Something you take for granted

Plastik

Like the age old mantra that any Shimano/Sram 10s road cassette will work on any 10s Shimano freehub body. Well, it ain't so.

I'm sitting here looking at a Shimano Ultegra CS6600 cassette on a Novatec body and a Tiagra 4600 cassette on a Mavic body. The Ultegra will fit the Mavic, but the Tiagra won't fit the Novatec (and I've had a multitude of other cassettes on the Novatec in the past). It seems that while the splines on both are all the same width, the Ultegra cassette has deeper grooves. The shallow grooves on the Tiagra are stopping it going on.

Is this an issue particular to this series of cassette? Did Shimano change things, or did I buy something odd?

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/ie/en/shimano-tiagra-4600-10-speed-road-cassette/rp-prod67228

Cee-Jay-Cee

I had a similar problem with a set of 2010 Zondas in that the free hub wouldn't take a 105 or Tiagra cassette. The freehub was 10spd only and only Ultegra or Dura Ace cassettes would fit it.

It was a hair brained idea of Shimanos back in 2010/11 to overcome the problem of cassettes cutting into the splines on their soft alloy freehubs. (Thru made the spikes deeper) It didn't last long as they weren't compatibke with 8 or 9 speed cassettes and 11 speed was being introduced and so they were limiting the appeal of a wheel with such a freebody fitted.

I changed mine to a multi cassette friendly freehub as it was cheaper than habing to buy a new Ultegra cassette. I'd imagine your in a similar position.

Plastik

Is there any way of identifying the Shimano cassettes that are deeper grooved?