Indexed vs friction

mloc123

I was out yesterday on my tri bike and the the rear deraileur was clicking in certain gears, too lazy to fix it I swapped the shifter (7800 bar end) to friction from indexed... and I don't think I will ever go back. Anyone else running friction over indexed... should we dump STI in favour of a down tube mounted friction shifter

rottenhat

I'm still friction shifting. You gain a lot in terms of convenience with integrated shifters but you do lose a bit of flexibility, and there's very little that can go wrong with a downtube or bar-end shifter.

doozerie

I changed to friction on my old road bike a few years back. It was mainly to tackle a mismatch between rear mech and cassette that I lazily never got round to resolving properly. For the first few months it was fine, but I missed the convenience of being able to basically just hit the lever and know that it was going to click solidly into gear. This became more of a problem after my friction levers started losing their (admittedly minimal) friction until they eventually became smooth, and from there things went rapidly downhill and applying pressure on the pedals sometimes caused an involuntary gear change.

Mechanical wear-and-tear issues asides though, friction is fine so long as you don't need to be sure of a quick and reliable gear change, I think, and then indexed wins hands down. I finally "resolved" my bike's gearing issues by converting it to fixed/singlespeed so you may be on a slippery slope yourself

CramCycle

I have friction shifters on my road bike, I just prefer them, no idea why as I can see many problems, but they suit my ad hoc style of bike repair. Also when I change anything on the bike (derailleurs, cassettes etc.) I know they will work perfectly.

penexpers

I use friction too and I don't think I would ever change back to indexed. Good flexibility (can do any speed, really) and good reliability (like rottenhat says very little can go wrong). Also they are cheap as chips (50 euro for the Dura Ace 9 sp model).

niceonetom

STI FTW Granddads.

CramCycle

niceonetom wrote: »

STI FTW Granddads.

Listen here young whipper snapper, sometimes the old ways are the best ways

STI and Ergopower have largely displaced downtube shifting, even though some cyclists still use downtube shifters for various reasons, including less expense, less weight, more flexibility, and better reliability. A compromise is to use bar-end shifters or Barcons. This type places the shifters closer to the hand positions, but still offer a simple reliable system, especially for touring cyclist. Drawbacks to STI and Ergopower systems include the higher weight, the higher price and the failure rate. There are many more parts in an STI or Ergo lever than in a downtube system.

Lumen

There are two types of indexed bar end shifters. The cheaper ones just click through different positions in the normal sweep, the expensive ones work like STIs with return to centre. I'd rather have RTC than friction shifters, as you don't end up with the shifters at funny angles - better for ergonomics and aerodynamics.

As for normal road bike shifting, for remote beardy sandal touring I can see the benefit of downtube shifters, but that's a pretty small niche.

penexpers

Lumen wrote: »

with the shifters at funny angles - better for ergonomics and aerodynamics.

I dunno about funny angles - sometimes it's good to be able to "feel" or "see" what gear you are in by just looking at the shifter (I use bar ends)˙

As for RTC, I wouldn't be a big fan of that. Might as well just go STI in that case. Using bar end friction shifters, I can go from big to small on my cassette with one movement of my little finger.

mloc123

Lumen wrote: »

There are two types of indexed bar end shifters. The cheaper ones just click through different positions in the normal sweep, the expensive ones work like STIs with return to centre. I'd rather have RTC than friction shifters, as you don't end up with the shifters at funny angles - better for ergonomics and aerodynamics.

As for normal road bike shifting, for remote beardy sandal touring I can see the benefit of downtube shifters, but that's a pretty small niche.

I would like some of the SRAM rtc ones but at €350 I would be in no rush

Lumen

mloc123 wrote: »

I would like some of the SRAM rtc ones but at €350 I would be in no rush

They're under £200 now. Bargain!

CramCycle

I got these ones on sale:

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=13649

They were 24euro at the time. My cassette at the time was 8 speed but when I upscaled to a 10 speed I just flicked them to friction and they have worked perfectly ever since, not that I'd ever need Granny gear on the back (well thats a lie but we won't go into that right now).

tomasrojo

I used to have friction shifters, and I found them fine. I guess that you had to develop one skill -- judging how to make a smooth gear shift with a continuous spectrum of chain positions -- but didn't need to develop another -- tuning an indexed system.