I love friction shifting. I find the 10 and 11 speed cassettes a real pain to keep properly adjusted. I don't have time for that. Friction shifting solves the problem.
Great job on this topic! I’m riding down tube pure friction Riv silver shifters on my Rando bike, with Sunrace Vx FD and Shimano RD. Works like a charm. I dig friction shifting. The ability to adjust, trim, feather, whatever word you choose by small increments based on sound and feel adds to my overall cycling enjoyment. Also, the simplicity and clean lines that is down tube shifting cables should not go unmentioned.
I have a modern index-shifter for my rear derailleur, but have swapped over to a friction-shifter for my front derailleur (3x8 hybrid bike). Up until now I've never really got on with front derailleurs, and ALWAYS found that the range at the back would cause chain rubbing somehow, somwhere up at the front, no matter how careful I was with the front indexing, As a consequence, over the years I've always been in a hurry to convert to 1x drivetrains. A friction-shifter has eliminated all of that in one go. Why reinvent the wheel? It just feels a lot more intuitive for a front derailleur. In my opinion it still has its place in the modern world, and sits right next to modern hydraulic brakes, air-fork remote lockout, GPS, etc... on my bars. 👍
Later brother . ✌️. Friction shifters on my Cannondale. Rx100 groupset. I love the simplicity of friction and rim brakes. Poor gravel bike with disk crap brakes is on restriction... Great info ,appreciate it.
I just bought a 1982 I think Fuji Monterey. It’s my first friction shifting bike and love it. Shifting is so much smoother I can’t believe I haven’t tried it before.
I just counted. Out of 14 bikes, only 4 don’t have friction shifters and is those are dedicated mountain rigs. My preferred set up is to have them mounted on the stem.
Checking out some of your older videos. All great! I started out in the days of Simplex and Huret friction shifters on godawful French bikes with cottered cranks and Mafac brakes that squealed like a (redacted)! The first index shifters often came with coiled cable housing instead of linear housing, which is why they often worked so poorly. The Mavic downtube friction shifters were much better than their Campy counterparts. These kids these days don't know how good they've got it! Keep the videos coming!
Hi, Chris! Using friction shifting depends on having good hearing. I'm older and my hearing is not good. So I struggle to position the chain properly under the cog, prompting my riding companions to suggest I adjust my rear derailleur. The solution: indexing.
I switched from Shimano bar end on a Paul thumbie to the new Rivendell Silver 2 shifter (1x8, Riv style). I think the Riv shifter feels nicer than the Shimano. I like being able to shift 1,2 or 3 gears at once in friction. You can also tell your current gear by just touching the shifter. That sensation is completing missing from all “modern” shifters except maybe bar ends.
13 years ago I switched back to friction shifting and have not returned back to the index world. I do a lot of commutes to work on my bike, over night rides and many Rando brevets and believe me, friction shifting is the way to go. They are extremely reliable which leaves me with a no worries kind of ride. I love them, they always work, the batteries never die (ha-ha) and any combo of deraileurs will work fine. And drums please.....they are ultra cheap! 😊
I love friction shifting. I used a Riv Silver shifter on my 1x conversion, and put a cap on the other downtube boss. The only problem is that the Riv shifter doesn’t pull quite enough cable to get to the biggest cog on my wide range 10 speed Deore cassette without really jamming it. (I know, it’s not meant for 10 speeds in the first place!). So I’m waiting on a Dyna-Sys compatible Dia Compe shifter with a larger barrel that I bought on eBay. In the meantime, I’m happy just sticking with the 9 speeds I have, and avoiding any of the biggest steep climbs in this area.
The advantage for me is that there is no maintenance and nothing to break. Modern plastic stuff with tiny mass produced components like trigger shifters are prone to go wrong.you can also get indexed versions of the thumb shifters.Old is best still holds out. I think most of it is to make you buy new stuff.
