Anyone Else Wish They'd Start Making High End 5 Speed Again?

[namestakensuck]

I had a ten speed system once and it never would shift right. I even had multiple people work on it and none of them could make the rear shift well. This was with a new rear 105 der, and even the previous one didn't shift well when new. Many times it just wouldn't shift at all. It didn't work well new. It didn't work well old. It didn't work well completely replaced. Cassette chain, cables etc. Nothing made the sorry 10 speed rear shifting work well. Never had that with 9 speed.

And now I hear stories of old derailleurs lasting 100s of thousands of miles. The cruddy pulley wheels on 105 wouldn't even last me half a year now.


Seems like much lighter and better shifting and more reliable 5 speed components could be made nowadays. And yet we are stuck with this 10 and 11 speed garbage.



There's also rohloff but getting parts to fix one if you fudge it up is not easy. And there is pinion too. But that's REALLY costly. I won't consider other IGH due to lack of reliability and gear range.


Why must bike companies make everything a pain in the ass?

 

[CAMPYBOB]

I started on 5-speed freewheels. And went to 6. Then 7. Then the jump to 10-speed cassettes. Finally to an 11-speed cassette system.

No.
Way.
In.
Hell.

Would I go back to even a 10-speed setup.

I can't wait for 12-speed cassettes and derailleurs to make it to the consumer market.

The drawbacks that I have found to the newest systems are: Shorter chain/cassette/derailleur cable life. I have a Chorus equipped bike that has over 30,000 miles on it and the shifters and derailleurs are original and function perfectly. I replaced the 53T ring around 25,000 miles, so very good wear there.

My shimaNO 5800 series 105 11-speed equipped bike works well. It isn't Campy smooth and fast, but it shifts competently. I only have about 1000 miles on it so the long term evaluation is going to have to come at a later date. So far, nothing more complicated than re-setting up the front derailleur (Thanks, OBC, for the shimaNO tricks & pro tips!) after swapping out the OEM compact crank for a 39-53.

 

[maydog]

Garbage?

Indexed 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 speed setup take very little know how to get to shift accurately. You are working with the wrong people if you cannot get a 10 speed to work.

Even the cheapest big box store bikes with shimano tourney components shift well enough.

Derailleurs and shifters age well and do not need much maintenance. Chains, cassettes and cables are often the culprits for poor shifting. It could also be a bent derailleur hanger or a frame issue.

 

[maydog]

Duplicate post.

 

[oldbobcat]

Same as Bob, except I stopped at 10. If I won the lottery, maybe I'd uy a bike with SRAM Red 22. (Flame on, I'm pleased with Force). Since I replaced my cables about a year and a half ago, I haven't touched it. Just pump up the tires, ride, and enjoy.

I like the range. With my old 2x7 Masi, I have 53/42 x 13/24. My 2x10 Trek gives me 50/34 x 11/28. Or 27. Or 26. Or 25. Swapping to a Shimano cassette just requires a small tweak of the rear shift cable tension.

 

[namestakensuck]

Garbage?

Indexed 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 speed setup take very little know how to get to shift accurately. You are working with the wrong people if you cannot get a 10 speed to work.

Even the cheapest big box store bikes with shimano tourney components shift well enough.

Derailleurs and shifters age well and do not need much maintenance. Chains, cassettes and cables are often the culprits for poor shifting. It could also be a bent derailleur hanger or a frame issue.

Hanger was checked. I know of no other frame issue that could cause it. Each mechanic was from a different shop.

Is there anyway that bar end shifters could have been the culprit? Seems that 10 speed bar ends should work fine with 10 speed shifters but maybe I was wrong.

This still doesn't excuse the low life expectancy of certain parts even if it was somehow the shifters. And I did replace the right shifter once on warranty thinking something was wrong. Nothing changed.

 

[CAMPYBOB]

Quote by nts:
"This still doesn't excuse the low life expectancy of certain parts even if it was somehow the shifters."

Longevity and durability were long ago sacrificed to the gods of weight reduction.

Cables are half the diameter they used to be. They also run much more smoothly and rarely even need initial stretching any more. Gear faces and chains got more narrow as more ratios were packed into the same space.

Eventually, I think we'll see rear dropouts spread another 5MM, but the manufacturers will just cram a couple more gears into that space rather than make what we already have heavier and more durable.

Lubricate and clean often and that will maximize the life of the drive train. I live in an area of rolling hills and I shift a lot. There's nothing I can do about that except replace cables at the first sign of wonky shifting...and yes, I ***** about what a ***** it is to route derailleur cables compared to 'The Good Old Days' of 5-speed down tube friction shifters. But, it is what it is. I buy the new tools I need for the job, take my time and learn to do everything the 'new way'.

OP, is your bike a tri-bike or TT type? What kind of bar-end shifters did it have? I assume the mechanics carefully went over the cable routing and that the pull ratio for the shifters matched the cassette..

 

[namestakensuck]

Tiagra cassette, dura ace bar ends, 105 rear, CX 70 front, CX 50 crank, 5701 or connex chain.

All yen speed and this was on a cross check.

 

[maydog]

Recabling is a pain?

Other than having to re-wrap my handlebars, the job takes about 15 minutes per shifter.

I've only had to recable a few bikes and that was after a few seasons of rain and winter riding duty.

I have indexed Dura Ace 10-speed bar ends on my cobbled together Tri-bike. The shifter pulls on a jagwire cable that actuates a Nashbar/Microshift rear der. The rear der pushes on a SRAM chain that drives a Shimano 105 rear cassette. All the parts work together in perfect harmony, when the rear der is not corroded from my excessive perspiration.

