Upgrade plan

[Red Rider]

I am slowly formulating an upgrade on my commuter. The FSA Omega MegaExo BB is like gravel, it looks like water has ingressed, needs replacing. As I'm not happy with the FSA durability I want to change to Hollowtech II, which I have on my road bike and have been really impressed with, still looks and feels brand new after many years. I have also wanted to get a semi-compact (52/36) for my road bike for the odd occassion I ride some 15%+ climbs that a 39-28 combo nearly kills me, so I thought that I may as well use the semi-compact on my commuter, then swap it onto the roadie whenever required. The only potential issue I can see so far is the chain on the road bike may be a touch long, but I might be able to get away with it with just a 3 tooth difference.

So the plan is thus:
Commuter - Change FSA Omega MegaExo external BB for Ultegra 6800 BB. Change FSA GXP crankset for Shimano FC4700 52/36 chainset.


The other part of my upgrade involves converting the commuter from 9 speed to 10 speed. As far as I can tell this will involve changing the chain, cassette and rear shifter. The shifter will be a 4600 lever shifter to operate the 5701 RD. Reading Sheldon Brown says that '9 speed' FD's should work fine with 10 speed chains. The commuter has the FD-R440. Not sure if a front 4600 lever shifter would work with the FD-R440, obviously I can still use the current shifter.

Can anyone foresee any issues with this plan? Cheers

[Duck!]

Most of that is pretty good and straightforward. The only bit that might cause some irritation is the front derailleur; although you don't say in as many words, the R440 tells me you're running a flat-bar setup. That range of older flat-bar FDs, including R550 & R770 use a slightly different leverage to the standard road groupset models, requiring a slightly longer cable pull. Newer flat-bar shifters, including Tiagra 4600, have the cable pull slightly revised so they work with standard road FDs, so it might not pull quite enough cable to properly suit the R440. It's not the end of the world; you can either swap the FD for a 4600/5700/6700 for best results (but others will be passable), or just run a mismatched pair of shifters & keep the R440 left shifter & FD pairing.

[Red Rider]

Thanks for that Duck, good to know I'm on the right track.