Originally Posted by
Garthr
I choose to stay with friction shifting, and I always will. There is something elegant(or clumsy if you're out of practice) about manually shifting a bike that does not exist in indexed shifting. You have to use some co-ordination in order to change a gear. Friction shifting is fun, indexed shifting is like fast food. . . just give me my damm food 'cause I'm in a hurry. Everyone's in a such a hurry they can't even shift their bike. . . .they gotta have something do it for them. Kinda lazy
Friction shifting never fails. With properly installed cables there's nothing to fail. . . except the riders co-ordination.
Indexed shifting has become so proprietary that if you bought a "system" 5 years ago, if you break a part you may have a hard time getting a replacement as Shimano changes things so fast your "old system" is obsolete. So you must use ebay or other means to get parts. Sound like fun? Many people don't mind or care, so to each their own. To me . . .bikes aren't computers and shouldn't be treated as such. Shimano is double edged sword, they make some nice parts, but they often have the attention span of a 5 year old. Thankfully not everyone follows the Leader(Shimano).
I like this opinion!
My poke at index shifting has always been: If it's so perfect, why do they keep changing it? Every year it seems the manufacturers are "updating" things, there's the incessant incompatibility issues (even between the same model but a different year). This chain won't work right with this derailler, different chains for different cogs, these shift levers will only work with this model #, blah, blah, blah.
What a pain! And, if you ever needed a part that was more than 2 or 3 years old, you got the, "Sorry, that's an obsolete model # - better just buy a whole new setup!" line.
Friction shifting is like breakfast cooking at the ole diner - no matter who's working the grill, the food comes out great! You can mix virtually any shifter with any derailler and any speed freewheel (within the movement range of the lever), and anybody can make it work. Very simple mechanism, compared to the complex monstrosity of index levers. Plus they're cheaper. And, as I recall, most index systems HAD a friction option available - just in case the indexing failed!