Background (may be skipped as it may not be fully relevant to answering the question and is quite wordy): I purchased albatross bars for a bike my son and I are repainting and building up for him. While waiting for him to select a frame color, I mounted the albatross bars on my daily commuter (a Surly LHT with riv purchased racks and Rivendell sackville bags). I was running trekking bars with grip shifters, which I liked well-enough for my 16 mile round trip commute, but I found them less comfortable on longer rides. I really like the albatross bars and am considering making them permanent. (I will have to purchase a 2nd pair from Rivendell for my son's bike!) However, my most aggressive riding occurs while I am commuting; it is an urban commute on roads with buses, aggressive commuters and clueless pedestrians. I shift gears excessively on the 7 speed cassette using the gripshifters. I often am quickly index shifting through 6-7 gears as I rapidly approach a stoplight. (I stop at all red lights.) I like to start up from the easiest gear and up/down shift through the gears as needed. Often, I am quickly shifting to keep pace with the traffic. Given the heavy vehicle traffic, I like to maintain as consistent/predictable a presence as possible, which usually requires both hands on the handlebars. I am considering replacing the gripshifts on the albatross bars with Shimano bar-end shifters sold by Rivendell. The grip shifters feel and look a bit strange on the Albatross bars--though they work fine. However, I have never used bar-end shifters, only thumb (index), grip (index) and downtube (friction). If you are patiently still reading, here is my question.
Question: For those who use or have used the Shimano bar-end shifters, especially on Albatross bars, how easy is it to index shift rapidly across several gears on the rear cassette? Is it as easy as moving the lever up or down the needed number of clicks? (On my gripshift, index shifting, one click equals one sprocket change on the cassette.) Are the Shimano bar-end shifters durable enough to take somewhat rough handling every day? (I think I have read about a washer cracking easily.) As I mentioned, I ride hard on my commute. I do not mean to insinuate that the shifters are not of good quality, it is just that I am quite hard on my gear when commuting. Hence, the Surly LHT with 26 x 2.35 tires. Specifically I would be using the shifter set compatible with a 6-7-8 speed cassette. As always I appreciate and always benefit from the individual and collective wisdom of this group. I apologize for the wordiness of this post. Many thanks, Erl -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en-US. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
