Modern 24 Speed Gripshift: Any Good or Avoid?

[CassidyAce]

Due to tendonitis, I usually use Gripshift shifters. I can use trigger shifters but not day in day out without discomfort. And now I'm doing a retromod job and wondering about shifters. I could get some vintage SRT600 and in most respects I'm very happy with the SRT series Gripshift. But they are noisy when shifting: it's a very loud click - loud enough for pedestrians to look round. And, of course, they're retro but not mod. So I was wondering about new 24 speed options but they're all cheap, low end stuff. On the other hand, twist shifters are such a simple, well established piece of equipment, why should they not be cheap?

Anyway, the options seem to be: Shimano Revoshift (i.e. Tourney level :shock: and ugly), SRAM MRX, or something by Sunrace, which look a little better but I've no experience of Sunrace shifters. I'm ruling out Microshift twist shifters because they're just vile.

Has anyone got any experience of any of these shifters? Or should I just put up with the loud clicks and get the vintage SRT600?

Thanks in advance.

 

[mr-mac]

Re:

Still love my X-ray gripshifts and they have never missed a beat...

Means your limited to 24 gear but that’s surely enough. Only reason i’d say to look modern is if ya need 9/10 on rear cassette.

 

[CassidyAce]

Re:

Thank you for the response. My only reason for trying a modern set was curiosity. I found that aside from the SRAM MRX shifters that seem to be a favourite on women's shopper bikes, there are also the SRAM MRX Comp shifters that look much more like the old SRT Gripshift. They got their first run last weekend.

They're light and comfy in the hand. They shift a little more quietly (apart from the left hand shifter when in one direction, and then it is loud). The main gripe is with the indexing on the right hand shifter though. The top end and the bottom end are slightly out of sync with each other: the shifting can be good at the top end or at the bottom end but not both. (This was with a Deore mech that was spot on with the trigger shifters I removed.) The best compromise is getting the bottom end right and then turning slightly too far to get the shifts into the higher gears, but the steps on the shifter are so close that it's easy to shift to 6 to get 5, to 7 to get 6, etc.

Feb 23 Update: I thought that I would give these another go but with new cables (both inners and outers). And the result? Great! Light, easy, precise shifting, both front and rear. However, they're clearly intolerant of grubby cabling, which is not surprising given the smaller spacing between detents.

 

[Captain Stupido]

Re:

Thanks for feeding back. I just bought a nos pair of srt600s for a build so was pleased to hear your findings. There are lots of new gripshifters on the market and it’s often tempting to try them. Some incredibly cheap ones too... You never know...