In my personal experience over almost 20 years of riding, I have so rarely had to fiddle with mechanical shifting that it makes me wonder if I’ve just been very lucky all these years. I also work in a bike shop part time and for the most part, unless a groupset has been abused or it was suuuuuuper cheap to begin with, cables have never been much of a problem.
But electronic is definitely the future and I’m not yelling at clouds about it. I’ve just never found that it has enhanced my riding experience in any way.
They introduced a product line that they felt matched the needs and riding styles of the target demographic.
You called it inferior. Designing a mechanism different than than all their other shifters takes time and money. Eventually they realized their folly and Sora’s shifters got the same mechanism as everything else, especially given that Doubletap appeared around that time.
Sora was never intended to be a racing group.
College students are poor and would often show up to team rides and then find themselves interested in racing.
As a guy who was actually spec’ing road bikes at the time, I can say with pretty high confidence that they did a good job, too.
They had literally no competition in the American LBS (and probably most of the world) at the time, so they were winning by default.
Yet every other integrated road group in existence covers that additional hand position for shifting. There’s no way shimano developed those thumb shifters for a demographic because they thought they would like them better or find them more ergonomic than the rest of the groups. All this talk of design criteria is irrelevant because it was purely driven by cost. Seems like you bought their reps justifications for it and still do to this day.
I thought it as to make Campag look bad with an inferior design?
I mean, what do I know…I was only working in Product Development in the bike industry, spec’ing the actual product and developing bikes for the target demographic…doing the actual work. I’m sure you are right.
…I was only working in Product Development in the bike industry, spec’ing the actual product and developing bikes for the target demographic…doing the actual work. I’m sure you are right.
I would think you would offer a more cogent argument then.
Wow, times have changed. Shimano 600 was typical and you hardly see any 105 for more than one or two “club” rides (typical duration of their participation too). Everyone on my collegiate team was from better off families. Your “dentists” types (right of the distribution curve). I was the only one on Pell grant in a public university.
It does not appear that you know what that fallacy actually means.
If you offer up your character as an argument, it’s not ad hominem to dismiss that argument as invalid because you were committing a different fallacy (appeal to authority).
Ad hominem in standard form is essentially “Joe is wrong because he is an idiot.”
And while we’re doing this, appeal to authority in this case is “I’m correct because I know what I’m talking about.”
Did some searching and this is actually a common opinion:
I have my suspicions that this design may have been chosen not just for economy, but as a shot at Campagnolo, implying that thumb levers were low-end, and placing it in an even more difficult place to reach from the drops than Campagnolo, subtly implying to the consumer than thumb tabs and by extension Campagnolo were inferior and difficult to use.
That worked well… not! I had both campag and Sh1tmano Sora and the only thing it said too me that Sh1tmano was low end and couldn’t engineer things right.
Off topic but - First let me say that I know newer performance oriented automatic transmissions are faster than rowing your own. That being said I could have gotten my car with paddle shifters and DSG but opted for the manual 6 because I thought I would just drive the “automatic” as if it was just an automatic and never actually use the fun parts. Do you use the paddles now that you’ve had the car for a while?
It’s my wife’s AMG Benz. She does not use them or the other fun features like what they call Race Start launch-control function. When I do get to take it out for a spin by myself I do play race car driver.
Funny story behind this car. During the big freeze in Texas some rats got into her old MB suv. On the way in to the dealer some dash lights came on. The dealer found big issues. Ended up the rats totaled the car. The dealer had some slightly used cars on the lot and of course she asked my what I thought would be the best one. So…, she went from SUV to AMG , something a bit ( hahaha) more sporty. Never ask a Ducati rider what car you should buy.
Decided on sticking with mechanical for the now and near future.
I plug in too much stuff in my life. I plug in my toothbrush!! and for me the main appeal of biking is the whole concept of my body getting me from one place to another way faster than walking.
I see electronic shifting as a blessing for anyone phycically limited and a no brainer for anyone racing pro. I think the value is there for the price…but it is just not my thing for now.
Thanks for starting this thread @genefish, I learned a few things:
Mechanical shifting is a 1:1 travel ratio of movement between the shifter ratchet and Derailleurs. FD changes need a longer travel; RD is specific to the number of cogs/space between them since cassettes are essentially a fixed width. Using direct pull cables vs decoupled mechanics is more clear now.
12-spd its with smaller spacing between cogs makes this problem worse and more prone to shifting errors (tolerance) - this could be where mechanical just isn’t precise enough with modern frames with internal routing and bending cables thru headsets; electric removes this.
RD mech are index-dependent on the shifter ratchet; motorized have the cog location steps pre-programmed and adjustable on-the-fly (0-255).
Shimano Di2 shifters have 4 buttons, each with a dedicated UP/DN function; SRAM with only its two multi-function buttons needs to wait on us humans to decide if we wanted the RD up/dn or FD binary change - thus the added perceived delay. Credit @grwoolf for mentioning this ‘ah-ha’ moment above.
FWIW I’m still running 8-spd Claris/Tektro on my AL bike and cleaned/aligned/tuned it works for me. I still waste far too much time pondering 1X, AXS, Di2, hydro brakes but come back to what’s actually needed for the tame riding I do. Nothing wrong with deciding to stick with stock (for now) and improve later.
True this. That is why I’d recommend that anyone that doesn’t have to buy electric shifting, probably shouldn’t.
And as for ‘hung shifts’, I’ve had a few, where the derailleur just doesn’t make it to the end of the shift. On Di2. It happens rarely, but DOES happen. I keep hoping it doesn’t go into crash mode or something…
Sure it happens more with mechanical, but it does happen with Di2 as well.
But why did I want Di2? I rode a Domaine on a Trek Trip, and it had middle aged Di2, and it worked really well. Like really well. I was impressed, and thought that any high end bike I got would almost have to have it, and it does. (Trek offered their ‘gently used bikes’ after the year, and that’s another story)
It has been great. I have found the battery down quite a bit so I am using it. It has had missed/hung shifts, but not many. Would I buy it again? On this same bike, heck yeah. It was expensive, but not excessively, and it just works. Plus I can log the rides shifting on my Edge and see the data (if it ever matters). #MoreDataisnotUsableData…
I do and thought itd be a game changer but I just couldn’t get on with the sameness of the buttons to the touch, as oppose to distinct swinging of a sti brake lever or pushing the more separate button behind it. I’m only going on week long Di2 hires though and I think you reprogram it to be more like Etape and I think more intuitive. Fortunately, I’m getting more feeling back in my fingers and instead of scribbling like a 5year old I write like a 6 year old now