Great info .I have a Specialized sirrus v brake model and have Index shifters.. They're okay, but you made a very good point. I'm being stuck out in the wild. I have a nineteen seventy three varsity with With friction shifting, I'm picking up a continental 60. Something I'm not sure 63 with 26 inch. Rims friction shifting Of course, but my wife has a giant hybrid bike. Which I believe handle shifters? I'm going to see if she likes friction shifting. I think would be cool as hell to put some friction shifters on this on the specialized. And her giant, I love them. Thanks again great vid
I am using a vintage 1987 18 speed (6 X 3) touring bike. It originally was a 1985 Nishiki Seral but in 1987 I bought a frame from Cannondale (back then you could buy frames off Cannondale and not just a complete bike). Anyway I have vintage Suntour friction Bar Cons and for some reason when I switched over to the Cannondale frame, the Suntour Cyclone Mark II GT rear derailleur would not shift up to the 28 tooth cog on the Suntour New Winner freewheel... so I got a Suntour Deore XT for it... which shifts great. With that said, I really think even these cassettes with all their gears are a bit too much. The 11 speed cassettes require a narrower chain which is more prone to breakage... and quite honestly, when you are touring you really aren't going to use the 14 tooth or even something smaller on the cassette or freewheel anyway. Anyway would love to see your thoughts on disc brakes, hahaha. That's another gimmick in my opinion. While disc brakes do have some advantages, they are another thing that's hard to fix or maintain when your bike suffers a breakdown in the middle of nowhere and needs a fix.
Thanks for the comment. I’m pretty sure I’ve covered disc brakes in several of the videos. Can’t remember which ones at this point. All the videos have started running together.
I recently switched my rear derailluer to friction. My first thought , after 5 minutes on my next ride, was, "Why the heck didn't I do this 15,000 miles ago?!" Never say never, but I cannot imagine the scenario that would get me to go back to index shifting!
I guess I’m in the minority here. I grew up with friction down tube shifters - Shimano 600EX arabesque I think they call em. Still have that Univega Gran Rally but don’t ride it much. My other bikes have Campy Chorus 9, Shimano bar ends 8 and 9 on the Roadies and Deore 1x10 on the Jones SWB. I can’t see going back to friction.
Trying it now and find it seems to be faster than trigger shifter. You can throw it into the easiest gear in one smooth motion while moving between the front chainrings even faster. More efficient and easy to operate with only your thumb
I'm digging the Gevenalle Audax shifters. The Gevenalle replaced STI because dirt and gravel riding was making the STI shifting sluggish and the need to clean them started happening more often. I'm too lazy to clean all of the time.
Do you think an old friction shifter and matching 5 speed freewheel derailleur can be use on a 8-10 speed cassette? Or would I need a new 8-10 derailleur (but can keep the friction shifter)? Trying to update a vintage Peugeot. Thoughts?
First thing you need to determine is if there’s enough room back there for a 8-10 speed hub. My guess is that the frame would need to be spread a bit. As far as the derailleur, there’s only one way to find out-but my guess is that it would a no go.
@@franknhan5207 Chainline might be messed up. I bought an old Mercian frame with 126 mm rear spacing. Many will say just cold-bend the stays, but I am opting to find a set of wheels with a 126 axle and just run 7speeds.
@@Ego_Katana so I ended up cold setting to 130mm and getting a 7 speed cassette. Got a new chain and the friction shifters work perfectly. The bike runs well!
Friction sifters on the downtube is the only way to go. Works every time with everything. I hate that bikes are being built with no shifter bosses on the DT's and the peeps like Origin8 or Problem solvers do not make parts that fit ALL down tube sizes!
I guess maybe not “everything”, but everything I have ever worked with. I have used the silver shifters from Riv, The ENE shifters from Velo Orange and they have worked with Shim and sram from 8-10 and never was even worried about not getting full shifting capability. I like gears, and a lot of them so 11/40-42 with a trip at 44/36/26 fits what I do just fine! I love the new Disc Trucker but just have not had a situation arise that I wish I had discs over my LHT’s linear rim brakes, even fully loaded riding here in the mountains of N. Ga.
HAHA reminds me of: ruclips.net/video/KOO5S4vxi0o/видео.html On another note, I'm the guy who called the other day trying to find a Surly Bridge Club 37.5 Small. Ended up calling 6 shops before finding one at a small shop in Lawton, Oklahoma. Not my favorite color it is the Grandmas Lipstick, but it is now traveling halfway across the country to me in Reno, NV. Pretty lucky too they had someone coming the next day to check it out. Anyways thanks again for your videos and shop! I'm thinking about starting my own little videos based about the Bridge Club and my rides. There is just not that much out there.
If what you’re saying is that you’re scared of friction, your options for 9 speed is going to be limited. It’s going to depend on what kind of bar you’re using. Shimano still does Deore, Altus and Alivio 9 speed. They all work well enough.
Microshift ("if you must") bar top thumbies have worked out better for my rides, using a Jones loop bar (which I also tried deore rapidfires on, meh). Easy to adjust, less bar clutter and easier to incorporate in the wrap. But that's me. Your 3x9 might be for drop bars, Nitto Albatross, who but you can say?
