Shimano 105 5700 cassette usable with 105 5600 set-up?

[h1bda00]

Hello - would appreciate any advice on the following matter:

Being a newbie to bike maintenance / repair (but an avid rider), I stupidly assumed that 105 5600 and 5700 parts would be completely interchangeable.

One of my bikes has a shimano 105 5600 set-up, with a 12-27 5600 cassette. For various reasons, I want to have two sets of wheels ready which can be quickly changed according to the weather. So I bought a new spare cassette (105 12-27, but 5700, as there was no 5600 available) to put on my nicer wheels, so that I didn't need to change the cassette every time I swap the wheels.

After making the purchase of the new wheels/cassette, I checked the Shimano tech docs, to find that most of the parts on the 5700 cassette are compatible with the 5600, but not all - in particular the big sprocket unit (the 21-24-27T for the 12-27T).

So basically, can I simply swap out the 12-27 5700 cassette with the 12-27 5600 cassette, or is it a problem because of the incompatibility of some of the sprocket components?

Thanks in advance if anyone knows.

[cyclerUK]

No problem at all in swapping.
As long as you have the same number of sprockets (10) and the derailleur will cope with the largest size sprocket (in this case 27) then all will be well.
Depending on the wheel and hubs you might have to adjust the rear derailleur if the cassettes are in slightly different places.
The intermediate sprockets will have no effect on shifting.

[h1bda00]

Many thanks cyclerUK !