One day he'll understand what 1/2 step gearing is. :-)

velodancer wrote:

I disagree that it [conventional ring-ranged shifting]
is "just as good'. My issue is that for touring
use, that typically requires double shifts in the rear. A second
caveat is that staying in your 33 increases chain tension and wear. A
third caveat is that cross chaining is not practical and leaves
unusable gears and requires switching chainrings and some unknown
number of rear shifts to get to the right gear. You also have many
duplicated gears.

The thing that makes half-step so ludicrously impractical is that *every single shift* is a front derailleur shift, when the front derailleur is the only part on a modern bike that still works like the fevered dream of some 1930s French bike-making crackpot. It's like shifting with metal chopsticks..

Everything else on a bike works more or less like a proper machine, but that one part operates on the principle of "hey let's scrape the chain until it falls off", and you want that to be the shifter of first and only resort?

Out of a large fleet, I have only two bikes with front changers at all, I find them so unsatisfyingly crude. The others have single rings with guards, gearhubs, single speed drives-- whatever it takes to avoid "scrape the chain until it falls off" shifting.

Chalo

On May 30, 5:44*pm, Chalo wrote:
velodancer wrote:

I disagree that it [conventional ring-ranged shifting]
is "just as good'. My issue is that for touring
use, that typically requires double shifts in the rear. A second
caveat is that staying in your 33 increases chain tension and wear. A
third caveat is that cross chaining is not practical and leaves
unusable gears and requires switching chainrings and some unknown
number of rear shifts to get to the right gear. You also have many
duplicated gears.

The thing that makes half-step so ludicrously impractical is that *every single shift* is a front derailleur shift,

Nowhere near.

when the front derailleur is the only part on a modern bike that still works like the fevered dream of some 1930s French bike-making crackpot. *It's like shifting with metal chopsticks.

Usually called a fork as that is all that is needed.


Everything else on a bike works more or less like a proper machine,

That would infer, unecessarily complex.

but that one part operates on the principle of "hey let's scrape the chain until it falls off", and you want that to be the shifter of first and only resort?

It simply works.

Out of a large fleet, I have only two bikes with front changers at all, I find them so unsatisfyingly crude. *The others have single rings with guards, gearhubs, single speed drives-- whatever it takes to avoid "scrape the chain until it falls off" shifting.


When used with 1/2 step gearing many of the impracticalities you
imagine simply don't exist.

On Wednesday, May 30, 2012 9:44:54 AM UTC-7, Chalo wrote:

The thing that makes half-step so ludicrously impractical
is that *every single shift* is a front derailleur shift,
when the front derailleur is the only part on a modern
bike that still works like the fevered dream of some
1930s French bike-making crackpot. It's like shifting
with metal chopsticks.

When I used half-step I liked that shifting using the
rear derailleur alone gave me double-sized jumps,
which were the size of upshifts I wanted when coming
up to speed after having stopped for a red light.

When I mentioned that here in r.b.t, Jobst told me there's
no need to downshift for red lights; he insisted it's no
less efficient to accelerate from a stop in whatever gear
you like for cruising and that low gears were for
sustained uphills or headwinds.

Even when I disagreed with Jobst I was always entertained
by his curmudgeonly style. I miss his posting here.

Tom Ace

On 05/30/2012 06:42 PM, Tom Ace wrote:
On Wednesday, May 30, 2012 9:44:54 AM UTC-7, Chalo wrote:

The thing that makes half-step so ludicrously impractical
is that *every single shift* is a front derailleur shift,
when the front derailleur is the only part on a modern
bike that still works like the fevered dream of some
1930s French bike-making crackpot. It's like shifting
with metal chopsticks.

When I used half-step I liked that shifting using the
rear derailleur alone gave me double-sized jumps,
which were the size of upshifts I wanted when coming
up to speed after having stopped for a red light.

When I mentioned that here in r.b.t, Jobst told me there's
no need to downshift for red lights; he insisted it's no
less efficient to accelerate from a stop in whatever gear
you like for cruising and that low gears were for
sustained uphills or headwinds.

Even when I disagreed with Jobst I was always entertained
by his curmudgeonly style. I miss his posting here.

Tom Ace

I *don't* have half step gearing, and I usually drop into the middle
ring at lights and then shift back into the big ring as soon as I'm up
to speed. I imagine that's pretty much effectively the same thing
(without doing the math) and I can't imagine doing it any other way,
save for getting out of the saddle and really honking on it. Maybe if I
were of the same weight and strength that I was at 18 that wouldn't be a
problem...

nate

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