Review on 🚲 RoadLink by Wolf Tooth by Troy Houston

Short story: This allowed me to keep a short bottom bracket derailleur (Shimano Ultegra) when I went from a 12-25 cassette to an 11-34 cassette. (10 speed) I wasn't sure if that would work but figured for $20 and the change is worth a try. I'm glad I did - works great, no complaints! Longer story: A huge TCR 1 that I bought from a friend. I love this bike but I hate its really tight gearing as I live in hilly terrain. But it has decent components - mostly Ultegra but Crank is a really good FSA carbon - so I didn't want to make big changes for big bucks. I went to a nonprofit shop in my town that does a good job of keeping old bikes off the streets. They didn't have anything to sell me for downshifting, but they gave me advice: The Shimano Deore 9 speed derailleur is known to be compatible with 10 speed STI derailleurs. Seems odd but I could find the same advice online so I went to ebay and found an XT 11-34 10 speed cassette and a Deore 9 speed derailleur (clutchless ie no shadow). Also bought a longer chain from the above store. Everything was assembled and it worked really well. The only problem was switching from 3 to 2 to 1 and (particularly) boosting from 1 to 2 and to 3. I could never get it right to switch from 1 to 2. And if I really wanted 2, I would have to downshift again. I wanted to live with it and actually made several longer trips with no real problems, just trouble. But then I came across WolfTooth. (In hindsight, I think the guy at the store originally mentioned it to me, but that was sidelined and it's obvious he didn't really recommend it). I've thought about it a lot and even asked a question here - if you go through it it should be obvious which one is mine. Half of the answers said "try it" and the other half said it wouldn't work. I've tried this and it works. But there is a nuance. Remarks on capacity and chains. In the original mod I changed the big ring from 52 to 46 while keeping the original small ring of 38. I ride at high cadence and don't think I'll ever miss the 52nd ring - not at all. I'm not sure if this mod will work if I don't change this ring. My Ultegra D rear has capacity for an 11-34 cassette, but given the wide range up front, capacity is certainly exceeded. Even with my current smaller ring, I will never switch to a big, big one. On the other hand, the word "little-little" (which I sometimes use) contains quite a bit of nonsense, so I plan to take a link or two off the chain and see if that helps at all. But if you don't want to do extreme cross-chaining, this might be a good solution if you want to do what I did.