Dahon.Steve

I sold my Schwinn World Sport several years ago and the only thing I miss are the friction shifters. I wish I'd still have that bike but it was too high geared and my knees were constantly hurting.

All those people buying expensive hub geared bikes because they hate index shifting have often never tried friction shifting.

Don't expect friction shifting to come back anytime soon. There's too much money to be made in selling high priced indexed shifters!

fietsbob

I miss the old freewheel tooth profiles, the chain stayed put once on the cog.

matimeo

I grew up using friction shifters, and up until a few years ago, all of my adult era bikes were friction as well. With that being said, I don't think I would trade in my computer with 105 brifters. You can't beat the precision and ease of use. Regarding the comments about how difficult it is to maintain or tune indexed shifting, I'm not really sure that's much of an issue. A quick twist of the barrel adjuster takes care of things in most cases. Many of the advantages of friction have been mentioned by others, but I don't think maintenance or tuning is one of them.

corwin1968

I've ridden indexed shifting since 1995 and it's easy and convenient as long as it works correctly, which for me has been the vast majority of the time. About a year ago I started retro-fitting an old bike and wasn't sure what my final drivetrain would be so I bought a set of $16 friction-only thumb shifters. Over the course of the year I've actually come to prefer the action of friction shifting over indexed shifting. Index shifters are much more ergonomic but I like the "manual" feeling of friction. Plus, these $16 shifters will work fine with any drivetrain I'll ever install on a bike and even with drop bars if I decide to try those out.