On 2/18/2018 10:12 PM, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 18 Feb 2018 18:19:48 -0800 (PST), jbeattie
wrote:

On Sunday, February 18, 2018 at 5:05:03 PM UTC-8, John B. wrote:
On Sun, 18 Feb 2018 10:43:30 -0500, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

On 2/18/2018 2:55 AM, wrote:
I know no serious cyclists these days that do not allow themselves STI shifters or the like because they can break and keep riding Fred Flintstone bikes. Only people that are into vintage do.

Perhaps it depends on your definition of a "serious cyclist."

I have no STI-style shifters. I have some bikes with index shifting, but
the two bikes I ride most often still have friction shifters.

It's not because I'm into vintage bikes (although some of my bikes are
very old indeed). It's primarily because what I have keeps on working
just fine for my purposes. And in general, I value versatility,
reliability and repairability.

I recall an answer that Frank Berto gave in his bike tech Q&A column
back in the early 1990s. A person asked how to convert his Cannondale
touring bike (like the one I own) to index shifting. Frank Berto said,
essentially, "Why? Don't bother. Your bike shifts great. It's not worth
the trouble."

And illogical or not, I do worry about this
most-complicated-mechanism-on-a-bike breaking. I've had to replace
broken shift cables far, far from home, but I don't know if I could pull
it off with STI. I've also had to help fix the STI shifters of two
friends, one being on a brand new bike bought just a couple days before.
The friend was leaving that day on a long bike tour and the shop was
closed. Those incidents didn't inspire confidence.

Granted, those things happened long ago. I have countless friends with
STI (etc.) and no problems. I suppose if I were to buy another bike now,
I'd get STI-style shifting. But it seems like a dozen or so bikes is
enough for one household.

I suspect that the answer is, "depends on what you are doing". Jay's
agonizing description of huffing and puffing up a hill and then
shifting is, I'm sure, perfectly accurate, but riding, as I do, on all
almost perfectly flat terrain the question of shifting becomes almost
redundant as I might shift once or twice in a 2 - 3 hour ride.

So, one might say that for riding in hilly terrain the STI shifters
are mandatory for success while if riding on level ground are far less
important.

BTW, over the years and with incipient decrepitude, I have learned to spin more than grind up hills out of the saddle -- which makes STI even more beneficial. It allows me to sit comfortably, hands on the levers shifting like crazy. Even when I'm paper-boying up some hill, I don't have to make much of an effort to get the next gear, if I have one. On the flats, STI/Ergo is not that important unless you're sprinting against someone, but it is convenient. Levers do die, and they're not cheap. There are reasons to own DT shifters, although friction instead of indexed is pretty old-school.

I was over at River City the other day, buying odd-ball parts to rebuild the Roubaix after its holiday with the meth-heads, and that store has endless olde-tyme racing bikes hanging around. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTXgfN4p1cw&t=317s (a few at 3:00). I don't look at them and get all misty-eyed. They make my knees sore just looking at them. All I can think of is the stuff I'd have to do -- respace the dropouts, get some boss adapters, change the drivetrain, etc., etc.

Somethings I don't like about the modern era -- like internal cables, hydraulic hoses and some other stuff. I could see getting a modern steel commuter like a Soma Fogcutter and enjoying all the external cables.

BTW, I have never been so frustrated as I was was this morning running new hydraulic hose through the Roubaix frame. Just fishing the hose took forever. You have to be a f****** bicycle plumber. It's like fishing low voltage wire or PEX tubing through a finished wall, except harder. At least I didn't have to drill any holes, although I wanted to.

-- Jay Beattie.

Before you pull the old tubing out tie a string to it :-(

Exactly what I was thinking.

ISTR someone saying that if you failed to do that, you could possibly
use a vacuum cleaner to suck a thread through the intended path of the
hose, then use it to pull the hose through. Not that I've tried that. I
can't imagine buying a bike that required that.


--
- Frank Krygowski