Bike gearing

[contango]

Hi all, wondering if people can spare me a few words of advice here.

Since moving to the left side of the big pond I haven't been out cycling a whole lot, largely because I broke my road bike before the move, partly because the hills here are enormous, and partly because I just find riding my mountain bike on the road to not be as much fun.

I recently saw a Genesis RoadTech for sale for the princely sum of $70. It's got drop bars and a triple chainset (useful for hauling fat people, like me, up hills) but only a 7 speed cassette. The shifters are levers mounted to the stem. Not what I'd choose, but I did bring my pretty hand built wheel with me so if that would work I may be onto something to find out how much riding I'll do here without dropping much more cash on something that may still end up vegetating in the garage. My wheel has a 9-speed cassette on it.

Is there some way of figuring out whether this bike is likely to take my wheel with its 9-speed cassette, without doing the kind of things to the bike that might cause the seller to object?

[contango]

Forgot to say, it looks like this Genesis is nothing to do with the Genesis that makes the Croix de Fer, it looks like the kind of thing sold at Wal-Mart. That makes me inclined to try and knock the price down hard if I do go ahead, which goes back to the question of whether the gearing is likely to be workable.

Based on the Wally World status of the bike I'm somewhat minded to just let it be and accept I'll need to spend a bit more, but the thought of at least getting something running for the spare cash in my drawer rather than a thump on my credit card is still appealing.

[Chris N]

Your 9 speed wheel may fit (depends on the frame spacing, hub width, frame material and your enthusiasm for bending things to suit), but the gears won't work if the Genesis has indexed shifting.  If the Genesis has a cassette rather than a freewheel then you'll be able to move the 7 speed cassette onto your wheel with the appropriate spacer, but I suspect that the Genesis will have a freewheel so you won't be able to swap them over.  Then to make your 9 speed wheel work you'd need either a friction mode on the shifter, or a new 9 speed or friction rear shifter.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'd expect that levers mounted on the stem would have a friction mode anyway. And if it's 7-speed and a freewheel rather than freehub they might even only have a friction mode.

[P Walsh]

The rear wheel on the bike might be 126mm wide as opposed to the 130mm of a 9 speed hub, so you might have to carefully spread the rear to take the replacement. Then you could get a 9 speed rear mech and 9 speed bar end or down tube levers.

[Torslanda]

It's all mights & maybes. If the shifters on the bike go click then there's no way it will work on a 9 spd cassette. The chain is too wide anyway.

Traditional friction shifters at that level IME don't pull enough cable to traverse an entire 9 spd anyway. Doubtless somebody somewhere got ancient shite to work on 9 spd but we're talking real world here. The radius of the shifter simply isn't big enough.

Dr John sez surf craigslist or whatever gumtree is over there for the usual suspects. Trek had some very serviceable roadbikes in the 90s, as did Specialized & GT - an old ZR3000 for example. Anything US Postal or Discovery branded will be tainted and not sell for much.

Don't buy the Wally bike. You'll only regret it. It's too cheap to be anything inspiring or it's nicked.

[phantasmagoriana]

Is this the one? https://www.walmart.com/ip/700c-Genesis-RoadTech-Men-s-Road-Bike-Black-Red/22899845

It doesn't look good - I'd go for something used instead, as Torslanda suggests.

[mzjo]

For the record I can confirm that stem shifters won't do 9sp. They only do 7 just, it's beyond their design limit. They are made for 6sp. I use them on a 7sp (cassette and freewheel) but it is really a poor option (don't have a second pair of bar-ends).
Shimano have done indexed stem shifters; Tourney and, I think only 6sp (so made for freewheels);

[contango]

Wow, I didn't expect quite so many responses so fast! Thanks to all who gave their thoughts.

My original thinking was that if it was a friction shifter then it might just work, but it sounds like the chances are I'm going to end up with a botch. Spreading the dropouts isn't really worth doing.

I hadn't considered the whole thing of a 7-speed system having a wider chain than a 9-speed. I've got a 9-speed chain but I guess it will be too narrow for the 7-speed parts.

Phantasmagoriana - it is the bike you linked. Not sure how you found that - when I found a link I clicked it but trying to find the spec not only gave me errors but the site refused to serve the page.

To be honest I think I got caught up in the idea of actually finding a Genesis bike this side of the water and for such a good price. When a new one is $129 it's hard to imagine it being well suited for hauling my oversized frame around. So it looks like I'm going to just leave this one be, and see if I can find something else. In the meantime my trusty Rockhopper hardtail is where it's at

[trekker12]

You could start with some road tyres for the rockhopper if you haven't already. It won't be road bike sprightly but it will make a significant difference on the road

[PaulF]

When I was posted to the US for a year I didn't want to risk my new bike chained to a New York lamppost so bought a singlespeed from bikesdirect.com for £200 with the intention of leaving it behind when I left. Turned out to be such a nice bike that I brought it back with me.

It may be worth a look there as they have a good range of bikes and if you look carefully some good value machines

[contango]

When I was posted to the US for a year I didn't want to risk my new bike chained to a New York lamppost so bought a singlespeed from bikesdirect.com for £200 with the intention of leaving it behind when I left. Turned out to be such a nice bike that I brought it back with me.

It may be worth a look there as they have a good range of bikes and if you look carefully some good value machines

Thanks for the tip Paul, I'd always associated their name with boxes of BSOs piled high but they seem to have good reviews. Now I need to decide just what it is I want

[PaulF]

Think they do stock BSO's as well so look carefully. Also don't take the brands for granted, they bought up the US rights to various brands including Dawes and then use it themselves.

That said they have some bargains there. My "Dawes" is too all intents a SE Lager (same frame, components, etc. different  paint job) but was then less than half the price

[rogerzilla]

Having converted a 7 speed to 9-speed some years ago, it is not cheap and I wished I hadn't bothered.

[Brucey]

....Traditional friction shifters at that level IME don't pull enough cable to traverse an entire 9 spd anyway. Doubtless somebody somewhere got ancient shite to work on 9 spd but we're talking real world here. The radius of the shifter simply isn't big enough.....

this is sometimes true but not that often;  remember that (shimano) 8s requires less than 3mm more cable pull than 7s, and 9s needs the same total cable pull as 8s, pretty much.  This means that if you have 7s friction levers with about 3mm in hand, they will work 9s OK.

IIRC a slim-bodied shifter (such as Simplex retrofriction) will just about manage shimano 10s (not 4700), but needs almost 180 degree swing to do it.

Thumbshifters obviously won't do 180 degrees swing; these are more likely to be constrained. Even so I have used 7s thumbshifters with 8s; some even have 'the hidden click' which makes it index, too....

So anyway I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, and it is easy enough to measure the total cable pull and see if it is going to work or not before you are committed to buying a load of new bits...

cheers
 

[Torslanda]

Doubtless somebody somewhere got ancient shite to work on 9 spd but we're talking real world here.

In this case it was a TT bike. The customer brought me a pair of ancient AirStrykes fitted with 105 7 speed downtube levers. Even on friction the RH lever simply wouldn't pull far enough to traverse an 11 speed cassette with a 5800 mech and I wasn't in the mood for messing about.