Short and sweet: in their current design, the SRAM shifters do **NOT **doom you to suffering an unwanted up-shift, when you are trying (in vein) to downshift off of the largest cog.

The notion of an unstoppable upshift is a myth.

And it is a myth that is perpetuated by a) people talking about these shifters who have never used/explored them and, b) by SRAM for not including clear instructions with their shifters.

So I'm now asking all SRAM Rival and Force owners to kindly verify the following on their next ride:

When you are in the largest cog and you try to downshift (ie, move to a larger cog that is in fact no there), this is what should happen:

1) first "click", indicating that a upshift will occur when you release the lever
2) movement of the shifter lever inwards, as would be the typical motion for initiating a normal downshift
3) no second "click" in the position that you would expect to feel/hear the downshift "click"
4) instead, slightly more inward movement of the shifter arm (under a slightly-increased resistence) will initiate a different type of second "click" (in sound and in feel), and a pawl holding cable length will reengage.
5) releasing of the shifter lever now does nothing to the cable length and the the chain remains on the largest cog.

My guess is that, of the folks who have actually ridden SRAM and encountered this scenario, they simply made it to Step 3, said "oh sh*t" and just released the lever.

I'm posting this, becasue this myth was the largest negative point I could find against these shifters. I bought and installed them anyway and was happy to find that the myth was just that--untrue.

All in all, the Rival shifters seem pretty perfect.

Thank you for reading