Who here knows the comparative shifting of IRD and the current Shimanos? I haven't used an IRD yet. I went from the old Winners that I loved to Sachs which I found just as good to SunRace, klunky but worked and shifted just fine but had cog choices that drove me a little nuts to Shimano. The Shimano is a very nice FW but the shifting drives me nuts. I have to slow and focus on putting the derailleur in exactly the right place or it will shift when it wants to and go to the cog it chooses. I've had it wander back and forth between two cogs.

IRD claims wavy tooth profiles for better shifting. Is it as "good" as Shimano? (I run 8-speed Campy on my cassette bike and love it. Easy shifts but no surprises. Yes, the occasional shift to the next cog if I really missed, but once that shift happened, it was solid. I love the classic friction shift "dump" that we did all the time in my racing days when we got to a hill. With my Shimano, I have little confidence I can then immediately stand and go. Not what I need for an Oregon gravel bike!

Ben