I’ve got sram in the back, index shifting 1x,,,how hard is it for me to convert to friction? I like friction, and like the idea of ease to fix when bikepacking off grid
Well if you’ve got a double tap lever, which I’m assuming you do, you would need to run your cable to a different shifter. With drop bars that likely means bar end. The brake levers would still function as usual. Maybe watch yesterday’s video first. 😉
@@audrey3319 Ok, but the process is still largely the same. Gonna need a different shifter. Micro shift makes a thumb shifter that works with SRAM and has index and friction options.
The 9-speed Dura-Ace barcon is the best friction shifter in the world!!! Would a Jtec cable pull modifier do the same as grinding the pod? I had to use the Jtec running a new SRAM GX derailleur with the Dura-Ace barcons. But I was only using a 9-speed cassette then, 11-40. I liked the friction shifting so much that I didn't even try to run that setup indexed! Tell me more about the 11-speed grinding!!!
I don't know that a Jtec would have worked. With friction the amount of pull wasn't the problem. I just ran out of real estate. Anyway. Didn't have one to try. Did have a grinder. ;)
I love friction shifting. I find the 10 and 11 speed cassettes a real pain to keep properly adjusted. I don't have time for that. Friction shifting solves the problem.
Great job on this topic! I’m riding down tube pure friction Riv silver shifters on my Rando bike, with Sunrace Vx FD and Shimano RD. Works like a charm. I dig friction shifting. The ability to adjust, trim, feather, whatever word you choose by small increments based on sound and feel adds to my overall cycling enjoyment. Also, the simplicity and clean lines that is down tube shifting cables should not go unmentioned.
I have a modern index-shifter for my rear derailleur, but have swapped over to a friction-shifter for my front derailleur (3x8 hybrid bike). Up until now I've never really got on with front derailleurs, and ALWAYS found that the range at the back would cause chain rubbing somehow, somwhere up at the front, no matter how careful I was with the front indexing, As a consequence, over the years I've always been in a hurry to convert to 1x drivetrains.
A friction-shifter has eliminated all of that in one go. Why reinvent the wheel? It just feels a lot more intuitive for a front derailleur. In my opinion it still has its place in the modern world, and sits right next to modern hydraulic brakes, air-fork remote lockout, GPS, etc... on my bars. 👍
Later brother . ✌️. Friction shifters on my Cannondale. Rx100 groupset. I love the simplicity of friction and rim brakes. Poor gravel bike with disk crap brakes is on restriction... Great info ,appreciate it.
I just bought a 1982 I think Fuji Monterey. It’s my first friction shifting bike and love it. Shifting is so much smoother I can’t believe I haven’t tried it before.
I just counted. Out of 14 bikes, only 4 don’t have friction shifters and is those are dedicated mountain rigs. My preferred set up is to have them mounted on the stem.
Checking out some of your older videos. All great! I started out in the days of Simplex and Huret friction shifters on godawful French bikes with cottered cranks and Mafac brakes that squealed like a (redacted)! The first index shifters often came with coiled cable housing instead of linear housing, which is why they often worked so poorly. The Mavic downtube friction shifters were much better than their Campy counterparts. These kids these days don't know how good they've got it! Keep the videos coming!
Thanks!
Hi, Chris! Using friction shifting depends on having good hearing. I'm older and my hearing is not good. So I struggle to position the chain properly under the cog, prompting my riding companions to suggest I adjust my rear derailleur. The solution: indexing.
I switched from Shimano bar end on a Paul thumbie to the new Rivendell Silver 2 shifter (1x8, Riv style). I think the Riv shifter feels nicer than the Shimano. I like being able to shift 1,2 or 3 gears at once in friction. You can also tell your current gear by just touching the shifter. That sensation is completing missing from all “modern” shifters except maybe bar ends.
love the friction
13 years ago I switched back to friction shifting and have not returned back to the index world. I do a lot of commutes to work on my bike, over night rides and many Rando brevets and believe me, friction shifting is the way to go. They are extremely reliable which leaves me with a no worries kind of ride. I love them, they always work, the batteries never die (ha-ha) and any combo of deraileurs will work fine. And drums please.....they are ultra cheap! 😊
I love friction shifting. I used a Riv Silver shifter on my 1x conversion, and put a cap on the other downtube boss. The only problem is that the Riv shifter doesn’t pull quite enough cable to get to the biggest cog on my wide range 10 speed Deore cassette without really jamming it. (I know, it’s not meant for 10 speeds in the first place!). So I’m waiting on a Dyna-Sys compatible Dia Compe shifter with a larger barrel that I bought on eBay. In the meantime, I’m happy just sticking with the 9 speeds I have, and avoiding any of the biggest steep climbs in this area.
thanks this gave me confidence to use friction shifting on my project bike 😁 i'm turning my sscx/fixed gear to a 6-speed geared bike.
