Swap meet find: Mavic mountain bike shift levers. Now what?



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Jeff Wills

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I found a set of Mavic mountain bike shift levers at the swap meet yesterday. I *think* they're
model 840. These are the under-handlebar mount with the "Y" shaped lever. The left lever is friction
while the right lever is index-only. There's ten detents in the right shift lever.

I did some searching in the archives and found some references to hooking Mavic shift levers to
Shimano derailleurs. Nothing definitive, though. Can anybody clue me in as to whether this is
possible? Shimano 7-speed or 8-speed? Or should I string these on fishing line and use 'em for
wind chimes?

Jeff
 
Jeff Wills wrote:

> I found a set of Mavic mountain bike shift levers at the swap meet yesterday. I *think* they're
> model 840. These are the under-handlebar mount with the "Y" shaped lever. The left lever is
> friction while the right lever is index-only. There's ten detents in the right shift lever.
>
> I did some searching in the archives and found some references to hooking Mavic shift levers to
> Shimano derailleurs. Nothing definitive, though. Can anybody clue me in as to whether this is
> possible? Shimano 7-speed or 8-speed? Or should I string these on fishing line and use 'em for
> wind chimes?

Those are great! They'll work with either 7 or 8 speed, and probably even
9. This is because they're not true indexing shifters -- they're a ratchet design, like an old
Suntour downtube shifter. There are several clicks per gear, rather than one big one. It might
seem imprecise, but in practice it works very well -- you quickly get a feel for just how much
to move the lever. Even though thumbshifters had true indexing, the Mavic wishbones had an edge
in ergonomics, so in practice they were better. I rode with them for awhile before Rapidfire
Plus came out -- the original push-push Rapidfire were ****, and thumbshifters very poor
ergonomically. I preferred the Mavics to either.

Matt O.
 
Matt O'Toole <[email protected]> wrote in message
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>
> Those are great! They'll work with either 7 or 8 speed, and probably even
> 9. This is because they're not true indexing shifters -- they're a ratchet design, like an old
> Suntour downtube shifter. There are several clicks per gear, rather than one big one. It might
> seem imprecise, but in practice it works very well -- you quickly get a feel for just how much
> to move the lever.

Well, bloody heck... I grew up with friction shifters, so I guess these are just as good. It's
weird- they have really distinct clicks on the right shifter and what feels like a retro-friction
shifter on the left. I guess I'll have to bolt them on and try them out.

Jeff
 
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