Viking Roma - rear cassette

[ClichéGuevara]

A friend has the Viking Roma and is finding the range on the cassette a problem for hills.

As I understand it, it's an eight speed shimano 12/25 cassette. Can he just do a straight swap for any shimano 8 geared 11/28 or 11/30, or is there a something specific he'd need to check and will the existing chain be long enough?

 

[HLaB]

A friend has the Viking Roma and is finding the range on the cassette a problem for hills.

As I understand it, it's an eight speed shimano 12/25 cassette. Can he just do a straight swap for any shimano 8 geared 11/28 or 11/30, or is there a something specific he'd need to check and will the existing chain be long enough?

He could do a straight swap for any SRAM or Shimano Cassette in the 11-27 range, with 28t I believe there is some fiddling but its doable too; going above that though (eg 30t) may require a new derailleur/cage. The existing chain is unlikely to be long enough.

 

[TheDoctor]

I personally would go the whole hog here.
If a 25T is too high, don't mess about with 27T - get a 12-32, new chain and a MTB rear mech.
Assuming there's a compact chainset on there already, you should be able to go up cliffs

 

[ClichéGuevara]

Cheers for the advice. I'll pass it along.

I suspect I'm going to have to find a way of telling him to MTFU that doesn't put a keen newbie off at all. To be fair, he's managing very well up the longer but less fierce climbs, so maybe i could just keep him on routes that avoid the steepest hills. Luckily that's not too difficult around here.

 

[TheDoctor]

Maybe avoid the worse hills for a month, then?