You can do it
The advantage for me is that there is no maintenance and nothing to break. Modern plastic stuff with tiny mass produced components like trigger shifters are prone to go wrong.you can also get indexed versions of the thumb shifters.Old is best still holds out. I think most of it is to make you buy new stuff.
He speaks the truth
Great info .I have a Specialized sirrus v brake model and have Index shifters.. They're okay, but you made a very good point. I'm being stuck out in the wild. I have a nineteen seventy three varsity with With friction shifting, I'm picking up a continental 60. Something I'm not sure 63 with 26 inch. Rims friction shifting Of course, but my wife has a giant hybrid bike.
Which I believe handle shifters? I'm going to see if she likes friction shifting.
I think would be cool as hell to put some friction shifters on this on the specialized. And her giant, I love them. Thanks again great vid
I am using a vintage 1987 18 speed (6 X 3) touring bike. It originally was a 1985 Nishiki Seral but in 1987 I bought a frame from Cannondale (back then you could buy frames off Cannondale and not just a complete bike). Anyway I have vintage Suntour friction Bar Cons and for some reason when I switched over to the Cannondale frame, the Suntour Cyclone Mark II GT rear derailleur would not shift up to the 28 tooth cog on the Suntour New Winner freewheel... so I got a Suntour Deore XT for it... which shifts great. With that said, I really think even these cassettes with all their gears are a bit too much. The 11 speed cassettes require a narrower chain which is more prone to breakage... and quite honestly, when you are touring you really aren't going to use the 14 tooth or even something smaller on the cassette or freewheel anyway. Anyway would love to see your thoughts on disc brakes, hahaha. That's another gimmick in my opinion. While disc brakes do have some advantages, they are another thing that's hard to fix or maintain when your bike suffers a breakdown in the middle of nowhere and needs a fix.
Thanks for the comment. I’m pretty sure I’ve covered disc brakes in several of the videos. Can’t remember which ones at this point. All the videos have started running together.
I recently switched my rear derailluer to friction. My first thought , after 5 minutes on my next ride, was, "Why the heck didn't I do this 15,000 miles ago?!"
Never say never, but I cannot imagine the scenario that would get me to go back to index shifting!
I guess I’m in the minority here. I grew up with friction down tube shifters - Shimano 600EX arabesque I think they call em. Still have that Univega Gran Rally but don’t ride it much. My other bikes have Campy Chorus 9, Shimano bar ends 8 and 9 on the Roadies and Deore 1x10 on the Jones SWB. I can’t see going back to friction.
Good stuff bro, thank ye!
Trying it now and find it seems to be faster than trigger shifter. You can throw it into the easiest gear in one smooth motion while moving between the front chainrings even faster. More efficient and easy to operate with only your thumb
I’m running Shimano 600 friction downtube shifters with an 11-32 10 speed cogset. It shifts rather easily.
First thing I changed for my South America tour.
I'm digging the Gevenalle Audax shifters. The Gevenalle replaced STI because dirt and gravel riding was making the STI shifting sluggish and the need to clean them started happening more often. I'm too lazy to clean all of the time.
I’ve just used a old friction shifter on a build for this very reason. Check my latest video.
I just put some very low cost shimano rapid fire index shifters . They just work
Do you think an old friction shifter and matching 5 speed freewheel derailleur can be use on a 8-10 speed cassette? Or would I need a new 8-10 derailleur (but can keep the friction shifter)? Trying to update a vintage Peugeot. Thoughts?
First thing you need to determine is if there’s enough room back there for a 8-10 speed hub. My guess is that the frame would need to be spread a bit. As far as the derailleur, there’s only one way to find out-but my guess is that it would a no go.
@@ThePsychicDerailleur if I'm able to stretch out the steel says enough, what other issues do you think I would run into?
@@franknhan5207 Other than the derailleur? Hard to say.
@@franknhan5207 Chainline might be messed up. I bought an old Mercian frame with 126 mm rear spacing. Many will say just cold-bend the stays, but I am opting to find a set of wheels with a 126 axle and just run 7speeds.
