bar-end shifters

Dans le message de
oups.com,
Johnny Sunset a réfléchi, et puis a déclaré :
Sandy wrote:
Dans le message de
oups.com,
Johnny Sunset a réfléchi, et puis a déclaré
:

If the damage to the hanger was only moderate, then friction
shifting would still work. I find that switching my bar-ends over
to friction mode does not appreciably increase the difficulty of
shifting the rear derailleur. In addition, I have found bar-end
shifters to work well with such things as 73/52 and 54/44/24
chainring combinations. Try that with STI or Ergo!

You have recipes for all sorts of disasters. I wonder how often they
happen. To people, that is, who are mindful of potential dangers.
Or not klutzes.

Me, just 39 years with derailleur bikes, and not one single
disaster, EVEN WHEN THERE WERE ONLY DOWNTUBE FRICTION SHIFTERS !! I
just never had to face the dangers you seem to collect for yourself.

I crash every time I ride my ATB off-road. If I rode it more often, I
would replace the Rabidfire (sic) shifters [1] with used friction
thumb-shifters [2] (since dirt seems to mess up the indexing).

Didn't I write about klutzes ? Look up a little....

[1] The ATB equivalent of brifters.
[2] New thumb-shifters with index [3] and friction modes would be
ideal if anyone made them.
[3] I find indexing much more useful while riding off-road than
on-road.

Benjamin Lewis wrote:
John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:

On 21 Jan 2006 08:59:00 -0800, "Johnny Sunset"
wrote:


John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
...
I still don't see what that has to do with the fact that for a
majority of cyclists STI or Ergo is a better choice than bar-ends.

Are the majority of cyclists racers? If not, they would be better off
with less expensive, more reliable bar-end shifters than more
expensive, less reliable brifters.

Its' so funny that you feel the urge to say this, when the evidence
(in terms of what people ride) is so strongly the opposite.

As I've mentioned, the evidence around here of "what people ride" points,
if anywhere, strongly towards stem shifters, probably with DT shifters in
second.



This is interesting. Where in Canada are you?




Take any cross section of cyclists to a bike shop. Tell them they can
spend a little more to get STI or Ergo (perhaps cutting corners on
some other aspect of the bike to keep costs the same), and it'll be
less reliable than the alternative -- bar ends -- like it'll last five
years instead of 10+. See what they choose.

Since you clearly have not done this, it's hard for me to imagine why you
think it's "strong evidence".

Or take a loot at what people buy after-market for their bikes.

The set of cyclists who bother to buy after-market shifters is tiny, and
certainly not representative of the larger cycling population.




And most of what is bought in the after-market are replacements for
broken/worn out stuff. So, if most new bikes come with brifters (here
in the US, at least), it just follows that brifters will be sold as
replacements (But wait! Brifters don't break, do they???).

Sandy wrote:
Dans le message de ,
The Wogster a réfléchi, et puis a déclaré :

Sandy wrote:

Dans le message de ,
The Wogster a réfléchi, et puis a déclaré :



There are two kinds of bikes where fenders are an issue, race style
bicycles, because a racer who pays $500


Not real, come on !



for a seat post that is 5g lighter then a $5 seat post


Same ...



isn't going to "waste" a whole 200g on a
set of fenders.


Just relating to road riding, I think the vast majority (_yes_ a
guess !) of folks who ride road bikes won't take them out in
inclement weather. The bikes don't get much use, admittedly, but
fenders don't make a difference here.

There are essentially two kinds of drop bar bikes:


Well, there's the first wrong turn ...

Racing bikes (be just like Lance), where everything is based on weight
reduction, and yeah, racing teams would likely get a custom built
seatpost, and pay $500 for it, if it reduced the weight even 5g to
give their racer as much advantage as possible. They certainly would
not "waste" 200g per wheel for fenders.


You may not have been paying much attention to racing in the last 4-5 years.
There is a weight minimum, and pretty much anyone can be riding an illegal
(sub-weight) bike in the PRO peleton, not to mention the many elite and
not-so-elite racers. So there really is not any target of 5 grams, not 50
grams, and depending on who is riding what, 500 or more grams. The weight
battle is over, unless UCI changes the minima.

I never did pay much attention to racing, whatever the weight minimum,
they are not going to waste weight on fenders, or anything else that
isn't directly required to operate as a bicycle.

