Raison d'etre for STI



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Peter Chisholm wrote:

> Jobst-<< Most people commenting in this discussion did not experience the development of indexed
> shifting and placement of its control mechanism in the brake levers, much less understand what the
> motivation for this development was.
>
> Slam DUNK all those on this discussion...another Jobsttonian moment!!!!

While JB is an invaluable resource, he's not immune from personal dogma. The tirades have become
predictable, but you're putting your credibility on a limb by cheering him on.
 
The Pomeranian wrote:

> Why would you buy a bike without an option for DTs if you wanted DTs? It doesn't make any sense.

You wouldn't; that's why you have reduced options if you want DTs, which I believe was the original
complaint.

In a few years from now it's possible that one will have to order a custom frame if one wants
DT shifters.

--
Benjamin Lewis

Amoebit: Amoeba/rabbit cross; it can multiply and divide at the same time.
 
Benjamin Lewis wrote:
>
> The Pomeranian wrote:
>
> > Why would you buy a bike without an option for DTs if you wanted DTs? It doesn't make any sense.
>
> You wouldn't; that's why you have reduced options if you want DTs, which I believe was the
> original complaint.
>
> In a few years from now it's possible that one will have to order a custom frame if one wants DT
> shifters.

So 99% of the bikes come without DT studs? I guess I'm lucky. I bought a 2002 CF frame with DT studs
and wasn't even trying to do so.
 
The Pomeranian wrote:

> So 99% of the bikes come without DT studs? I guess I'm lucky. I bought a 2002 CF frame with DT
> studs and wasn't even trying to do so.

Fortunately not yet, as far as I know. Probably about that ratio come with brifteurs now, though,
and I imagine unless you're having a custom bike built up for you you'll be charged extra to have
your LBS switch it over to
DT. For many, then, this is no longer a viable "option", at least until they have to replace their
worn-out brifteurs.

--
Benjamin Lewis

Worrying is like rocking in a rocking chair -- It gives you something to do, but it doesn't get
you anywhere.
 
This ain't ancient history, for chrisakes! It was just over ten years ago. MOST RBT posters were
around ten years ago, dontchyathink?

> It's not what "others think" but what occurred and why. Most people commenting in this discussion
> did not experience the development of indexed shifting and placement of its control mechanism in
> the brake levers, much less understand what the motivation for this development was.
>
> Jobst Brandt [email protected] Palo Alto CA
 
"Meccanico di Bici" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> This ain't ancient history, for chrisakes! It was just over ten years ago. MOST RBT posters were
> around ten years ago, dontchyathink?

And you know what, I can't remember a single STI ad. All I remember is the big hub-bub about STI
showing up in the TDF and then in local races. Some tattooed youth on my team got a set and couldn't
shut up about them. He loved to slap it into a small cog and do the throw-the-bike-around sprint
thing. Not very efficient, but sure looked impressive. -- Jay Beattie.
 
The Pomeranian <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> Michael Doleman wrote:
> >
>
> > When I got BACK into serious road cycling about 7 years ago I was sorta dismayed to find that
> > STI or Ergo represented 99% of the options available in the modern market.
>
> Since STI and ERGO are both brifters, I think they represent "33% of the options" for road bikes.
> There are 3 choices:
>
> 1. brifters (33%)
> 2. DTs (33%)
> 3. bar-ends (33%)
> -----------------
> 99%
>
> All are readily available if you got the bucks. All are "options." I'm looking for that lost 1%.

Well, I was speaking, of course, about the options that are, and were at the time, presented in
terms of a complete component kit or a complete bike. In those terms, integrated shifting is what
was being offered in as much as 99% of the cases. So your thing about the three options dividing
equally up into thirds is not the way I was using my 99%. My point was only that STI/Ergo had
eclipsed all other shifting options in the mainstream marketplace. It's caught-on to the point now
where many new cyclists are only vaguely aware of other alternatives.

Campy stopped making their downtube levers last year, or the year before, so if you want to use
modern Campy equipment you've got only two options: Ergo, or their newer model bar-end which is
designed with aero/tri bars in mind. So downtube levers are hardly 'readily available' unless you
are prepared to go searching for NOS equipment (which I AM, but many are not, and I'd rather have
levers designed to work with rest of the modern equipment if that's what I'm buying). To their
credit, Shimano continues to make a vey high quality downtube lever.

For your lost 1%, look no further than my original post, in which I discuss Suntour Command
shifters. Actually, that's probably more like one half of one percent, so you could count Sheldon's
twist shift thing for another half percent. There! 100%!
 
