3 ms·
I'm old enough to ride with downtube shifters too, have for close to 20 years, do so roughly every day including for the past several years in a hilly city wher
by topaz0 1y ago
I'm old enough to ride with downtube shifters too, have for close to 20 years, do so roughly every day including for the past several years in a hilly city where I shift a lot, and I could not stand the brief stint (~year) I did with slow, unwieldy brake-lever shifters. I had to adjust those way more often and more precisely than I adjust my friction shifters, too.
- stonogo 1y agoI was never sold on those shifters either. Mechanically indexed shifting in general never really was fantastic enough to justify all the additional finicky fine-tuning required for it to work well. But electric shifting is a whole separate ballpark; it's self-adjusting, prevents cross-chaining, etc. It's set and forget except charging it every few weeks. It's like the difference between carburetors and modern fuel injection. Some people like to spend all their time playing with jets; I'd rather be driving the car.