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Changing gripshift 7-speed to rapid-fire?
I'm pretty new to cycling after a 25 year break so this question may be naive.
I recently purchsed a bike (used Univega Via Montega) and it has Front derailleurer: Shimano Altus 3-speed & rear derailleur: Shimano RSX 7 speed with the shifters being Gripshift MRX on my flat handle bar. I like those rapid shifters I see on some bikes, a friend has a bike that I think has shifters that say BS on them and you use your thumb to upshift and index finger to release to shift down and they seem to work well. Can my bike be converted to those type of shifters and what would be the proper parts to buy? Would it be STX/Alivio SL-MC40 or Shimano Rapidfire 7 seven speed shifters, model SL-MC40 which I'm guessing are the same thing? Also is it even worth it? how much should all this cost? thanks to all!! |
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Changing gripshift 7-speed to rapid-fire?
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#3
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Changing gripshift 7-speed to rapid-fire?
My experience is that the MRX shifters will break (the clicker thing
breaks off) pretty quickly, giving you an excellent time to do the conversion. Or you can run them as friction shifters by wedging a yoghurt container strip of plastic under the knob to raise the friction a little, and continue to use a broken one. Occasionally a MRX shifter goes a year for me (8,000 miles) but usually they last a month or so. Whether it is some horrible run of quality control and not general, I don't know. I've gotten them from a number of different sources and they all break. -- Ron Hardin On the internet, nobody knows you're a jerk. |
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Changing gripshift 7-speed to rapid-fire?
On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 07:30:09 GMT, Ron Hardin
wrote: My experience is that the MRX shifters will break (the clicker thing breaks off) pretty quickly, giving you an excellent time to do the conversion. [snip] Same results here. I loathe gripshifts in general, but those seem not only annoying but downright fragile. SRAM makes better ones in my opinion, but I still greatly prefer levers of some sort. -- Typoes are a feature, not a bug. Some gardening required to reply via email. Words processed in a facility that contains nuts. |
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Changing gripshift 7-speed to rapid-fire? WILL the 8-Speed shifter Work?
One shop was out of the 7-speed Alivio SL-MC40 but said the current Shimano
Alivio SL-MC20 for the 8-speed set-up would work fine, just have an extra click? Is this so, and any advantages or disadvantages? thanks Rick In article , says... Thanks to all for the info. Bike does have V-brakes (they work well) and as someone seemed to indicate, I find the grip shifters plasticky & cheesy. Sounds like the Shimano Alivio I previously mentioned should work and I'll probably go for them. However, a friend's bike has these rapid shifters where the shift to larger gear on either front or back requires preassure and uses the thumb. The shift down releasing tension and to a smaller gear releases with the index finger and the whole thing is not integral to the brakes but mounted right next to them (or course) but underneath. They don't have any type of window-indicator as to which gear you're in (which I don't need) but they do have the logo BS as I recall on them and no other writing. What brand or type are these? Rick In article , says... On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 00:39:35 -0500, (rs) wrote: I'm pretty new to cycling after a 25 year break so this question may be naive. Only the question not asked is truly naive. I recently purchsed a bike (used Univega Via Montega) and it has Front derailleurer: Shimano Altus 3-speed & rear derailleur: Shimano RSX 7 speed with the shifters being Gripshift MRX on my flat handle bar. I like those rapid shifters I see on some bikes, a friend has a bike that I think has shifters that say BS on them and you use your thumb to upshift and index finger to release to shift down and they seem to work well. Actually, in most cases, one side shifts up with the index finger and the other side shifts up with the thumb, but I agree with your overall evaluation; I personally prefer this type of setup as well. Can my bike be converted to those type of shifters Certainly. and what would be the proper parts to buy? Would it be STX/Alivio SL-MC40 or Shimano Rapidfire 7 seven speed shifters, model SL-MC40 which I'm guessing are the same thing? Any of the SIS-compatible shifters should work, which basically means just about any 7-rear/3-front indexed Shimano bits for a mountain bike should do the job. The Alivios have worked well for me, as have the Deore and Altus. The Rapidfire feature (which permits the thumb-operated lever to traverse several clicks with one long push when shifting the rear) is present on a number of the Shimano setups. The only potential hassle is that many of the shifters have integral brake levers, and the majority of the setups are likely to be built for V-brakes; if your Univega is old enough that it has cantilever brakes, you may have to convert to V-brakes when you upgrade the shifters. Also is it even worth it? Only you can answer that question. I'd have no qualms about doing it if the bike fits and rides well otherwise. how much should all this cost? With careful shopping, if you have V-brakes on the bike now, it might be done for as little as $35 including new cable housings. Perhaps less if you can scrounge used parts. If you have canti brakes, the cost goes up. -- Typoes are a feature, not a bug. Some gardening required to reply via email. Words processed in a facility that contains nuts. |
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Changing gripshift 7-speed to rapid-fire?
