East Hill

The bike might have been made in the 1970s, but the thinking was from the previous century.

Honestly, I can't think of any other reason why women's bikes had stem shifters on what were otherwise high end bikes.

Both the current Paramount, and a Nishiki Pro which is now in the hands of Bob Hufford, were outfitted with stem shifters.

The Nishiki Pro was used for racing, too .

Any of you who worked at LBSs during that era have any better reason than mine?

East Hill

purevl

Maybe they were just listening to their customers? A lot of girls I know prefer stem shifters to DTs and feel more secure with "safety" levers. They just aren't concerned with frictional losses or mechanical advantage, they want what they want.

cudak888 

We have them swapped. This is what I'm used to:



-Kurt

East Hill

Perhaps as always I am the oddball then! I do not like stem shifters, and I don't think I have ever used those 'safety' levers.

I know bicycle companies don't listen to their customers now (otherwise there'd be far fewer women's bicycles with silly flower graphics)--something tells me that they probably didn't do much listening then either.

If the women of that day were used to stem shifters, they would probably have felt awkward with DT shifters. And, of course, all the women's bikes with derailleurs had stem shifters...

purevl

You know, after I posted I felt like perhaps I remembered you having mentioned an interest in computer graphics before. I think it was in passing, perhaps in reference to another forum you frequent. I know there are some areas of computer graphics, specifically gaming, where the axes are misaligned. I'm not sure why, I've always guessed that it's either because games started in 2d and the powers that be thought it would confuse people to change the orientation of the axes or that CAD defaults to a view of the x-y from above so people unfamiliar with cartesian space started drawing their stuff sideways and it stuck. At any rate, it's not the "standard" way to describe 3-space which is something to keep in mind when discussing axes with anyone who's done a lot of math, physics, drafting, or machining because it will likely cause the same confusion. As far as I know, it's just those sectors of computer graphics that use your method.

As an interesting aside, when I said earlier that I always flip my X and Y it's because the mathematical standard for orientation, and the "common-use" standards are different. If you start with a standard X-Y plane viewed from above, and imagine a Z axis extending out of the paper, it makes sense to have the negative Z go into the page. If you wish to maintain this relative orientation, but rotate the space so that positive Z goes "up" but "right" and "out" are still positive as well you end up with the X sticking out of the page. That's the mathematically correct way, but this is hard for people to get used to since everyone is accustomed from grade school to having positive X extend to the right. For that reason, a lot of times when "sense" is more important than value, the flat-paper orientation is retained and positive X is to the right even though that makes "out" negative Y. You find that sort of thing in machining and industry, but not in mathematics or the hard sciences.
[/nerd]

Anyway, I got you now. I understood your meaning before, just not your choice of language, but I see where the problem was now. Cheers

noglider 

I was right alongside everyone else in the 70's, poohpoohing stem shifters and safety levers. Looking back, there was really nothing wrong with them, especially stem shifters. Really.

soonerbills

I know I'm probably considered a illiterate hack...but I prefer stems!!

RobbieTunes

Did you sell it, Jim?