Shimano Front Mech with SRAM shifter??

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dubhghall

New Member
Does anybody know if a Shimano 7800 front mech will work with SRAM Red shifter please??
I know you can't mix and match RD makes but is the front mech as critical??

Many thanks
 

RecordAceFromNew

Swinging Member
Location
West London
Your mix and match question is quite a tough one, and I have no idea what the answer is since I don't run any sram drivetrain. However I can offer some suggestions that hopefully might help you work out the answer yourself.

Firstly if we are talking about mix and match for a triple, indexing will be super tricky and all bets are off. But since you are running a Red I presume we are talking about a double.

For shifting a double, the fundamental piece of the jigsaw in this case is that the 7800 is a Shimano road front mech and it requires just under 7mm of cable pull from the shifter for a perfect shift.

The second piece of the jigsaw is that for doubles it should work as long as the shifter pulls either the right amount of cable or more. Too little is no good for the obvious reason. Too much should still be ok because the shift from the small onto the large ring can be made to work simply by allowing the cable to be loose when at the small ring (correct indexing will be set by the limit screw, not cable tension), and the mech's return spring will take care of the reverse shift.

The third piece of the jigsaw is that most front brifters allow some degree of trim. In the case of the Red, I believe trim positions are available when at the large ring.

So if I were in your position, what I would do is to stick a piece of tape or some such on the front gear cable (e.g. near the downtube), and try to measure reasonably accurately by observation how much cable does the Red front shifter pulls when shifting from one ring to the other currently, and what trimming delivers. If it can deliver 7mm or over with or without trimming, then it should be possible to make them work together.

If you do try please let us know how it went. Similarly it would be useful if anybody who runs a Red/Force/Rival/Apex can provide the cable pull info.
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
TBH, I'd get a RED front shifter (or lower level SRAM), and sell the Dura Ace one - you want a matching set of kit.......... Many pro's drop the RED front shifter to the Force or Rival one (which ever is lower than RED) as the front cage is all steel. It's not much more cash, and you've splashed it on RED already........ you will get a good price on ebay for a 7800 mech...
 
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dubhghall

dubhghall

New Member
Thanks for the replies chaps :biggrin: , sorry for the slow response.

I have decided to stick with Shimano on this bike - I have SRAM Red on my "good" bike and I was going to upgrade and change STis on this one to keep the 2 bikes the same. It currently has 5600 shifters which I am putting on a "new" winter hack.

A great idea measuring the pull distance for the front mech RAFN, thank you. If anybody is interested I can easily measure and post the pull distances for the SRAM and Shimano??
 
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