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Changing gripshift 7-speed to rapid-fire? WILL the 8-Speed shifter Work?
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Changing gripshift 7-speed to rapid-fire?
Yes, If I wasn't clear previously the thumb shift requireing preassure is
always to the larger gear, front or back. The index releases to the smaller gear requiring little or no preassure. Referring to high and low is a misnomer here and confuses the issue. Rick In article , says... On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 18:59:51 -0500, (rs) wrote: Thanks to all for the info. Bike does have V-brakes (they work well) and as someone seemed to indicate, I find the grip shifters plasticky & cheesy. Sounds like the Shimano Alivio I previously mentioned should work and I'll probably go for them. However, a friend's bike has these rapid shifters where the shift to larger gear on either front or back requires preassure and uses the thumb. The shift down releasing tension and to a smaller gear releases with the index finger A shift "down" on the rear would be to a *larger* sprocket. Have you actually ridden your friend's bike to see how that works? and the whole thing is not integral to the brakes but mounted right next to them (or course) but underneath. They don't have any type of window-indicator as to which gear you're in (which I don't need) but they do have the logo BS as I recall on them and no other writing. What brand or type are these? Most ders, either front or rear, move to the larger sprockets as the cable is pulled, and to the smaller ones as the cable is let back out. Thus the ratio-change effect of the same action at the shifter is usually the reverse on the left of what it is on the right. To make them both do "the same thing", the rear der needs to be designed so that it moves toward the small sprocket as the cable is *pulled*, and moves toward the larger ones as the cable is *released*. There are ders which do this, but they aren't as common as the other type. From what you describe, your friend's bike doesn't have one of the special rear ders. Yours probably doesn't either. As a result, swapping to trigger shifters will cause the right and left shifters to do opposite things as far as the *effect*, even though it's the same thing as far as the *appearance*. Both will use the same finger to go to a sprocket of larger diameter, for instance, but the effect of this on the front is the opposite of the effect on the rear. Would you take my word for it if I said that the reversed sense of the action becomes familiar very quickly for most people? It's no big deal. BTW, those shifters marked "BS" sound like they're identical to the set on a Pacific that's in the collection here. They work OK, but the Alivios are better. Both work the same way when it comes to which lever does what, though; the thumb lever shifts to larger sprockets and the index finger lever shifts to smaller ones, unless one of the special rear ders is used. (Those are called "low normal", or sometimes "rapid rise" ders. When you used the term "rapid rise" above, I thought that your friend's bike had one, but your description of the action fits a normal der, not a low-normal.) -- Typoes are a feature, not a bug. Some gardening required to reply via email. Words processed in a facility that contains nuts. |
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Changing gripshift 7-speed to rapid-fire? WILL the 8-Speed shifter Work?
Thanks, makes sense to me and there is a new set up for auction right now,
though one shop said they could order them, take a week and they're $30 with new cables and cable covers. In article , says... On Thu, 23 Jun 2005 22:26:03 -0500, (rs) wrote: One shop was out of the 7-speed Alivio SL-MC40 but said the current Shimano Alivio SL-MC20 for the 8-speed set-up would work fine, just have an extra click? Is this so, and any advantages or disadvantages? Sort-of-works a lot of the time, works perfectly only for people with better luck than me. You'll most likely have to trim the cable adjustment while in one of the center or one-smaller-than-center sprockets, and then put up with the fact that some of the time, shifting to the largest sprocket may require a bit of overshift-and-fall-back. I'd shop for 7-speed shifters on eBay instead. They can be had. -- Typoes are a feature, not a bug. Some gardening required to reply via email. Words processed in a facility that contains nuts. |
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