Thanks for the details, Michael - nice write up. I had given up on anything over 8 speed with friction a while ago. If I ever come into a short cage derailler, I may try again. I'm on index at this point with the shimano shifters and haven't thought about it, but I certainly appreciate the feel of friction more. Nice easy shifting without the annoying "clunk" of index.
Brian Seattle, WA On Sat, Aug 25, 2012 at 4:46 AM, Michael Hechmer <[email protected]> wrote: > Out riding on my Rambouillet yesterday, which has Silver DT shifters, I > got a ghost shift. This happens rarely, every 35-50 miles or so, enough > that I usually just chalk it up to user error. But this time I got to > thinking about why this works so well for me while others have so much > difficulty. > > I have four bikes with Silver shifters, my Ram and old racing bike have DT > shifters, and two touring bikes, an Ebisu and an old Trek have BE shifters. > I realized that I do seem to have some more issues with the touring bikes, > ghost shifts every 10-15 miles. This is annoying, but not enough for me to > want to give up either 9 speed or friction. For a long time I thought the > difference seemed to be in where the shifters were located and wondered if > I got more cable stretch, and noticed that the BEs have a tendency to > loosen the D ring a bit. But yesterday I realized that the placement of > the shifters has nothing to do with the difference in performance. > > To make 9 speed friction work I always use good cassettes, good chains > and good deraillers. All four bikes have hi end cassettes and conex 908 > chains, kept clean and replaced when needed. The difference in > performance that I am seeing is in the derailler. The two bikes with DT > shifters have compact doubles and relatively short range deraillers - > Ultegra 6700, which is a short cage derailler designed for CDs & the > standard 6600 derailler designed (I think) for 29 teeth. Both of these > work well across the 31 & 29 teeth of the two bikes. The touring bikes > have triple cranks and a 38 tooth range, which of course requires a > derailler with a much longer cage. I use the Ultegra racing triple > derailler on one and a mid length Centaur on the other. These cages are > much shorter than the mt bike deraillers, like the XT, and very long cage > Centaur, which are designed for 45 teeth or more. It seems obvious to me > as I think about it that as the cage gets longer the possibility of > mis-allignment gets greater, which is what causes ghost shifts. > > So, it looks to me, that to make friction work well with 9 speed the bike > should have good components and the shortest cage that will work with the > gear range needed. I have found that the mid range deraillers will handle > my set up (48/34/26 & 12-28) with some occasional failures. I expect that > riders who want an even wider range will have increased ghost shifts if > they use friction. > > Michael > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rbw-owners-bunch/-/xkgqZl_fDwQJ. > 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. > -- 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.
