Why so big love for thumbie, and little for gripshift.

[Rich Aitch]

The rear changer turns the wrong way for anybody who rode motorbikes before trying gripshift,

I raced MX for 15+ years before I swung a leg over a mountain bike. Your statement made me say "huh?" out loud to myself, as my gear changes were made with my left foot, not my right hand.

If the terrain is too rough to read the numbers then they can't show you what gear they are in- with thumbies you just look at the leaver angle-

I don't need to look at indicators, levers, dials, or my cassette. I know what gear I'm in.

On a motorbike to go faster you twist the throttle towards you. On a gripshift bike you have to twist the gear selector away from you [And pedal faster, as well].

I used to have the feel for gears without looking but now I'm jumping between different bikes too much and due to family, work and community commitments riding far less than I'd like, so that has faded. But don't worry my hatred of gripshift* burns strong and will never fade!

*Note that I have decided that it doesn't deserve a capital letter, even though it is a name!

 

[RockiMtn]

i think some of peoples "one off" comments against them seem to come from blind bias against them. i for one love gripshifts and have x-rays mk1 or mk2 on pretty much all my builds. i even have SRAM Rockets on my 03 RM ETSX-70 and SRAM attacks on the 03 RM Stratos for the missus.

it's so swift and easy to roll through gears, i can't see how it could be simpler and intuitive. even more so than how people claim thumb shifters work.

one thing i do agree on is the annoyance on how you have to thread and loop the cable to get them set up on a bike, making it troublesome if a cable change is required.

 

[SeeingisBelievingGTMuseum]

Grip Shift = Reverse engineering at its worst. Shimano designed their groups to work as a "group" all drivetrain parts were engineered to work together to offer a best ride scenario. GripShift started by trying to manufacture their shifters to work with other companies product to get a foot in the marketplace. I still feel they would have grabbed more of the market if they'd have done the whole group from the get go and probably would have also been better received by the public. I can assure you that most of those racers signed in the early days by Grip Shift did it for the money not because they thought the product was superior. GripShift had a huge price advantage over Shimano at the OEM specing level. Ket's face it what three or four working parts mostly molded plastic and ruber. Then there were companies like GT that refused to spec GripShift for years. Shimano could have easily stated with any bike wearing GripShift that they would not warranty their product because "it wasn't what they engineered it for".

 

[merckx]

its also very non natural under hand. big and bulky. so you have to cut a grip in half and half your hand is on grip, half on shifter. or you run a full grip and grip shift and then there is no space left on the bars and the shifter is very remote from where your hand is. both are comprimise setups, and both are terrible. you are always twisting the grip, and soon enough, your grips spin on the bar. nasty.

i ran it when it was popular in the early nineties. not for long though, it wasnt for me at all.

 

[Chris]

I had them on my first proper mountain bike but found myself shifting accidentally when pulling hard on the bars like when lofting the front wheel to get over an obstacle or pulling a wheelie

Never use them since.

 

[NeilM]

I went for a walk in a forest once, tripped over a tree stump and really scared myself.

I've never been back into a forest since.

 

[Neil]

I went for a walk in a forest once, tripped over a tree stump and really scared myself.

I've never been back into a forest since.

You do right, then.

I mean, hasn't history shown us the folly of forests? Didn't Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, and Goldilocks all come unstuck due to their blatant lack of self-preservation, in hanging around in forests?

You steer well clear, pay no heed to the nay-sayers, forests are truly dangerous, scary places. If I'm not mistaken, I think it's also the Seven Dwarves' (am I allowed to still call them that, these days?) hood, too.

 

[NeilM]

You do right, then.

I mean, hasn't history shown us the folly of forests? Didn't Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, and Goldilocks all come unstuck due to their blatant lack of self-preservation, in hanging around in forests?

You steer well clear, pay no heed to the nay-sayers, forests are truly dangerous, scary places. If I'm not mistaken, I think it's also the Seven Dwarves' (am I allowed to still call them that, these days?) hood, too.

Exactly, you make my point perfectly.

No, my mind is fixed and there's no convincing me otherwise.

 

[FMJ]

I think it's also the Seven Dwarves' (am I allowed to still call them that, these days?)

Yes. Just don't call them fat.

And it's Dwarfs

And a :facepalm: to all the people in this thread getting into a partisan froth over push bike parts.

 

[Chopper the ex Copper]

I love the concept, but in most cases the execution is dreadful for so many reasons.

That said I wouldn't mind trying the new SRAM XX grip shift system, which looks like some serious engineering has gone into it, but it would be the wrong era for a Retrobike.

I generally favour Shimano kit, but they're not infallible. Positron indexing of the 70's was a laughable concept, desogned to not work at all as an entire groupset,and it was Shimmys insistence 10 years ago that low normal was the future that had hordes of sensible riders defecting to SRAM and that's what gave them their big break. Shimano did back pedal in the face of seriously falling sales but the damage was done on the sense that it had given SRAM the opportunity they needed to become a serious player in all levels of the market place. That was Shimanos cock up, good and proper.