Two styles of shifting
 

Hello everyone,

so I went to my first LBS today and looked around and they didn't have either specialized or trek, but they did have giant and gary fisher and she was showing me models between $250-320+tax. I told her I was recommended by a lot of people (you guys) to get either trek or specialized and she tells me Giant is the parent company for both those companies and said that since its the parent company of both the companies it must be better. While I don't know if Giant is the company that makes both the other two, I did tell her that Toyota makes Lexus and I sureley rather have a Lexus than a toyota and she sorth of didn't have a response to that. I also told her I'm getting three bikes in one shot and to do a little better on the price and she wouldn't shift a dollar on it, should I just go to another bike shop? I'm in NY so i'm sure they're plenty; this one was just 1 block away from my house thats why I went there.

So now to the real question, I never tried those shifters that look like motocycle shifters since I haven't had a bike for years. Are those better (cooler) than the ones that are just shifted like a switch.

And I guess one more question, anyone suggest I get a gary fisher or a Giant over the specialized/trek? I guess thats a stupid question since everyone likes different things but advice would be great since I hate choices especially when I can't tell the difference between metal frame and two wheels.

Thanx everyone,
Danny

No, giant does not own specialized as far as I know... lol
Gary fisher and trek are both divisions of the same company though.

I like the click shifters best myself...

Giant doesn't own Specialized and Trek :p

Trek owns: Fisher, Klein and LeMond

Giant and Specialized sell their frame designs to many different companies. If you look around you'll see FSR and NRS linkages on LOTS of different full suspension bikes.

Giant makes a lot of the frames for Trek and Specialized.

"They Might Be Giants", "All your bike are belong to Giant!" ??? :D

As far as those twist-type shifters go, they've been around for a long time. Various manufacturers make them and some people prefer them to trigger shifters or thumbshifters or other types of shifting mechanisms. I prefer RapidFire trigger shifters myself for MTBing. Neither are necessarily better than the other... they're just different. It's personal preference.

Is Kona a devision of anything or do they own any other bike companies?

Don't think so.

nah yall, the rapid fire( click switch shifters) are much better, they hold up better, and dont allow you to change a bucn of gears at once so you dont mess up your calbes n stuff. like when you have the handle twsiters you can shift as much as you want at once and you get the de railers messed up, oviosly the clickers are better

Huh? That does not parse. Some of the most reliable shifting systems were thumbshifters, downtube shifters and bar-con shifters. With those systems, you could throw across the whole cassette without a problem. Limiting the amount of gears you can shift within a single throw does not make shifting any better or more reliable. The derailleurs and gears will handle shifting across the entire range fine. I believe your points are without basis.

fine then, god. ( napolian dynamite)
i see what you mean, i guess i dont have the skill to evenly shift so i just mess up my bike.

Thanx for the quick replies, I guess I don't really like that she lied to me just to make a sale so I'll try another LBS. As far as the shifters go, I would think you might accidently shift while holding the grip which would make it unconveniant so I'll try to find somethign with thumb shifters. Is it a common thing for stores to not go down in price if you're buying three bikes at once, I found that shocking in a sales perspective cause I always lower prices if I'm going to make three sales at once. The store is also not found by the National Bicycle Dealers Association, do you guys only buy your bikes by stores that are in that association?

Thanx again,
Danny

Yeah, she seems more like as sales person than a biker...dont trust her ;)
The fact that you said you wanted 3 bikes at once should have got them to either offer you lots off the bikes or, given you baskets full of free stuff.

Save yourself a little time and bust out the Yellow Pages, or yahoo. Call all of the shops listed and ask what bikes they have in your price range, the price, and the level of service they perform (lifetime tune-ups, 30 days, etc.) You can even ask if they'd offer a multibike discount. They may not get into specifics over the phone on that but will at least indicate if there's any breathing room. Armed with that knowledge stack rank the LBS' by importance to you. Price, service, convenient location, etc..

THEN go to the shops in the order of your list. If the first one is knowledgable and has what you want then great. If they piss you off then just go to the next one down.

I like to support my LBS and do when I can. That said, they're out to make money from me understandably, so there's nothing wrong with me being out to get the best bang for my buck. Hopefully understandably to them....

from my experience, twist shifters like SRAM GripShifts are more "Accurate", but they also have more moving parts, which has less reliablity.... currently i am using shimanos that are trigger type (index up, thumb down) and it hasn't failed on me EVER. nor on my brother's bike.

and i was on the gary fisher site and saw zr9000 then went to trek and saw zr9000... now this explains it all :D

another thing abuot the twist shifters is sometiems you can axidently shift becuase its on your grip kinda. clickers kick ass

Yep... that's a common problem and one I've had with them. However, some people seem to be able to use them without problems. Like I said, it's a personal thing. It all depends on your grip style. Note that the shifter portion is not the entire grip... only a small section actually rotates.

You're joking right????

A gripshift has ONE moving part ... the barrel. If you want complexity try cracking open your trigger shifters sometime.

BTW, I think either are fine. It's a matter of personal preference. My preference are Grip Shifters. "Accidental" shifting is pretty negligible once you get used to them.

As far as shifting preference, I've ridden both twist-shift and rapidfire and greatly prefer rapidfire. The ability to shift without moving you hand position is nice when standing or braking simutaneously. I rode twist-shift for 5 years and just recently switched to rapidfire. Wow, what a difference.

As far as bikes and prices, it's doubtful that you're going to get a break on the price of a new bike. Bikes are very low margin so the shop doesn't make a lot of money on them anyway. Most bikes are priced just over what the shop paid for them so there's not going to be a lot of wiggle room.

Where you might catch a break is on accessories. That's where shops make a lot of money so they're more willing to flex on pricing. If you're buying three bikes, you may be able to get a deal on all the other stuff you're going to need or want, like helmets, pumps, tools, racks, camelbacks, etc.

Kind of makes you wonder why someone from specialized would bash giant or trek and vice versa. In the end all bikes are probably made in the same damn place LOL... Even KONA's are not made in North America.

Dude they should be throwing all kinds of stuff at you if you are buying 3 bikes at the same time. Sometimes they can't go down a whole lot on the price of the bike (bike shops don't make money selling bikes, they make them on the service and upgrades) but they can throw in upgraded saddles, pedals, helmet, seatpost, etc. First thing to do is find a shop that isn't full of **** like the one you've already been to. Feel the salesperson out and make sure they know what they are talking about before you buy anything. Also, I would go to a shop that carries a wider variety of bikes. You should check out a Specialized dealer.

Bottom line is this- do your research and then go into the shop knowing what questions to ask. You'll be able to tell if a salesperson has your best interests in mind real quick.