Wolf Tooth Components RoadLink

Absolutely awesome product. I'm a heavy mesomorph wannabe cyclist. I'm 6ft 4" and definitely not made to go up high-grade inclines.I had an 11-32 with a compact on the front. I thought the 32 would be the maximum I could go up to, I wasn't enjoying cycling and just thought that's the way it would be. A cadence of 40 going up anything above an 8% grade with a heart rate at 165+. I could power through for about an hour, then be absolutely screwed for the next 3 hours. Not fun at all.....Enter the Wolf tooth, along with the 11-42t mountain bike cassette and a new chain.The product should be advertised better, I would absolutely wear a cycling jersey promoting this product. I had no idea it was possible to extend the gears above 32t. It's like a well kept secret, cycling with a 34 front chainring and a 42t is a completely different cycling experience....It's actually fun to spin at a cadence of 80+ up an 8%+ grade and a heart rate at 145-155. It's great and not torture anymore.For all the reviewers saying it doesn't shift well.....That isn't the product, it's a bad installation, incorrect indexing. The people complaining need to fork out the extra cash and take it to a mechanic.The shifting works just like it did beforehand, smooth. For info the bike is a Cube Attain with Shimano 105 groupset.

Initially, when coming up with the idea of converting to a single (and having to get a larger rear cassette to still give me some low end) I was thinking I'd need a long cage derailer, however I realized that chain wrap wasn't the issue, clearing the jockey wheel over the larger sprocket was.I used this to make my 105 short cage work with an 11-36, coming from a 12-30. The front double was also converted to a single. It's only been one bike ride, but setup was pretty easy - I flipped my B screw and bolted everything on. Only had to bring in the high a little bit and shifting was OK. It is not quite as sharp as it was pre-RoadLink, due to the length, but it's acceptable. I am experiencing sloppier/missed shifts on the smaller cogs, but I figure I can do some adjusting to clean that up. So far, so good! I hope that the increased length doesn't cause my bike's integrated-into-the-frame hanger to bend out of alignment more easily, or snap off. I'll update this if I'm unable to get the gears to operate as nicely as I'd like - I'm very picky about shifting and there's nothing worse than taking off from a busy intersection, or somewhere else potentially hazardous, and you have a sudden and unexpected gear change while cranking the pedals for your life.UPDATE after a little under a year of use:Shortly after writing the first part, I made some adjustments and shifting is just fine. It seems to be 50/50 whether it'll get all the way into the "10th" gear (the smallest one) since I had to do some tuning to prevent it from running the chain off the sprocket and jamming it between the smallest gear and the frame. So, yeah, you'll lose a touch of fineness that comes with the 105 group, but it's nothing terrible. Running a single chainring has overall been a huge improvement, and I'm sure if consumers weren't so mis-information "More is Better" oriented, more bikes would come this way from the get-go.

This is great. I bought it over the cheaper ones because I knew it would work, cant say on the imitators. I have it on a 11-42 cassette with a Shimano Sora RD-3500ss derailleur. On its own the sora can do 36 with the b screw all the way in, this gets me to 42. The sora derailleur has an official max of 32t, but if you are familiar with big cassettes you know that that is conservative. I can't say if you have to have a longer cage derailleur like the one I am using, so I don't know if this would work for one with a max of 28t.I don't think you could do any more than a 42t max cassette. With the b screw on the link there is a limit to how far you can screw it in before it ceases to be effective. Only about half the screw, at that point the screw starts going off the edge, but it is just enough to make 42. The 40 max of the road link specs is definitely the safest bet, but you can push to 42 in my opinion.This ends up putting the derailleur cage a lot closer to the ground. If you swipe a curb in the biggest cog you will probably bust your derailleur. I don't know that it would have a pedal strike situation in a corner because it is so close to the wheel. 42t is probably again the biggest practical cog, because if you go bigger eventually on a road bike wheel your derailleur cage will hit the ground. Plus the fact if you cant ride a 42 gear, you can walk faster up the hill.

Wolf Tooth says this works up to a 40T on a 1x drivetrain, but it can clearly go further than that. With a 36T chainring on my old 26er frame, I have a Sunrace 11/42 cassette, and this adapter leaves me with enough room to go to about a 44T WITH THE B-SCREW BACKED OUT, and probably a 48T with the B-screw further in. There's tons of room to play with, so you'll need to see for yourself on your own set-up.

Allowed me to easily change my very tight cassette with a larger version for a very long very hilly charity ride.Actually purchased the wrong one - my older bike is a 9 speed, and the one I bought is 10/11speed. a little tweaking and I was able to use all the bigger gears (just not the smallest)I'd love to see some sort of matrix of information for all available Wolf Tooth components, that would allow purchasers to compare and figure out what component they need without having to flip around from 2 or 3 product pages on amazon. Prolly would have helped me get the exact right one I needed.