Given my erudition and sagacity it might shock you to study that even I’m not proof against the pernicious pull of the favored tradition, and so it was that I not too long ago discovered myself watching a salacious documentary collection about disgraced hip hop impresario Sean “Puff Daniels” Combs on the “Web Flicks” streaming service, the primary episode of which begins with him using a street bike and questioning the best way to shift it:
Not solely that, however additional to yesterday’s submit, some dialogue ensued concerning the varied deserves and de-merits of sundry bicycle shifter configurations, or one thing. And so, for the edification of Mr. Daniels (ought to he have entry to a pc wherever it’s that he’s at the moment incarcerated), in addition to to hopefully provoke additional arguments amongst my fellow cyclists, a lot of whom base their total identities round which shifters they like to make use of and the place (on the bicycle) they put them, I shall now undertake a certainly not complete survey thereof. [Keep in mind the following is drop bar specific; I don’t care about your “alt” bars, and frankly I resent the term.] So let’s start.
Downtube Shifters
The downtube shifter is the basic street bike configuration, and will be had in each listed and friction varieties. Whereas not probably the most handy (you must attain down to be able to use them) they’re by far the only shifters to put in and preserve, and you may even do a whole bicycle cockpit transplant with out having to a lot as contact your drivetrain, permitting you to rework a racing bike into an upright commuter in a matter of minutes (see slideshow beneath):
Few new cyclists will even think about downtube shifters, because the prevailing notion appears to be that in the event you try and take away your hand from the bars to be able to shift your bicycle you’ll die, and the bicycle business has no incentive to disabuse shoppers of this. Nevertheless, the actual fact is that you just take away your palms out of your bars to do all children of stuff (drink, test your telephone, attain down the entrance of your shorts and “rummage round within the basement” if you recognize what I imply) so utilizing a downtube shifter isn’t actually a giant deal.
Plus, some configurations even permit you to simply shift each with one hand:
Although the cables do run by the bike’s body, which type of undermines the entire simplicity factor:
However regardless of how they’re configured, downtube shifters are an necessary reminder that cyclists in the present day are coddled, spoiled, entitled “woosies” who shift their bikes approach an excessive amount of, and if that you must push a much bigger gear for a bit of bit longer since you want each your palms on the bars for some motive then simply suck it up–or possibly simply keep house together with your whale sounds and your grownup coloring books as an alternative:
Bar Finish Shifters
Like downtube shifters they’re mechanically easy and will be both listed or friction, however in contrast to downtube shifters you don’t must take your palms off the bars to make use of them. The cables do preclude instantaneous cockpit swaps just like the one depicted beneath, however regular individuals not often want to do this anyway, so who cares? The one actual downside to a bar finish shifter is that you just’re a bit of extra more likely to bump it by accident whereas using, particularly in the event you’re a Sponeed mannequin with freakish proportions and a wayward knee:
Mixture Shifter/Brake Lever Thingies
Shimano calls them STI, Campagnolo calls them Ergo, SRAM calls them DoubleTap…I say name them something you need, aside from “brifters,” which I don’t like, however you’re going to name them that anyway, aren’t you?
No matter, I hand over.
I really like downtube shifters and I really like bar finish shifters, nevertheless it was throughout for each of them when the built-in shifter got here out, and it’s simple to see why: they’re snug, and so they’re simple to make use of. Nonetheless, they’ve their drawbacks–the apparent one being they restrict your potential to combine and match parts, however the true one being that most individuals shift an excessive amount of and by no means take their palms off them, clutching them always just like the reins of a runaway horse. In a sane world the bar finish shifter would have as an alternative develop into the usual, and other people would nonetheless arrange their bikes so they might truly journey within the drops, however right here we’re.
Built-in shifters additionally made bicycles extra like vehicles, in that the shapes are all the time evolving so now you can date them immediately simply by taking a look at them:
See?
They actually have developed like some organism in nature, haven’t they? Observe how early Campagnolo Ergo levers nonetheless had the vestigial level left over from the place the brake cable used to come back out within the days of non-aero brake levers:
Why was that? In nature it takes era after era of breeding, and bodily options take hundreds and hundreds of years to vanish fully, which is why we nonetheless have tailbones. However why the hell was Campagnolo nonetheless placing factors on prime of brake levers within the late ’90s? Did their engineers’ pencils not have erasers? There’s actually no clarification for it, until they had been truly rising the shifter in a lab. Presumably they mated shifter after shifter over the course of 20 12 months till the purpose lastly grew to become a pommel:
Nevertheless, not all people has the persistence to permit nature to take its course, and a few riders impose their will upon their built-in shifters, with disastrous outcomes:
And sure, there are built-in friction shifters…
…however I’m morally against them and refuse to formally acknowledge them. In reality I could even be extra against them than I’m to digital shifting–which I’ve used, by the best way, because it got here with my erstwhile Renovo:
[Electronic shifting on a wooden bike. How’s that for irony?]
The principle fear with something digital is after all whether or not you’ll have the ability to get components for it sooner or later. At this level the parts on the Renovo can be about eight or 9 years previous, and so far as I can inform the battery at the least seems to be available:
And a really temporary session with a preferred search engine suggests costs are pretty cheap, at the least as higher-end street bike components go:
Nonetheless, I may by no means fairly perceive the purpose of a shifter that you just needed to cost often when as an alternative you possibly can have a virtually similar shifter that labored brilliantly and by no means needed to be charged in any respect.
I give it a 12 months earlier than Growtac comes out with an eletronic built-in friction shifter.
Lastly, there’s another choice, which is not any shifters in any respect:
You actually can’t go improper with that.