Ritchey 2x9 Grip Shifters - Friction Mode?

Along the lines of the person who asked if they could convert a road
bike to an "upright" riding position, I'd like to do this too to and
old, old genuine "10 speed" bike. No indexed shifing here!

Nashbar has the Ritchey 2x9 Grip Shifters available for $15 but no
information as to whether there's a friction mode available.
Ritchey's website doesn't even list the product. Does anybody know if
these shifter work have a friction mode, or are they index only?

TIA.

Tom Young

"Tom Young" wrote in message
om...

Nashbar has the Ritchey 2x9 Grip Shifters available for
$15 Ritchey's website doesn't even list the product.

It's not a current product. A lot of slightly older Ritchey stock seems to
have been reaching the discounters lately.

Does anybody know if these shifter work have a friction
mode, or are they index only?

The left shifter is friction, but the right is index only.

The Nashbar site description isn't very accurate. Ritchey's 2x9 system used
a special 33t sprocket dished to overhang the hub flange, that was added to
a standard 8-speed cassette to give a 9-speed cassette with 8-speed
spacing. The Ritchey 'chainrings' listed by Nashbar are actually these
special sprockets. The system was supposed to be used with one of Ritchey's
OCR rims to keep the spokes and derailleur apart.

The 1997 components catalogue here has some pictures and a description:

http://www.oldmountainbikes.com/catalogs/

but beware, it's a 5.2 MB pdf.

James Thomson

"Tom Young" wrote in message
om...

Nashbar has the Ritchey 2x9 Grip Shifters available for
$15 Ritchey's website doesn't even list the product.

It's not a current product. A lot of slightly older Ritchey stock seems to
have been reaching the discounters lately.

Does anybody know if these shifter work have a friction
mode, or are they index only?

The left shifter is friction, but the right is index only.

The Nashbar site description isn't very accurate. Ritchey's 2x9 system used
a special 33t sprocket dished to overhang the hub flange, that was added to
a standard 8-speed cassette to give a 9-speed cassette with 8-speed
spacing. The Ritchey 'chainrings' listed by Nashbar are actually these
special sprockets. The system was supposed to be used with one of Ritchey's
OCR rims to keep the spokes and derailleur apart.

The 1997 components catalogue here has some pictures and a description:

http://www.oldmountainbikes.com/catalogs/

but beware, it's a 5.2 MB pdf.

James Thomson