Modolo Morphos
 

Modolo Morphos - Seemed like a good idea at the time, did anybody get them to work successfully?
Anybody still using them?

I still have mine - my first BRIFTERS!
Got them used when brifters were new and they never seemed to work completely right, but I kept them because it was a quick way to test bike builds.
Eventually, I found some Modolo documentation on set-up, and the two documents didn't agree on what adjustment did what.
By then you could find other used brifters, and I'd had it.
Eventually they worked their way to the bottom of my handlebar box and I stumbled over them yesterday.
https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...a57912ab1e.jpg

When they came out I thought that they were cool as all get-out; never could afford them BITD and when I could afford some, there were far better options available. My recollection is that people said they were pretty finicky to get working correctly, but once dialed in they did really do what they said.
John
PS They still look cool as all get-out.

Jolly Codge is being WAAYYY too diplomatic about these crappers. They were a PITA and extreme time-wasters to set up, AND they worked poorly. There was no such thing as "dialed-in", LOL.
A shop I worked at got a coupla sets as a "sample" from one of the importers. We tried to get them to work decently, but none of us were impressed with the end results.

The much better performance of even a cheapo Shimano RSX lever put these things to shame.

Forget any pretense of using these as shifters, and they do make for a stylish stand-alone BRAKE lever. Style over substance, thats for sure.

I'm a little puzzled how an index shifter can be so awful. In the early days of indexing it was critical to have the lever work just so because the chain and cogs weren't helping. But Morphos or any other index shifter with HG cogs should shift decently.

Unless the problem is that there was too much cable friction.


Now I feel like getting some just to figure them out.

I tried to get them to work with Campy 8 speed. It was a brand new set. I could never get it right. I sold them on eBay.

I bought mine from Nashbar for a great price. They shifted a 7-speed Shimano SIS-HG system just fine. The only problem was that your thumbs needed to be gorilla length to complete the shift.

I don't know if setting these up is different from modern equipment but I found Calvin's video on indexed shifting very helpful. It's on youtube under Park tools. I thought I knew it all but there are steps there that I didn't know about. I'm astonished at how reliably my bike shifts now. I wish I could remember the extra steps.