Originally Posted by
Greenfieldja
It is hard to tell...The Sora front shifter does not micro-shift through its range, there is is only a couple of ratchet stops in it. The amount of force necessary to mover the mechanism may feel greater when holding the shifter in your hand and/or pulling the cable from the shifter as you explained as compared to how the shifter would operate with the shifter and cable properly installed due to the lower mechanical advantage your hands have in this situation.
My recommendation is to mount and tune properly then test it out. You may be surprised to find that it works good despite how it felt when playing with it prior to install. If it still feels problematic you will have ruled out that it was not due to not having it installed on the bars.
-j
Everything is mounted on the bike and I even went with the bike on a test run. Front shifting is working properly it's just the brifter that's having the issues. But I understand from what you're saying that the Sora FD (being a low-end FD) isn't that awesome to begin with. So I shouldn't expect much from it. I also suspect (having had a closer look to the bike) that I'd require an FD with a bit of a longer arm (the little arm with the cable clamping bolt) so the cable runs in a smoother line from the cable stop to the FD clamp. Is there a difference in this 'arm' length between FDs e.g. Sora vs. Tiagra vs. 105?