"Steven L. Sheffield" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<BA4B36F0.20122%[email protected]>...
> in article [email protected], Michael Doleman at
> [email protected] wrote on 01/15/2003 03:49 PM:
>
>
> > Plus, the levers are NOT very durable and certainly not serviceable.
>
>
> Campagnolo Ergo levers are very durable, and are very definitely serviceable (and upgradable from
> 8 to 9 to 10).

I tend to agree about Ergo, they are fairly durable. That part of the comment was directed more
squarely at STI, which I've seen premature failures in on several occasions. Shimano's design is
simply inferior; the entire 'guts' of the shifting unit is exposed to the elements every time you
brake, which is quite silly. Campy simply put more thought into their design and got it right.

I maintain that both types of lever are serviceable only in the same sense that your VCR is
serviceable. Yes, they can be fixed given enough time and the right spare parts, but the parts may
cost you half as much as a new unit, and unless you plan to do the work yourself, your local bike
shop will charge you the other half in labor. I know a few bike shops, in fact, that won't even
touch them, they just recommend a new lever.

Case in point: two friends of mine returned recently from a 4000K tour through Europe, on which they
used STI-equipped bikes, Ultegra and D'ace. Both RH levers began behaving badly about mid-tour. They
could not find a single shop anywhere in Europe that would offer to effect repairs; plenty of offers
to outfit them with new units, though! They had me retro-fit their bikes with bar-end shifting, and
are now happily making their way through New Zealand without any trouble.


>
>
> --
>
> Steven L. Sheffield stevens at veloworks dot com veloworks at worldnet dot ay tea tee dot net
> bellum pax est libertas servitus est ignoratio vis est ess ay ell tea ell ay kay ee sea aye tee
> why you ti ay aitch aitch tee tea pea colon [for word] slash [four ward] slash double-you
> double-yew double-ewe dot veloworks dot com [four word] slash
 
Sheldon Brown <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>... ...
>
> We recently scored a stash of NOS road GripShiftas!
>
> See: http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/derailers.html#roadgrip
>
> Sheldon "One Percenter" Brown +------------------------------------------------------+
> | If a man does not keep pace with his companions, | perhaps it is because he hears a different
> | drummer. | Let him step to the music which he hears, | however measured or far away. --
> | Thoreau |
> +------------------------------------------------------+ Harris Cyclery, West Newton,
> Massachusetts Phone 617-244-9772 FAX 617-244-1041 http://harriscyclery.com Hard-to-find parts
> shipped Worldwide http://captainbike.com http://sheldonbrown.com

Uck! I had a set of those I put on a bike for a friend. Fortunately, he had very weird handlebars
that worked well with them...I just don't see that as a good design.

I'll give you 1/2 of 1%. I think the other 0.5% goes to the Command Shifter, and I think that if
Suntour had gone so far as to build a brake lever that had the CS mount built onto it, so you
wouldn't have to deal with that dumb clamp, there'd be a lot of folks using Command Shifters today.
 
"B a r r y B u r k e J r ." <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:

>
>
> If the downtube cable adjuster is removed, the braze-on easily accepts a DT shifter. I rode with a
> NOS Ultegra DT shifter on the rear cogs for two weeks.
>
Sorry, what I meant was that most of the new bikes I see don't have a DT braze-on but are set up for
cable adjusters on the head tube.
 
Mike Latondresse wrote:
>
> "B a r r y B u r k e J r ." <[email protected]> wrote in news:[email protected]:
>
> >
> >
> > If the downtube cable adjuster is removed, the braze-on easily accepts a DT shifter. I rode with
> > a NOS Ultegra DT shifter on the rear cogs for two weeks.
> >
> Sorry, what I meant was that most of the new bikes I see don't have a DT braze-on but are set up
> for cable adjusters on the head tube.

Why would you buy a bike without an option for DTs if you wanted DTs? It doesn't make any sense.
 
Carapace Completed Umber wrote:

> You might think this wasn't a big deal, just another choice--but just _try_ to find a lever type
> front derailer anymore! The Evil Parts Cartel has conspired to remove this wonderfully simple
> option from the marketplace and to force us all to use their Rube-Goldbergesque remote-controlled
> front derailers instead. Harumpf! Bah! Pfooey!

I'm sure that Sheldon guy still stocks them.

--
Benjamin Lewis

Don't take life so serious, son, it ain't nohow permanent. -- Walt Kelly
 
Benjamin Lewis wrote:
>
> Carapace Completed Umber wrote:
>
> > You might think this wasn't a big deal, just another choice--but just _try_ to find a lever type
> > front derailer anymore!...
>
> I'm sure that Sheldon guy still stocks them.

