4 ms·

I disagree, I find chain and derailleurs to be annoying and unreliable in the worst way. I'll grant them their crown of efficiency, but I hope to see more refin

I disagree, I find chain and derailleurs to be annoying and unreliable in the worst way. I'll grant them their crown of efficiency, but I hope to see more refined CVTs. I currently have a bike with a NuVinci and I strongly prefer the way it functions over the clunky must-be-pedalling shifts of a derailleur. As an added benefit the system is contained, presumably hardening it against damage and reducing maintenance.

potta_coffee 4y ago
I have 30 year old derailleurs with thousands of miles on them that are still going strong. I don't really understand the reliability complaint here.
asdff 4y ago
How do you find it unreliable? I put a couple thousand miles on mine a year and it sits outside. Occasionally it gets hit with wd40 then lube and a rag. That's all I do with this thing. I don't get all the complaints from people on the fiddling with derailleurs. I've never had to fiddle despite years of riding. Just some shimano components mostly 105 and ultegra but nothing special or too new. I'm still riding 2x8 actually. Maybe the fewer rear gears leads to fewer issues with alignment? I do find that I can shift into any of the rear cogs easily with either front cogs, very permissive groupset to being in the wrong gear at the wrong time too and sloppily finding another one (a lot of chaos sharing the road). Maybe I'm just not attuned enough to feel when the gearing is going out though.
- thghtihadanacct 4y ago
  I think the key is matching up the right parts. I ride with a 1x11 mid grade set up that was made for each other and after dialing it in I have no issues either.
  - skeeter2020 4y ago
    Today's mid and even sub-mid tier Shimano drivetrains are an amazing combination of performance, reliability and price. 4-piston disc brakes are also fantastic and suspension forks are great too. There's a lot of BS in bike manufacturing (ex: new standards) and carbon frames need a serious rethink but bikes today rock!
- brnaftr361 4y ago
  Maybe I've just had bad luck, but two of the bikes I've had have come apart. The derailleur gets misaligned for whatever reason. One of them I had to take to a shop because despite extensive experiment I could not get it to properly align, and I don't know that they did either. The other was perhaps just old - an '80's era steel frame road bike from a Sears catalogue I donated to a repair shop, and it eventually got exploded for parts. I suspect the third would've succumbed to the same fate. It may just be me mishandling them, but if they can't handle this style they're not fit to ride. :cool: Also I hate dropping gears in the middle of an intersection.
  - bagels 4y ago
    They got a lot better if you were buying quality bikes (not department store bikes) in the 2000s. I have a road bike that has 20k miles that never needed shifting adjustments besides replacing worn out chainrings and chains.
    - brnaftr361 4y ago
      I busted a Kona Splice's drive train, started ghost shifting and I couldn't figure out how to get it adjusted. I had a Cannondale that I never had problems with but it didn't get used a lot. Maybe it's hopping curbs? Can't be helped here, the roads just aren't designed for bike commuting and everybody has a lifted 3/4 ton they can't fineagle into their garage. It's lovely.
      - downut 4y ago
        "Maybe it's hopping curbs?" Can't see how that would affect the shifting, but if you are graceless you can beat up the wheels enough to cause them to get out of true. If you have my wheelsets, 32 spoke 3x on HED Belgium Plus rims that I built myself, you can hop curbs all you like. I do, and I ride non-technical dirt too. As for shifting, I've been riding for 45 years and have never had a problem with manual shifting, from the dark ages 5x2 speed to my current 9x3, 10x2 and 11x2 rides. Frankly I am happily shocked at the precision and durability of my newest bike, the 11x2, given the narrowness of the chain. After 2.5 years of 3x weekly 3000' climbing, including some dirt, riding through the winter, and the drive train is dirty, no missed shifts and no noise. Amazing. I would never have guessed that.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  They are reliable enough but not exactly perfect. It’s pretty common to have the chain slip off. Even on a well adjusted setup the chain can still slip sometimes. It’s just acceptable because it’s easy to pull back on. But if it was a deeply internal part like on a car, it wouldn’t be acceptable
  - jjav 4y ago
    > They are reliable enough but not exactly perfect. It’s pretty common to have the chain slip off. It should not be common for a chain to slip off, something is wrong. The something may just be parts quality. Derailers are a case of getting what you pay for. The cheapest ones are junk and will never shift well. My partner bought a bottom quality bike with no-name shifters and it has never shifted correctly from day one. It does also drop the chain. No amount of aligning will get it to shift well. In contrast my 18 years old mountain bike with Shimano XTR derailers has always shifted perfectly and still does. Bike derailers is one area where it's definitely worth it to go for top of the line components and never worry about it again. Low quality components will make you hate they money you saved every single time you attempt to shift.

