Can a 9spd shifter work instead of a 11spd?

[Hugo Stiglitz]

My 11spd rear shifter is goosed.

I've found 1 x Zee 9spd rear shifter and 1x9spd XT rear shifter in my shed....


Typical!


Can I make this work on my 1x11spd set up? As long as I can get 1-9ish I'm happy

[anonymous-user]

ETA (having re-read the OP properly): you want to transplant a 9s Shimano shifter onto an 11s Shimano gear train.

Nope.

Shimano 9s and 10s cassettes will fit on the same rear hub. But a Shimano 11s won’t. That’s part of your problem: the 11s cassette is a certain width and the shifter moves the chain 1/11 of the width of the chain per click.

The 9s shifter moves the chain 1/9 of the width of a different width, per click. Your chain will jump between sprockets because you’ll never be able to index it so that the rear mech sits cleanly under each sprocket.

And you’ll find your 11s chain is too narrow to sit on 9s sprockets too.

The only way to be sure of this working would be 9s shifter, 9s cassette plus spacer on your 11s freehub, 9s chain, and maybe a 9s rear mech (you may get away with your 11s if you change the other stuff to 9s).

Truth is though that even if you’re an experienced bike mechanic, the faff of trying to get your Frankenstein set up to work won’t be worth it compared to buying a used 11s replacement shifter on eBay.

Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 9th July 19:57

Edited by anonymous-user on Sunday 9th July 20:06

[ian in lancs]

I’m guessing but I think you’ll find the shifts will be too coarse. Say the rear cogs are 55mm apart top to bottom the 11 speed shifter will index 5mm for each shift. If the 9speed is also 55m each index will be 6mm. Depending on dimensions it may be worse! You’ll be forever tweaking the alignment! Be worth a play though!

[leyorkie]

Assuming you are keeping the 11 spd cassette then a9 speed chain will be too wide to fit the cassette.
If you are changing the cassette then you will need spaces but I I think the hub will only fit 10/11 speed.
They are not designed to be interchangeable

[Hugo Stiglitz]

... £44

[gazza285]

Also the cable pull ratio is different between 9s and 11s, so your rear derailleur would need swapping as well.

A new cassette, chain and rear mech will cost more than a new 11s shifter.

[gazza285]

Hugo Stiglitz said:

... £44

£17, until you click on right, cheeky bds.

[tertius]

As said in various ways already the answer is no. The fundamental issue is the pull ratio (the amount one click of the shifter will move the derailleur) is different. Shimano used a standard pull ratio up to including 10 speed (except for Tiagra 10 speed which was bizarrely different) and all those systems are basically interchangeable - I used to run 105 10 speed shifters with a nominally 9 speed Sora rear derailleur and it worked fine - 10 workable gears.

11 speed and up are different and cannot be combined with 10 speed (or lower) systems.

[gazza285]

tertius said:

As said in various ways already the answer is no. The fundamental issue is the pull ratio (the amount one click of the shifter will move the derailleur) is different. Shimano used a standard pull ratio up to including 10 speed (except for Tiagra 10 speed which was bizarrely different) and all those systems are basically interchangeable - I used to run 105 10 speed shifters with a nominally 9 speed Sora rear derailleur and it worked fine - 10 workable gears.

11 speed and up are different and cannot be combined with 10 speed (or lower) systems.

MTB and road pull ratios also now no longer coincide, I run a 9s XTR rear derailleur with a 10s 105 shifter on one of my cyclocross bikes, a 10s MTB rear mech wouldn’t work, which is a shame as then I could run a clutch mech.

[Hugo Stiglitz]

It worked, it meant he can't get the smallest cog but that's no biggie and the indexing is smooth with some grub screw fiddling.