On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 20:00:12 +0000, RBrickston wrote:
> Forget these naysayers and proponents of non-brifters. They will argue
> this subject to the death like the old Mac-PC wars. Forget all the
> breakage talk
Go right ahead and nail your colors to the mast, why don't you?
> you'll notice that 90% of the road bikes out there are
> brifter equipped.
Actually, no. The figure is much lower than that, because there an awful
lot of road bikes still on the road from those antediluvian times when men
were men (and women were, too) and one had to move one's hand to the
downtube to make a shift.
Almost all new road bikes are sold with brifters, but that's a supply-side
thing, I think.
>I'd go 8 speed and use the beefier 105's or better,
> you can find them used off of eBay if your LBS can't find them.
Probably not a bad idea, if you're upgrading to brifters anyway. However,
there are Sora 7 brifters out there.
>
> Bottom line: You will be very happy with a brifter set up and never look
> back. Even if you have to upgrade to an 8 speed and the 105's, it's
> worth it.
I'm looking back. Brifters are nice--the shifters are right there at
hand, which is good. Shifting is easy when everything works nicely. But
my main complaint with my Sora brifters is that the front indexing seems
to be a bit touchy. I'm constantly having to fiddle with cable/housing
tension to get the front shifts right. It's particularly annoying when it
goes out of adjustment and I miss shifts on the front rings while in heavy
traffic. It's downright scary when I manage to *throw the chain* in heavy
traffic.
I didn't have this sort of problem when I was running friction shifters.
In fact, one thing I miss about friction shifting is the ability to trim
my front derailleur. The Sora brifters do not permit me to do this.
Also, Shimano brifters assume that you will use certain "standard"
chainrings. In my case, I've got a Sora triple setup, which is 52/42/32.
If I decide to change my crank to a more sensible (for me) 48/38/28, the
whole system would need to be replaced. There went my bike budget for the
year.
Best of both worlds, I suppose, would be Campagnolo Ergopower, which
doesn't index the front shifter. But that's pricey, and would mean
changing my rear derailleur as well.
So in the medium term, I'm thinking of ditching brifters and going to
barcons. Indexing is great in the back, but I'm not so impressed with it
in the front.
-Luigi
a rather young retrogrouch?
--
Luigi de Guzman
http://ouij.livejournal.com