RecordAceFromNew
Swinging Member
- Location
- West London
Given this is your 3rd post on this subject over the past couple of days, as far as I can see you have been given excellent and consistent advice, so I don't think black'n'yellow or anybody else here is at all confused, but I can see why you might be given this is not a simple subject.
The issue is you have Shimano shifters, rear mech and now a campag freehub and cassette I presume all 9 speed. You have two choices. You either get rid of the campag freehub and cassette and replace with Shimano ones, or you introduce a converter such as the shiftmate which costs about £40 between the shifter and the rear mech. I am not aware of a third alternative for 9 speed indexing to work properly from where you are without introducing/replacing components.
If your mechanic believes he can get a Shimano shifter and rear mech to index a Campag cassette all 9 speed without anything else, it is because he is fudging it. If he disagrees the reference on the subject here will hopefully change his mind. Essentially the Shimano rear mech would move across 4.35mm per click, while Campag's cassette sprocket spacing is 4.55mm. The best scenario would be when cable tension is set to centre the mech exactly on the 5th cog, so there is an undershifting error of 0.8mm at most at the extremes - not snappy, but would probably kind of work. But when the cable tension fluctuates, which it would, and the mech is no longer centred on the 5th cog, your shifts are going to be even poorer at one end or another. In other words you will have a somewhat temperamental system. It is not the end of the world, you might be happy enough with it.
If all else being equal and I had to pick replacing the freehub or introducing the shiftmate, there is no question I would pick the freehub - using 3 components when 2 suffice in the present context has to be the wrong choice.
