Thomas: One of my touring buds (with decades of experience) has 9 speed STI on both his go-fast (a 20 year old, lugged steel custom Lighthouse) and his REI Randonnee touring bike, both with triples. Both function perfectly. He recently fitted the Lighthouse with a wide(r) range cassette to get a 32 low. Amazingly, the Ultegra RD handles it fine.
Personally, I'm a bar end guy that's always on the trailing edge of any technology. The only downside I can see to STI (except the cost) is damaging one on tour outside of North America or Europe. I rode a rental bike for a week with 10 speed STI and a road triple. The system worked perfectly. I did get a bit tired of shifting multiple times to get by all the 1 tooth jumps in back, but that's due to the mfgs choice of cogs, not the shifters. dougP On Sep 13, 3:16 pm, Thomas Lynn Skean <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi, all. > > My general experience is that indexing works very, very well. But my > experience has been almost entirely with SL-BS64 (Ultegra) 8-speed shifters > (the "bar-con", sometimes bar-end but sometimes on thumbies) with a 7-speed > IRD freewheel. I've also used SL-BS64 shifters with Shimano-patible 8-speed > cassettes. And I've used such cassettes with Alivio and Altus brifters. > Shifting performance is uniformly excellent. Not racy fast. But very stable > and very effective (i.e. stays in alignment, hits the gear virtually every > time, lands in very good alignment (no chattering in back)). > > Does anybody here use other modern index "arrangements", like STI or higher > numbers of cogs or other brifters? If so, are those systems more "finicky"? > Like, do they require regular re-alignment? miss gears? seem hard to > control? shift slowly? > > I see the quiet/smooth/engaging/moral appeal of Silver (and presumably some > other) friction shifters. > > So far, though, I don't see a significant "practical" or "functional" reason > to pursue friction shifting other than addressing/anticipating compatibility > or rare mechanical issues. Anybody have one? > > Yours, > Thomas Lynn Skean > who will maintain at least one friction cockpit, for True Joy and > compatibility/mechanical issues -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