Road bikes, ever head out, on a nice sunny day, not a cloud in the
sky, nothing forecast except sun, and then get a torrential 2 minute
downpour, and end up with the "skunk stripe" as the only proof,
because it got sunny again afterwards? The real issue here, is that
frame designers leave the 2.5mm wheel clearence dictated from racing
bikes, which means no chance of stuffing a fender in there. If they
left say 5cm, and added the frame mountings, it wouldn't make any
real differance weight wise, and people could add their own fenders.

It's water and dirt, and it doesn't happen all that often. I must be among
the privileged, having a washing machine. The way you write, it rains on
your parade all the time. Aside from Seattle, I have not heard of too many
other reliably rainy cities. But I don't know, so you can tell me where
they are.

Doesn't need to be reliably rainy, to make fenders something that a bike
could use on a regular basis, you just need weather that can change
rapidly. I live in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and the weather here can
turn pretty quickly. 1:00 Sunny, 1:10 clouding over, 1:20 raining, 1:30
thunder and lightning, 1:40 back to rain, 1:50 back to cloud, 2:00 back
to sun. Unless your carrying a weatheradio, you have no clue that this
is going to happen, until you get caught in it.

Then you get a day like today, it snowed yesterday, much of that has
melted, but the streets are wet, nice riding weather though, clear, not
too cold. So far there hasn't really been an end of the 2005
season..... Anyone at Palgrave today, I was one of the guys who was on
an MTB on the trails.....

Then again, you might have so many people add after market fenders,
that a whole new style of road bike would be born, the fendered road
bike, and bike assemblers would start adding them as standard
equipment.


I have a Zefal fender on my winter bike. It jumps over the rear triangle
and clips onto the seat tube. My delightful frame has exactly enough seat
tube above the joint so that it goes there, and with the saddle, does a good
job keeping me reasonably dry. On my good season bike, no fenders, and back
to washing machine and showers for solutions.

Of course washing machines are fairly common, at least in Europe and
North America, however you just know that the time you get caught in the
rain, when fenders might have really helped, will be the day you don't
have a change of clothes handy....

A rear only option, would be to add a rack, the rack could have a
solid piece over the top, which would remove the skunk stripe and wet
behind, effectively making a rear fender, debating doing this with my
MTB......


Take a look at the Zefal - it may be the kind of answer you would accept.
It clips on or off in seconds.

Which means a thief could unclip it as well, the issue is, that they
look dorky, a nice set of full fenders would look like they fit the
bike. Still thinking I might add the rack though, need somewhere to put
the camera gear.

W

Sandy wrote:
...
I crash every time I ride my ATB off-road. If I rode it more often, I
would replace the Rabidfire (sic) shifters [1] with used friction
thumb-shifters [2] (since dirt seems to mess up the indexing).

Didn't I write about klutzes ? Look up a little....

If you're not crashing while riding off-road, you are not trying hard
enough.

The last time I crashed on the road hard enough to do significant
damage to a bicycle was 1983.

--
Tom Sherman - Planet Barcon

Ozark Bicycle wrote:
Johnny Sunset wrote:
Ozark Bicycle wrote:

The reality is that, in many cases, the "upgrade" from 8SP to 9SP is
mostly an illusion. For example, if you have a 13-14-15-16-17-19-21-23
8SP cassette and you are happy with the "range" it provides, the only
really useful aspect of a 9SP would be to provide an 18T to fill in
between the 17 and 19. Instead, most people wind up with a 12-23 9SP
cassette, which provides a pretty useless additional "high" gear.
That's the kind of cassette many new 9SP road bikes come with, and it's
the kind of replacement cassette most dealers (LBS or online/MO) stock.
(Of course, the 13-23/12-23 example is just that: an example. So,
nitpickers begone!)

I find 9-speed clusters to be of more value on ATBs and recumbents,
where one can have a useful 11-28 range for normal conditions and a 34T
"bailout" gear (e.g. Shimano Megarange) without huge gaps in the
gearing.


Well, I do think 9SP can be an improvement on a road bike _if_ the 9th
cog is an intelligent addition, possibly as a "gap filler" as in my
previous example, or to add _useful_ additional range (e.g., going from
a 13-23 8SP to a 13-26 9SP). It's the addition of an essentially
useless (talking recreational riders here, nitpickers!) 12T or 11T cog
acheived at a fairly high expense that irks me.

I find I make use of the full 11-34 cassette range and all three front
chainrings on a low frontal area or faired recumbent, but that is quite
a different situation from an upright road bicycle.

