bar-end shifters



John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
> On 22 Jan 2006 10:13:28 -0800, "Johnny Sunset"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> >> Should they switch now? When racers are using 11 or 12 cogs in back
> >> will it be OK for other riders to use 9speeds. Or is 8 the end?

> >
> >The non-racing rider should be aware they are not gaining any real
> >advantage at the price of additional cost, lower durability, more
> >frequent need to adjust indexing (and possibly weaker rear wheels due
> >to increased dish).

>
> One other thing. As far as I can tell, 8, 9 and 10 speed road wheels
> have the same amount of dish. Have I set things up wrong? Should I
> add some extra dish to my 9 speed wheels just to get them weaker than
> 8, so I'm not getting "something for nothing," (beyond the obvious
> increases in fragility from going from 8 to 9)? I race bikes, so
> maybe can deal with the increased risk of more dish.


Actually, 6-speed clusters (and the lower dishing required) should be
adequate for upright riders. After all, JB rides Alpine passes with
double chainrings and a 6-speed freewheel on his bike.

--
Tom Sherman - Planet Barcon
 
Johnny Sunset wrote:
> John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:
> > On 21 Jan 2006 20:10:05 -0800, "Johnny Sunset"
> > <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > >Unless they are racing where a slight reduction in frontal area would
> > >be significant, there is no benefit in riding extremely narrow tires.
> > >Tires of 28-32 mm width provide better ride comfort, handling, and
> > >traction, and offer greater versatility on what surfaces can be ridden
> > >on. And unless the bike is for fair weather only, fenders are an
> > >excellent addition. Again, the extra weight and drag of fender should
> > >only be of concern to racers.

> >
> > They should have 36 spokes too of course. Unless they are racers of
> > course. Right? This is RBT right? So you really shouldn't forget to
> > add that. And of course most people's top gear is too high. Don't
> > forget that.

>
> Agreed. The weight savings and decreased aerodynamic drag from less
> than 36 spokes is trivial, unless one is racing at a level where a
> couple of seconds difference in elapsed time will affect placement.
> Otherwise, lower spokes counts are a silly fashion statement, trading
> looks for decreased reliability/longevity.
>
> If professional riders that are putting out average power in the range
> of 400 watts when riding hard use 53/39 chainrings and 11-23 clusters,
> then this gearing is obviously way too high for an average road bike
> rider with less than half the power.
>



There are alot of *recreational* riders using 9/10SP cassettes who get
stuck with 11T or 12T cogs in concert with a 52/53T big ring. Those
gears go virtually unused.



> >From a cost/use/practicality standpoint, what most road bike riders

> should be riding are steel frame bikes with adequate frame clearances
> for wider tires and fenders, 36-spoke wheels with aluminium alloy rims
> (with sockets, but no anodizing), smooth tread clincher tires, 8-speed
> freehub/cassette and bar-end shifters.
>
>


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!)
 
In article <[email protected]>,
The Wogster <[email protected]> wrote:

> Sandy wrote:
> > Dans le message de news:[email protected],
> > The Wogster <[email protected]> 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:
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> 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......


I have a strut mounted rack on my road bike. Our rain is
more predictable. If it might rain, or the roads are wet I
attach an 8 cm strip of styrofoam poster board to the
rack. Does nothing for the front tire.

--
Michael Press
 
Dans le message de
news:[email protected],
Johnny Sunset <[email protected]> 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.
 
In article
<[email protected]>,
"Johnny Sunset" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Sandy wrote:
> > ...
> > 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....

>
> Are the French meteorologists so superior that they can reliably
> predict when rain will occur?
>
> In much of North America, what starts out as a clear sunny day can
> change to rain in a couple (not 7.5) of hours, and there are many days
> where it is cloudy but no rain occurs. With inferior North American
> weather predictions, what do we do?


In northern California it is easier for me to predict rain
than anywhere I have lived, except possibly El Paso.
El Paso in the winter can have a storm brew up out of the
blue; otherwise it mostly does not rain at all.

I understand it is easy to predict rain in Seattle.

--
Michael Press
 
In article <[email protected]>,
"Sandy" <[email protected]> wrote:

> Guess what !? I'm not living there, so I don't care. But if I did, I would
> ride in the rain, as I already do. Or maybe read a book. Or something fun.
> My grandmother could predict weather better than the meteo, but she died
> long ago, so you can't call her.


What we learn here is that we can predict the weather
where we live when we decide to trust our senses.

--
Michael Press
 
Sandy wrote:
> Dans le message de
> news:[email protected],
> Johnny Sunset <[email protected]> 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).

[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.

--
Tom Sherman - Planet Barcon
 
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.

For upright road bikes, as JB would say, "We are not Peterbilt
diesels". Non-racers should be able to vary cadence without significant
loss of performance.

--
Tom Sherman - Planet Barcon
 
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.



> For upright road bikes, as JB would say, "We are not Peterbilt
> diesels". Non-racers should be able to vary cadence without significant
> loss of performance.
>
>


Agreed, the "corncob" concept can be carried to silly extremes; 10SP
already shows signs of that (e.g., 11-21 10SP cassettes).....just think
of what 12SP will bring!
 
John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:

> On 21 Jan 2006 08:59:00 -0800, "Johnny Sunset"
> <[email protected]> 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.

> 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.

--
Benjamin Lewis

Now is the time for all good men to come to.
-- Walt Kelly
 
John Forrest Tomlinson wrote:

> <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> The majority of cyclists who do club and other medium distance rides
>> but never race buy bicycles that have inadequate clearances for fenders
>> and reasonably wide tires. Is this the best choice for them? No.

>
> Do they want fenders and wider tires? If they don't, who are you to
> tell them they need them and should get them? The arrogance of such a
> viewpoint is remarkable.


Even if I thought I would never install wider tires and fenders on my bike,
I would prefer one on which I *could*, if the alternative offered me
absolutely no advantages.

--
Benjamin Lewis

Now is the time for all good men to come to.
-- Walt Kelly
 
Dans le message de
news:[email protected],
Johnny Sunset <[email protected]> a réfléchi, et puis a déclaré :
> Sandy wrote:
>> Dans le message de
>> news:[email protected],
>> Johnny Sunset <[email protected]> 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"
> > <[email protected]> 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 news:[email protected],
> The Wogster <[email protected]> a réfléchi, et puis a déclaré :
>
>>Sandy wrote:
>>
>>>Dans le message de news:[email protected],
>>>The Wogster <[email protected]> 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"
>><[email protected]> 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 <[email protected]>,
Johnny Sunset <[email protected]> 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
 

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