Hi to you all out there.
Can anyone help me the low-down on converting my Bianchi from dropped bars with a triple & 9spd on Xenon into a flat-bar (Hybrid)?. I wish to retain the Xenon triple shifter & rear dérailleur.
Could it be a simple case of getting a pair of Shimano leavers with the brake/gears as a unit?.
Imho the simple answer is no - the issues are kind of complicated and are as follow:
First off Campag 9 has sprocket pitch
0.2mm wider than Shimano 9, meaning if one could set the rear mech to line up exactly on the middle sprocket it will be 0.8mm off at either end. Might work ok most of the time, but shifts might also not be as sweet as you would like especially with cable stretch. A proper fix will require either a Shimano freehub/wheel or special Shimano spacing spacers for Campag freehubs.
The second issue is front mech cable pull. While Campag front and Shimano flatbar/mtb requirements are ime very similar, they are not identical, but again might just be ok. If not the cure is to get a Shimano flat bar road (not mtb because of chainline) front mech.
Brake cable pull is the third challenge. Shimano flat bar and mtb levers are generally designed for V brakes, which require a lot more cable pull than what road caliper brakes need. What that means is typical flat bar brake levers will pull too much cable for road calipers, resulting in weak braking. While as HLaB said you can buy Shimano flat bar brifters that have a switch catering for calipers, I believe they only exist for 7 and 8 speed (Shimano sprocket spacing). Although Campag 8 and Shimano 8 spacings differ by the same 0.2mm, you won't be able to cheat with a Campag 8 cassette because they are incompatible with Campag 9/10/11 freehubs. The proper fix, assuming you did get the Shimano freehub/wheel/spacers as indicated above, is to go down to 8 speed Shimano sprocket spacing
and get those
switchable brifters.
Additionally one can cheat by introducing travel agents to address the above issues, if one is prepared for the consequences of introducing imperfect instruments into the cabling systems.
Finally, if you feel lucky just get a pair of those 8 speed brifters and see whether the sprocket spacing difference (now 0.25mm per click from Shimano 8 to Campag 9) is small enough to not matter.
Hope it helps.
