Originally Posted by ViperZ
It's too bad that friction shifting is the only option for that era.. I Will never go back from indexing. To me thats like dial tuning a radio rather than pushing the channel button. Not something I'm particularly fond of anymore. Sure if it was for a bike that I rode once a year, but I want to ride this one on the fast group rides too
Actually, I must say that I prefer the first-gen's option of friction-shifting.
Anything index has always bugged me as being too difficult to quickly shift from the top of the cluster to the bottom. Some variants of Shimano's STIs particularly bug me in this respect, for they require a seperate in-out hand movement to shift up one cog. Ultimately, you've clicked that shifter 7 times just to get to the top of the cluster. When driving in urban areas with considerable stop-n-go, this can become a royal annoyance.
A sensible design would be an STI that works similar to the old Shimano Accushift Xpress MTB shifters - a single movement of the hand (or thumb, in the case of the Xpress shifters) can shift up through all the click-stops to the other extreme of your freewheel in less then two seconds. (For those reasons, I'd take the '80s Accushift Xpress any day on an MTB over brand new Shimano LX).
Take care,
-Kurt