The angle of the rear derailleur (RD), how it moves along the pulleys is slightly different than other shipmano derailleurs and so the indexing detents in the shifter are correspondingly different from other shifters.


Again this was another one of shipmanos many gimmicks and trick to ensure everyone used all shipmano on a bike and more importantly all DA. A lot of bike companies used to use say a full 105 group but upgrade the RD to 600 to make the bike look better than it was. shipmano tried very hard to discourage this and making the Dura Ace RD different was part of this.

STI, or shipmano total integration, which most people only think of as 'brifters" actually started with the rise of mountain bikes. shipmano started mounting the shifters to the brake lever to keep bike manufacturers from speccing shipmano derailleurs and shifters but other companies brakes and cranks.

SLR was another move. Everyone thought the return spring in the lever was a great idea and gave the lever a crisp snap when released, but they also lightened the spring in the caliper so mixing a shipmano brake with any other brand of lever created a sloppy feel.

shipmano was very devious about marketing and hiding technology as a method of controlling the market.