@@Ego_Katana so I ended up cold setting to 130mm and getting a 7 speed cassette. Got a new chain and the friction shifters work perfectly. The bike runs well!
Goes to eleven...Spinal Tap shifting!
Psychic Tap! 😉😆
Friction sifters on the downtube is the only way to go. Works every time with everything. I hate that bikes are being built with no shifter bosses on the DT's and the peeps like Origin8 or Problem solvers do not make parts that fit ALL down tube sizes!
Tough to make things to fit EVERYTHING, but I get your point. Thanks!
I guess maybe not “everything”, but everything I have ever worked with. I have used the silver shifters from Riv, The ENE shifters from Velo Orange and they have worked with Shim and sram from 8-10 and never was even worried about not getting full shifting capability. I like gears, and a lot of them so 11/40-42 with a trip at 44/36/26 fits what I do just fine! I love the new Disc Trucker but just have not had a situation arise that I wish I had discs over my LHT’s linear rim brakes, even fully loaded riding here in the mountains of N. Ga.
HAHA reminds me of: ruclips.net/video/KOO5S4vxi0o/видео.html
On another note, I'm the guy who called the other day trying to find a Surly Bridge Club 37.5 Small. Ended up calling 6 shops before finding one at a small shop in Lawton, Oklahoma. Not my favorite color it is the Grandmas Lipstick, but it is now traveling halfway across the country to me in Reno, NV. Pretty lucky too they had someone coming the next day to check it out. Anyways thanks again for your videos and shop! I'm thinking about starting my own little videos based about the Bridge Club and my rides. There is just not that much out there.
I channel Nigel Tufnel quite often ;) Glad you found a bike!
😎
Be nice, work hard, ride bikes, play music while you can. You get a Subscribe just for that!
Thank you!!
I’m scared, I admit it.
I’m building a riv-Sam, 3x9. Do you have front and rear derailleur recommendations?
If what you’re saying is that you’re scared of friction, your options for 9 speed is going to be limited. It’s going to depend on what kind of bar you’re using. Shimano still does Deore, Altus and Alivio 9 speed. They all work well enough.
Microshift ("if you must") bar top thumbies have worked out better for my rides, using a Jones loop bar (which I also tried deore rapidfires on, meh). Easy to adjust, less bar clutter and easier to incorporate in the wrap. But that's me. Your 3x9 might be for drop bars, Nitto Albatross, who but you can say?
Shimano makes 11 speed bar end shifters, why not use that?
Those are only for the road derailleurs. Cant mix and match.
I’ve got sram in the back, index shifting 1x,,,how hard is it for me to convert to friction? I like friction, and like the idea of ease to fix when bikepacking off grid
Well if you’ve got a double tap lever, which I’m assuming you do, you would need to run your cable to a different shifter. With drop bars that likely means bar end. The brake levers would still function as usual. Maybe watch yesterday’s video first. 😉
@@ThePsychicDerailleur I am running MTN bike bars
@@audrey3319 Ok, but the process is still largely the same. Gonna need a different shifter. Micro shift makes a thumb shifter that works with SRAM and has index and friction options.
@@ThePsychicDerailleur thanks!
The 9-speed Dura-Ace barcon is the best friction shifter in the world!!! Would a Jtec cable pull modifier do the same as grinding the pod? I had to use the Jtec running a new SRAM GX derailleur with the Dura-Ace barcons. But I was only using a 9-speed cassette then, 11-40. I liked the friction shifting so much that I didn't even try to run that setup indexed! Tell me more about the 11-speed grinding!!!
I don't know that a Jtec would have worked. With friction the amount of pull wasn't the problem. I just ran out of real estate. Anyway. Didn't have one to try. Did have a grinder. ;)
@@ThePsychicDerailleur Looking at your modified "11-speed" makes me think about doing the same thing then mounting it on an IRD Power Ratchet Lever!
The issue I'm having is ghost shifting under torque with the rear derailleur. The chain and cassette are new. The shifters are tight. Help lol.
How many speeds? What’s the cassette ratio?
@@ThePsychicDerailleur 11 speed derailleur....11 speed shifters and cassette is a 11 or 12 - 32.
@@MrNewlife1968 So not friction?
@@ThePsychicDerailleur They are downtube friction.
@@ThePsychicDerailleur velo-orange.com/collections/shifters/products/dia-compe-ene-11s-dt-shifters
Learning to use friction shifting is about as difficult as learning to use a computer mouse left handed IMO.