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Nobody’s mention the joy of trimming your mechs for silent running on the move.
Why are thumb shifters so prized in the retrobike community?
- Thread starter retrobiker273891
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MattiThundrrr
Kona Fan
Aech
GT Fan
If you set up your mechs properly in the first place the indexing just works and you can enjoy the ride. Personally I welcomed the demise of thumb shifters and the improvement that rapidfire shifting brought to cycling. When your bouncing around on the gnarly stuff getting a perfect gear change every time is important.
I had thumb shifters on my early bikes and preferred them in friction mode as the indexing never worked reliably for me, but worst problem with them was you couldn't keep a good grip on the bar and change gear.
Mind you not all the 2 lever gear shift sets were a good idea, I particularly hated the combined brake & gear setups as it stopped you upgrading your brakes without also having to buy new gear shifts as well.
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Judgy
pwebb
Retro Guru
Design never bettered , a bit like the handbrake in older cars, should never have been replaced with less reliable and irritatingly over engineered automatic handbrake switch that is apparently there to ease uniformity between RHD and LHD and to save space and cost. I miss proper manual handbrakes as much as I miss thumbshifters when I ride one of the half dozen or so bikes I have with rapidfire or easy fire
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Feeling you got something for nothing when you use 6 with 7 and 7 with 8.
Set up properly of course.
Thumbs nose.
Set up properly of course.
Thumbs nose.
benjabbi
Bontrager Fan
Nostalgia innit. That and the earliest rapidfire were a bit shit. My very first upgrade bitd was getting shot of the 200GS crap on my MBK.
I went with Exage ES rapidfire plus, I still have a set and they work great, much better than the prior efforts.
Thumbies are fine, I prefer the Suntour variant to Shimano though, lighter action and simpler internals.
If forced to stick with one shifter for ever though I'd pick M950 XTR, that's when they really nailed it in my opinion.
I went with Exage ES rapidfire plus, I still have a set and they work great, much better than the prior efforts.
Thumbies are fine, I prefer the Suntour variant to Shimano though, lighter action and simpler internals.
If forced to stick with one shifter for ever though I'd pick M950 XTR, that's when they really nailed it in my opinion.
bikeworkshop
Senior Retro Guru
A rapidfire+ shifter has a ratchet and spring working both ways, so as you introduce more and more gears onto the back, the rapidfire makes more and more sense.
A thumbshifter is simple and functional on 5 and 6, whereas a rapidfire is overcomplex-
but at 7, its neck and neck.
A thumbshifter is simple and functional on 5 and 6, whereas a rapidfire is overcomplex-
but at 7, its neck and neck.
MattiThundrrr
Kona Fan
There's not a lot of voices singing the praises of gripshift...
Black_puma
GT Fan
I remember the 200GS that came fitted on my 1991 Trek Antelope 820 bitd, not impressed by the function or looks of those shifters/ levers combo. The bike was kitted out with a full 200GS groupset and it was a bike I was not sad to get rid of!