But I bet he secretly disapproves of them. He rides fixed, remember?

--
Frank Krygowski [email protected]
 
"Sheldon Brown" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> **** Durbin wrote:
> >
> >> In another thread, Jobst Brandt postulated: "Fear of riding with only one hand on the bars got
> >> us away from downtube shifters...."
> >>
> >> Is that why most folks went to STI or Ergo shifters? Safety was not a consideration in my
> >> switch. I was just looking to be able to shift more quickly.
> >>
> >> I am wondering if other riders share Jobst's opinion on the reason that most riders switched to
> >> STI or Ergo shifters.
>
> Back in the early '50s, front derailers wern't cable operated. The rider had to reach down to
> the _seat_ tube and push a lever sideways to shift. This was a perfectly satisfactory system for
> any Real Cyclist. There was only one moving part, no cables to stretch, a great system,
> elegantly simple!
>
> However, by the late '50s, the sport had been overrun with newbies and poseurs who were scared to
> get their hands that far away from the handlebars, so new-fangled, namby-pamby cable operated
> front derailers were introduced, where you only had to reach to the top of the down tube.
>
> You might think this wasn't a big deal, just another choice--but just _try_ to find a lever type
> front derailer anymore! The Evil Parts Cartel has conspired to remove this wonderfully simple
> option from the marketplace and to force us all to use their Rube-Goldbergesque remote-controlled
> front derailers instead. Harumpf! Bah! Pfooey!

Thank God I stocked up! Nobody is getting my rod-operated FDs unless they pry them from my cold dead
hands! -- Jay Beattie.
 
"Sheldon Brown" wrote:
> Back in the early '50s, front derailers wern't cable operated. The rider had to reach down to
> the _seat_ tube and push a lever sideways to shift. This was a perfectly satisfactory system for
> any Real Cyclist. There was only one moving part, no cables to stretch, a great system,
> elegantly simple!

Hmm. Maybe Lance would use something like that on the mountain stages. Perhaps some entrepreneur
will design a modern version of this elegant shifter. April is coming...

Art Harris
 
Sheldon Brown wrote:
>
> **** Durbin wrote:
> >
> >> In another thread, Jobst Brandt postulated: "Fear of riding with only one hand on the bars got
> >> us away from downtube shifters...."
> >>
> >> Is that why most folks went to STI or Ergo shifters? Safety was not a consideration in my
> >> switch. I was just looking to be able to shift more quickly.
> >>
> >> I am wondering if other riders share Jobst's opinion on the reason that most riders switched to
> >> STI or Ergo shifters.
>
> Back in the early '50s, front derailers wern't cable operated. The rider had to reach down to
> the _seat_ tube and push a lever sideways to shift. This was a perfectly satisfactory system for
> any Real Cyclist. There was only one moving part, no cables to stretch, a great system,
> elegantly simple!
>
> However, by the late '50s, the sport had been overrun with newbies and poseurs who were scared to
> get their hands that far away from the handlebars, so new-fangled, namby-pamby cable operated
> front derailers were introduced, where you only had to reach to the top of the down tube.
>
> You might think this wasn't a big deal, just another choice--but just _try_ to find a lever type
> front derailer anymore! The Evil Parts Cartel has conspired to remove this wonderfully simple
> option from the marketplace and to force us all to use their Rube-Goldbergesque remote-controlled
> front derailers instead. Harumpf! Bah! Pfooey!
>
> Carapace Completed Umber St. Petersburg, Florida

My translation:

JB is a chickenshit a-a-a-a-scared rider with his DT shifters. Pfooey indeed!

> +----------------------------------------------------------+
> | The people who live in a Golden Age usually go around | complaining how yellow everything
> | looks. | -- Randall Jarrell |
> +----------------------------------------------------------+

Nicely chosen, sir. Wouldn't it be more simple to just walk?
 
