General Lee 29-42t cassette adapter

[Streethawk]

Leonardi Factory General Lee 29- 42 10-speed Shimano Cassette Adapter - Action Sports-Bike Onlineshop

Has anyone tried one of these? Seems like a good way to give a single chainring crank drive bike a good wide range of gears. Would allow my BS10 to keep its great top speed and climb just about anything. A little pricey though.

 

[Clockwise]

Single speeds tend to use slightly different thickness chains and so have slightly thicker cranksets and sprockets. It might not make it impossible to fit gears but a 10 speed will have thinner sprockets that are closer together.

Scroll down on this to "Cassette /Freewheel Spacing" if you need exact spacings.

Sheldon Brown's Bicycle Frame and Cassette Spacing Crib Sheet

The easiest way to convert a single speed to give you gears would be to build up a wheel with an internal geared hub. They look a bit fatter than regular hubs but not so fat as to look like an ebike hub motor.

Internal-Gear Hubs

 

[Streethawk]

It's not a single speed, it's a single chainring and 10spd derailleur.

 

[RobF]

I don't fully grasp what this 'cassette adaptor' is.

Looks like three extra big cogs which you presumably swap with the three biggest cogs on the existing cassette.

Would do the job, assuming the derailleur could manage the extra chain run, you might need to extend the chain.

It's lots of money for three cogs when branded ones are under a tenner.

 

[Clockwise]

Ok looking in a bit more detail to get my head around it I think I have figured it out. I was thinking it was giving gears to a bike that only had 1 speed not increasing the range of gears.

You remove the biggest gear(for example the 36t) and then replace it with the pictured set of 3 but then I'm going to guess you would need new shifters and maybe a new deraileur if it can't take the extra sizes or swing in close enough to the wheel.

I'm confused about what you do about a chain and stuff tho as the old parts will be made up for 7-8 speed sizes and the new needs will be 9-10 speed. Not to mention you will need near vertical hills to want a gear that low.

 

[Streethawk]

Ok, so a lot of 10sp cassettes come in two pieces, this adapter simply replace the biggest three cogs with three larger cogs, the middle of which, as a 35t is about as big as a normal cassette would go (They're 34 or 36 in MTB varieties). The largest ring, a 42t, obviously makes a big difference from the normal largest rear cassette cog of 36t.

SRAM sell a 1x11 system that offers a similar range, but the cost for the systems if about £600.

 

[Deleted member 4366]

Will you need a specially long arm on the derailleur?

 

[Streethawk]

It works with medium or long cages, just not short one. It wont shift as crisply, but i can live with that as those three gears are not used unless i come to a very large hill.

I imagine on the 10t cog, the longer chain will be almostly doubled back on itself on a medium cage, and probablt does touch on a short cage.