potta_coffee 4y ago

I have 30 year old derailleurs with thousands of miles on them that are still going strong. I don't really understand the reliability complaint here.

asdff 4y ago

How do you find it unreliable? I put a couple thousand miles on mine a year and it sits outside. Occasionally it gets hit with wd40 then lube and a rag. That's all I do with this thing. I don't get all the complaints from people on the fiddling with derailleurs. I've never had to fiddle despite years of riding. Just some shimano components mostly 105 and ultegra but nothing special or too new. I'm still riding 2x8 actually. Maybe the fewer rear gears leads to fewer issues with alignment? I do find that I can shift into any of the rear cogs easily with either front cogs, very permissive groupset to being in the wrong gear at the wrong time too and sloppily finding another one (a lot of chaos sharing the road). Maybe I'm just not attuned enough to feel when the gearing is going out though.

thghtihadanacct 4y ago
I think the key is matching up the right parts. I ride with a 1x11 mid grade set up that was made for each other and after dialing it in I have no issues either.
- skeeter2020 4y ago
  Today's mid and even sub-mid tier Shimano drivetrains are an amazing combination of performance, reliability and price. 4-piston disc brakes are also fantastic and suspension forks are great too. There's a lot of BS in bike manufacturing (ex: new standards) and carbon frames need a serious rethink but bikes today rock!
brnaftr361 4y ago
Maybe I've just had bad luck, but two of the bikes I've had have come apart. The derailleur gets misaligned for whatever reason. One of them I had to take to a shop because despite extensive experiment I could not get it to properly align, and I don't know that they did either. The other was perhaps just old - an '80's era steel frame road bike from a Sears catalogue I donated to a repair shop, and it eventually got exploded for parts. I suspect the third would've succumbed to the same fate. It may just be me mishandling them, but if they can't handle this style they're not fit to ride. :cool: Also I hate dropping gears in the middle of an intersection.
- bagels 4y ago
  They got a lot better if you were buying quality bikes (not department store bikes) in the 2000s. I have a road bike that has 20k miles that never needed shifting adjustments besides replacing worn out chainrings and chains.
  - brnaftr361 4y ago
    I busted a Kona Splice's drive train, started ghost shifting and I couldn't figure out how to get it adjusted. I had a Cannondale that I never had problems with but it didn't get used a lot. Maybe it's hopping curbs? Can't be helped here, the roads just aren't designed for bike commuting and everybody has a lifted 3/4 ton they can't fineagle into their garage. It's lovely.
    - downut 4y ago
      "Maybe it's hopping curbs?" Can't see how that would affect the shifting, but if you are graceless you can beat up the wheels enough to cause them to get out of true. If you have my wheelsets, 32 spoke 3x on HED Belgium Plus rims that I built myself, you can hop curbs all you like. I do, and I ride non-technical dirt too. As for shifting, I've been riding for 45 years and have never had a problem with manual shifting, from the dark ages 5x2 speed to my current 9x3, 10x2 and 11x2 rides. Frankly I am happily shocked at the precision and durability of my newest bike, the 11x2, given the narrowness of the chain. After 2.5 years of 3x weekly 3000' climbing, including some dirt, riding through the winter, and the drive train is dirty, no missed shifts and no noise. Amazing. I would never have guessed that.
Gigachad 4y ago
They are reliable enough but not exactly perfect. It’s pretty common to have the chain slip off. Even on a well adjusted setup the chain can still slip sometimes. It’s just acceptable because it’s easy to pull back on. But if it was a deeply internal part like on a car, it wouldn’t be acceptable
- jjav 4y ago
  > They are reliable enough but not exactly perfect. It’s pretty common to have the chain slip off. It should not be common for a chain to slip off, something is wrong. The something may just be parts quality. Derailers are a case of getting what you pay for. The cheapest ones are junk and will never shift well. My partner bought a bottom quality bike with no-name shifters and it has never shifted correctly from day one. It does also drop the chain. No amount of aligning will get it to shift well. In contrast my 18 years old mountain bike with Shimano XTR derailers has always shifted perfectly and still does. Bike derailers is one area where it's definitely worth it to go for top of the line components and never worry about it again. Low quality components will make you hate they money you saved every single time you attempt to shift.