Carapace Umber wrote:
>
> **** Durbin wrote:
> >
> >> In another thread, Jobst Brandt postulated: "Fear of riding with only one hand on the bars got
> >> us away from downtube shifters...."
> >>
> >> Is that why most folks went to STI or Ergo shifters? Safety was not a consideration in my
> >> switch. I was just looking to be able to shift more quickly.
> >>
> >> I am wondering if other riders share Jobst's opinion on the reason that most riders switched to
> >> STI or Ergo shifters.
>
> Back in the early '50s, front derailers wern't cable operated. The rider had to reach down to
> the _seat_ tube and push a lever sideways to shift. This was a perfectly satisfactory system for
> any Real Cyclist. There was only one moving part, no cables to stretch, a great system,
> elegantly simple!
>
> However, by the late '50s, the sport had been overrun with newbies and poseurs who were scared to
> get their hands that far away from the handlebars, so new-fangled, namby-pamby cable operated
> front derailers were introduced, where you only had to reach to the top of the down tube.
>
> You might think this wasn't a big deal, just another choice--but just _try_ to find a lever type
> front derailer anymore! The Evil Parts Cartel has conspired to remove this wonderfully simple
> option from the marketplace and to force us all to use their Rube-Goldbergesque remote-controlled
> front derailers instead. Harumpf! Bah! Pfooey!
>
> You might think this wasn't a big deal, just another choice--but just _try_ to find a lever type
> front derailer anymore! The Evil Parts Cartel has conspired to remove this wonderfully simple
> option from the marketplace and to force us all to use their Rube-Goldbergesque remote-controlled
> front derailers instead. Harumpf! Bah! Pfooey!

Back in the early '20s, there were no front derailers. The rider had to reach down to the chain and
pick up the chain to shift. This was a perfectly satisfactory system for any Real Cyclist. There
were no moving parts, no cables to stretch, a great system, elegantly simple!

However, by the late '30s, the sport had been overrun with newbies and poseurs who were scared to
get their hands dirty from the chain, so new-fangled, namby-pamby Rube-Goldbergesque lever type
front derailers were introduced, where you only had to move a lever to shift.

You might think this wasn't a big deal, just another choice--but just _try_ to find a bike without a
front derailer anymore! The Evil Parts Cartel has conspired to force us all to use their
Rube-Goldbergesque front derailers instead. Harumpf! Bah! Pfooey!
--
Marten
 
"Jay Beattie" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<[email protected]>...
> "Meccanico di Bici" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
> > This ain't ancient history, for chrisakes! It was just over ten years ago. MOST RBT posters were
> > around ten years ago, dontchyathink?
>
> And you know what, I can't remember a single STI ad. All I remember is the big hub-bub about STI
> showing up in the TDF and then in local races. Some tattooed youth on my team got a set and
> couldn't shut up about them. He loved to slap it into a small cog and do the throw-the-bike-around
> sprint thing. Not very efficient, but sure looked impressive. -- Jay Beattie.

What I remember most was how freakin' expensive the damn things were! It was like $700 or $800 for
a set of Dura-Ace STI ( weren't they sold only as a set with dual pivot calipers at first? ). Few
of us slackers could afford them, nor would we risk crashing them out for some silly prime at a
local crit.

As you point out, they were, by their introduction into racing as a high end racing component, aimed
at the experianced cyclist, those of us "geezers" who used to reach off our bars to shift, drink,
scratch, flip the bird, etc. all the time. Not sure how it was determined by some to have been
introduced as a way for beginner cyclists to keep their hands on the bars?? It may have evolved into
that, but it certainly didn't start out that way. --Jim
 
On Sun, 19 Jan 2003 06:04:09 GMT, "Jay Beattie" <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>"Sheldon Brown" <[email protected]> wrote:
>> You might think this wasn't a big deal, just another choice--but just _try_ to find a lever type
>> front derailer anymore! The Evil Parts Cartel has conspired to remove this wonderfully simple
>> option from the marketplace and to force us all to use their Rube-Goldbergesque remote-controlled
>> front derailers instead. Harumpf! Bah! Pfooey!
>
>Thank God I stocked up! Nobody is getting my rod-operated FDs unless they pry them from my cold
>dead hands! -- Jay Beattie.
>

Jay Beattie - the online screen name for Jacques Trois-Digités.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - http://www.businesscycles.com John Dacey Business Cycles
Miami, Florida
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Now in our twentieth year. Our catalogue of track equipment: seventh
year online
 
Benjamin Lewis wrote:
> Carapace Completed Umber wrote:
>
>> You might think this wasn't a big deal, just another choice--but just _try_ to find a lever type
>> front derailer anymore! The Evil Parts Cartel has conspired to remove this wonderfully simple
>> option from the marketplace and to force us all to use their Rube-Goldbergesque remote-controlled
>> front derailers instead. Harumpf! Bah! Pfooey!
>
> I'm sure that Sheldon guy still stocks them.

If not Rivendell will have some in.

--
Andy Morris

AndyAtJinkasDotFreeserve.Co.UK

Love this: Put an end to Outlook Express's messy quotes
http://home.in.tum.de/~jain/software/oe-quotefix/
 
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