I've never had a shifter or derailleur wear out. They do wear indeed, but even my oldest brifters work well enough for commuting and training.

I burn through chains, cassettes and tires fast enough - but that is due to pushing big watts and torques all day.

 

[namestakensuck]

Is campagnolo stuff really longer lasting than shimano stuff?

 

[ABNPFDR]

The cruddy pulley wheels on 105 wouldn't even last me half a year now.

Horsepucky - I put 13,000 miles on a full Ultegra 6700 (10 speed) over the course of 3 years, riding in all kinds of weather and the thing shifted as good as the day I bought it. While I did re-cable the bike between year 2-3, other than replacing the chains regularly (used 2 chains in a paraffin/graphite lube AKA Garth's Method) I only went through 3 cassettes, one of which is still useable but all my primary bikes are now 11 speed.

if cared for properly, the components last.

 

[alfeng]

Hanger was checked. I know of no other frame issue that could cause it. Each mechanic was from a different shop.

Is there anyway that bar end shifters could have been the culprit? Seems that 10 speed bar ends should work fine with 10 speed shifters but maybe I was wrong.

This still doesn't excuse the low life expectancy of certain parts even if it was somehow the shifters. And I did replace the right shifter once on warranty thinking something was wrong. Nothing changed.

FWIW. While some may choose to disagree with me, I reckon that 90+% could have been from the probable use of parallel stranded cable housing which was probably used for your derailleur cables ...

And, which I also reckon is why some people's derailleur cables break a few inches from the diecast end ...

That is, it is probably more than coincidence that some people's cables break where the cable meets the suspect housing.

Regardless, YOU either need to find other shops in neighboring communities or learn how to set up a bike, yourself.

YOU could have toggled to friction mode ...

YOU could have changed the spacing on a 9-speed 105 Cassette to 5-speed Cog spacing if you had really wanted to re-create the 5-speed experience OR if you want to do so in the future.

BTW/FYI. IMO, Campagnolo non-bar end, mechanical shifters work better than Shimano's ... no, I haven't tried their latest-and-greatest 11-speed shifters ... what's the point?

 

[namestakensuck]

There is no friction mode on 10 speed bar ends. And I built that bike. Cables started as yokozuna then went to shimano PTFE.

 

[CAMPYBOB]

Quote by Maydog:
"Recabling is a pain?"

Yeah. Removing the busted last 1/2" of inner wire and lead end took two dental picks...and that was the easy part.

Worse, I had just spent an hour doing the perfect bar wrap job only a week before the cable decided it had wrapped itself around the drum enough. Two layers of Fizik Microtex 2MM wrap. ****.

Then, there's the stand-on-your-head fun of getting the inner threaded through the drum's stop, around the drum (I use grease here), up the hood housing and headed towards the TWO exit openings Campy give you (in front of the bar or behind the bar routing option) AND hitting the hole in the outer housing after that.

MIGHTY fiddly stuff when compared to the days of downtube friction levers and brakes before the wires ran under the bar tape. Oh, I suppose I could have stripped the bars down and pulled the lever bodies off, but again...what a pain to get them back RIGHT where they were and level them...just to install sub-miniature wires that if made for adults instead of midgets might last 10-20 years.

No, it's not rocket science, but it does require patience and more than just a glance at the tech manual. I never knew Eyetalian-English tech manual writers could omit more steps and mangle instructions worse than the Japanese, but in this case they sank to new lows in arcane and incomplete instructions. Thank God for pictures and YouTube videos!


Quote by OP
"Is campagnolo stuff really longer lasting than shimano stuff?"

That depends on which component we are talking about, but it my opinion that most Campy stuff lasts longer than most shimaNO stuff. When it comes to chains and cassettes...all brands wear pretty rapidly.

And as I was saying regarding Campy, shimaNO and Jagwire inner wires: They all suck for service life and that's not opinion. You can take it to the bank that that is a fact, Jack.

 

[namestakensuck]

How would one go 5 speed nowadays? And did 5 speed use single speed chains? I worry about being able to find the right parts.

 

[BobCochran]

Note to OP: please read @alfeng's post. He pretty much told you how.

Bob

 

[namestakensuck]

How doe you change the spacing? And this isn't about experience. Its about wear.

 

[oldbobcat]

How would one go 5 speed nowadays? And did 5 speed use single speed chains? I worry about being able to find the right parts.

No, it was simply called a "derailleur chain." And it worked for standard 6-speed freewheels, too. Before the advent of slant-paralleogram designs with b-tension screws, the gap between the jockey pulley and the cog could be daunting. I preferred Sedis chains because they were a little stiffer and they didn't require as much overshifting to make the jump. For me, 7-speed SunTour freewheels were a revelation.

These days SRAM 8-speed chains work fine on most 5- and 6-speed clusters. And a 7-speed is really a truncated 8, so it goes without saying.

But, hey, why stop at five cogs? Why not go down to four or three? Three was good enough for Gino Bartali, and one of the guys in my racing club had four on his Peugeot PX-10.

And if your pulleys are wearing out, you're doing something wrong. Too much friction, due to worn chain, gunked up chain, dirty derailleur, or something got bent. Good bike hygiene pays dividends.

These days I've yet to meed a 10- or 11-speed system that's stumped me and wasn't damaged, filthy, or badly worn, but, yeah, the older systems were a lot easier for home mechanics.

 

[namestakensuck]

I'm guessing that since it was left outside in an area with high winds and dust storms that may have been an issue? Seems like it should be able to handle that to me.

 

[ambal]

Garbage?

Pretty much