
 
punkassean

punkassean

Turbo Monkey
Feb 3, 2002
4,561
0
SC, CA
oldfart said:
Not compatible. Road and mountain Shimano rear are cross compatible but not the front derailleur.
Click to expand...
True, however I have gotten it to work very reliably, at least with Shimano. The only negative is there will be a bit of slack in the cable when in the small ring.

Adjust the front derailleur cable tension in the big ring and get the high limit screw correctly set as to not drop the chain outboard. Then shift down to the small ring and adjust the low limit screw properly but don't play with the cable tension. There will be some slack in the cable and a light feel at the thumb shifter when you first engage it (this is compensating for the different cable-pull ratio) but as you follow through with the shift the feel will firm up and the cable will become taught. It works totally fine, it just doesn't feel as crisp as using the proper cable-pull ratio shifter. Back in the day when Kona first released the Dew series of flatbar road bikes they had road cranks/front derailleurs and MTB shifters. Working in a shop at the time I figured this trick out. Hopefully it helps.
 
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