Originally Posted by
mstateglfr
'Click shifting' was introduced and took off like wildfire. It was a huge success. At an industry conference, brands actually hesitated at the idea of indexed shifting, but they were shown to have totally missed the market as it was wildly popular. This is well documented.
Also, MTBs were hardly scoffed at in the beginning. Once Specialized took Ritchey's bike and mass produced it into the Stumpjumper in '81, brands couldnt keep up with demand as MTBs were introduced by all brands thru the early 80s. The first shipment of Stumpjumpers sold out in less than a week.
Dont use these examples moving forward as they run completely counter to your agenda.
I think that when Shimano perfected index shifting, that it was one of the greatest advances in bicycling componentry since the safety bicycle and pneumatic tires/tubes. Index shifting made it so easy for beginning riders to shift flawlessly.
Cheers