--
Tom Sherman - Fox River Valley (For a bit)

Benjamin Lewis wrote:
John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:


On 21 Jan 2006 08:59:00 -0800, "Johnny Sunset"
wrote:


John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:

...
I still don't see what that has to do with the fact that for a
majority of cyclists STI or Ergo is a better choice than bar-ends.

Are the majority of cyclists racers? If not, they would be better off
with less expensive, more reliable bar-end shifters than more
expensive, less reliable brifters.

Its' so funny that you feel the urge to say this, when the evidence
(in terms of what people ride) is so strongly the opposite.


As I've mentioned, the evidence around here of "what people ride" points,
if anywhere, strongly towards stem shifters, probably with DT shifters in
second.

Stem shifters, you mean the ones where the shifter is attached to the
handlebar stem? Didn't they quit using those on anything other then
department store bikes in the 1970's, and even the department store
bikes by about 1990?

Take any cross section of cyclists to a bike shop. Tell them they can
spend a little more to get STI or Ergo (perhaps cutting corners on
some other aspect of the bike to keep costs the same), and it'll be
less reliable than the alternative -- bar ends -- like it'll last five
years instead of 10+. See what they choose.


Since you clearly have not done this, it's hard for me to imagine why you
think it's "strong evidence".


Or take a loot at what people buy after-market for their bikes.


The set of cyclists who bother to buy after-market shifters is tiny, and
certainly not representative of the larger cycling population.

Most people would buy a new shifter, only if the shifter on their bike
was broken. Just because a bike comes with a certain shifter, doesn't
mean that the replacement needs to be the same type. Say for example
you bike comes with brifters. The brifter in the back breaks, so you
buy a set of bar-cons or DT's, and plain brake levers, because it's
cheaper then a new set of brifters. Then again, the more popular
brifters get, the cheaper they will get, so maybe in 5 years the set of
currently $350 brifters, will be a $99 commodity part. Just like the
MTB brifters.... Especially if someone other then Shimano and
Campagnolo gets into the act, and starts building Shimano work-a-likes
in India or Taiwan that sell for $50.

Some riders will break a brifter in a year, some will go 20 years of
daily riding, on a set of brifters with no problems.

W

In article .com,
Johnny Sunset wrote:


I find 9-speed clusters to be of more value on ATBs and recumbents,
where one can have a useful 11-28 range for normal conditions and a 34T
"bailout" gear (e.g. Shimano Megarange) without huge gaps in the
gearing.

Seconded. The 9spd Mega-range is my preferred cassette for touring. The
34T cog is used sparingly, but when I require it, I'm *really* grateful
it's there.

Luke

The Wogster wrote:
...
Stem shifters, you mean the ones where the shifter is attached to the
handlebar stem? Didn't they quit using those on anything other then
department store bikes in the 1970's, and even the department store
bikes by about 1990?...

They were common on low-end bike store quality bikes in the early
1980's (my Peugeot P-8 had stem shifters).

--
Tom Sherman - Fox River Valley (For a bit)

Ozark Bicycle wrote:

Benjamin Lewis wrote:

As I've mentioned, the evidence around here of "what people ride"
points, if anywhere, strongly towards stem shifters, probably with DT
shifters in second.

This is interesting. Where in Canada are you?

Vancouver. From what I recall, it was similar in Montreal. Most of these
bikes would be considered "beaters", and I'm only considering bikes with
drop bars. On rando rides I see mostly a mix of brifters, bar-ends, and
DTs; I don't know what the ratios are, but the latter two styles have a
significantly larger representation than they do in bike shop displays. I
believe the brifters form the majority.

However, I don't believe "what most people ride" is in general well
correlated with what is the best choice for people. I know *I* have made
many non-optimal decisions when I've not been well informed, and sometimes
even when I have, and I suspect this is true for most people.

--
Benjamin Lewis

Now is the time for all good men to come to.
-- Walt Kelly

The Wogster wrote:

Benjamin Lewis wrote:

As I've mentioned, the evidence around here of "what people ride"
points, if anywhere, strongly towards stem shifters, probably with DT
shifters in second.

Stem shifters, you mean the ones where the shifter is attached to the
handlebar stem? Didn't they quit using those on anything other then
department store bikes in the 1970's, and even the department store bikes
by about 1990?

Probably. It is my strong impression that the majority of road cyclists
here don't ride new bikes (and likely the majority can't afford them).

--
Benjamin Lewis

Now is the time for all good men to come to.
-- Walt Kelly