Originally Posted by Maelstrom
All things equal (shifting) I just don't like the mindset of rapid rise. It just don't jive man...when I press with my thumb in a panic situation I want pedallling to get easier. If I need to shift a TONNE of gears, going easier works with my mindset. I can never think of a reason to shift a tonne to go into a harder gear, 80% of the time on trails, I get more speed laying of the brake than I would pedalling harder.
It's one of those things that actually takes A LOT of getting used to but it does have a much crisper shifing motion than old standard spring once you actually figure the stupid thing out. When you couple it with the dual-control levers, it actually is a pretty intuitive setup since dumping your gears doesn't require much effort (you just flip the lever with the tops of your fingers while keeping your thumb engaged...it's nice once you realize the benefits of keeping your thumb on the grips.)
The funny thing is, I bought the dual-control levers about two months before I changed to RR and I thought they would take a lot of getting used to. One ride into using them however, using them became second nature. With the RR however, it was so counter-intuitive to "pull" on a down-shift that it took months before I was totally used to it. We're so conditioned towards the old system that something new like RR is totally foreign.