grip shift or rapid fire?

great suspension

hah you think actual people have been looking at this post, Plz just offer some advice plz plz plz plz plz!

personal preference. my hands are small and I can't reach the rapid fire levers. I love my grip shifts but some people complain of premature shifting (probably because they have a death grip on the handle bars).

personal preference.

i have short fingers so i find grip shift better. plus that way you dont have to think as much with grip shift and you can focus on your riding.

when i had rapid fires i fell on a big hill and while me and my bike were tumbling it snapped the rapid fire lever off.

but with rapid fires your less likely to accidently change gears while your riding.

i would stick with the grip shift.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by Twisties
i would stick with the grip shift.

I definatly perfer gripshift. I think (with gripshift) its easier to shift gears going uphills and certain times when I'm not sitting on my bike seat.

I've found I can only switch gears with rapidfire if I'm sitting down, so that cuts it out for me.

Go with Grip shift.
Dunno if anyone else has had this problem, but I'm looking to change out my rapid fire on my Specialized stumpjumper soon. Shifting to a larger cog takes force that kills my thumb - I think it's the equivalent of carpel tunnel syndrome for thumbs. The whole time I've had the bike I've wanted to switch it out, and I think I'm going to do it this summer.
Go with Grip shift.
--Bob

This is the guy who started this post, had to change name because my old account was shut down. Any way thanks for the advice but i just cant stand this grip shift any more so within the next few days im either getting new grp shft of rpd fire, but seriosly from my experience with the both, which is rather limited i would have to favor rapid fire. i have only ever tried two bike with grp shft and it was terrible but i have tried 1 bike with rapid fire and it beat the [censored] out of grp shft.

Still if anyone has any advice on which model (deore, alivio, etc.) that i should get it would be apreaceated

As far as rapidfire goes, anything from Deore up is very good.
Gripshift isn't a bad idea if you regularly bang your bike up (not suggesting that you do by the way 🙂) because they're nigh on indestructible. Rapidfire have loads of miniscule bits in and can explode if they're thumped a bit hard.
Personally I find rapidfire nicer, but then I find the new XTR system even better.

Bob - I'm sure you've thought of this so forgive me if I sound patronising but it sounds like your cables are gummed up. I've had my rapidfires lock up entirely before but it was easily fixed by cleaning and lubing my cables....

Personally, I'd go for Rapidfire.

Never had much luck with Gripshift myself. I find that they work counter-intuitively (at least on the RH side) and the only ones I've had on a bike kept falling apart. They were also very sensitive to crud in the cables, making shifting a rather random business.

Alivio and Deore Rapidfire shifters are plastic, meaning light and a bit fragile (less than you'd think though). XTRs are great, but eye-wateringly expensive. XTs represent the best balance of cost and reliability as far as I'm concerned.

For Bob S with the upshift/thumb pain problem ... have you tried playing with the angle of the shifter.

I found that swinging the whole thing down (thus bringing the lever closer to my thumb) meant I wasn't having to push my thumb so far and gave the impression of requiring less force. So much so that I had problems with accidental upshifts until I stopped resting my thumb on the shifter.

A useful side-effect of this is that both up and down shift buttons on both sides are at much better angles for use when I'm standing too.

Mat

Anybody know what the pro's use?

I think the pros vary as much as people on here. Gripshift are used a lot by pros, but then so are rapidfire.
One thing to note is that I don't think the two are compatible? Not sure but I seem to remember that SRAM gripshift pull more cable than rapidfire and so don't work with Shimano derailleurs.
Oh also SRAM have just released their take on the rapidfire shifter which could be interesting

grip shift require much more power, from what i've tried. you have to tense your index and thumb around the thing, whilst turning your whole hand. this is hard when in the rain or when simply going to a lower gear (on the right).

rapid fire needs very light pushes, especially with the newer ones (like the deore) whcih have longer levers, whcih means more leverage, meaning less power needed to do the same work.

thanx for the input guys. I have bought a new pair of deores and derailleurs to go with it. they beat the hell out of the old Sram 5 and they don't change premetuerely now.
Now that i have fixed my snapped rear suspension, my [censored] grip shift, my broken rear derailleur and had my seat post cut down to size i am having problems with the crank are. The bottom bracket is loose, the crank keeps catching my chain and the screw that conects my pedal levers to the axle isn't reversed so that it comes undone when i ride. Anyone know how to fix these problems.