Are you saying I should forego the WD-40 and just pray harder?

In the late 70's-early 80's, I had a Ross Professional Gran Tour II, with stem mounted Shimano Fingertip friction shifters, I loved the way they worked.
Fast forward to 2008. Hadn't rode since '85 or '86. Decided to start again. Bought a brand new Kona Fire Mountain, it had indexed Rapid Fire shifters. They were nice. One morning I noticed moisture in the indicator window, I decided that wouldn't be a good thing in the winter, so I decided to go with friction shifters. Had some Suntour bar mounted ones. I didn't like them as much as I had liked the Fingertip shifters. I decided to get a set of the Shimano Fingertip shifters. I had to modify them so that I could mount them on a headset spacer. I am loving them again.

LOL, so you saw some moisture in the "window", and decided to go for something else entirely? It's not like that part of the shifter is supposed to be evacuated or in a vacuum. It's just a plastic cover to allow you to see which gear it is in.

I figured that if there was moisture in there, then there was a possibility for the mechanism to freeze.

depends on what type of shifter you are looking for (7/8 are pretty inexpensive on amazon) and of course the bar end shifters (I agree with a previous poster about stem shifters... I like them and they should bring them out for 8 speed [maybe 9/10?]...)

Come on, who wouldn't think their capacity to reason trumps nearly 30 years of actual index shifting use over billions of miles by millions of people in every corner of the globe? ROFLMAO is right.

I never went to Index on my commuter... I have Index on other bikes, but not the commuter... and I am quite fine with it.

Pondering swapping the rear to STI, the front will definitely stay friction that works great. Weather's been warmer but still icey and I took the commuter out for training. For beating around the city being out of an ideal cadence for an extra 3 seconds every now and then doesn't matter at all and the simplicity is worth the tradeoff - but for a good hard ride I miss being able to shift while standing and when pushing past 25mph I definitely would like to keep 2 hands on the bars.

Course, with that said the STI shifters are already mounted so swapping back and forth as needed will be a piece of cake so long as the cable doesn't get frayed.

Yes, you should forego the WD-40 on Grip Shifters. There's nothing inside a Grip Shifter that can benefit from it. If anything, it would be detrimental to the shifter. There is a gob of grease inside the shifter to lubricate what needs lubrication and the solvent would was it out. The solvent might even have a detrimental effect on the plastic of the shifter.

As for the prayer, you can do that as much as you please. Personally, I'd pray that a replacement shifter falls out of the sky to replace the Grip Shift.

Happen to have friction Retroshifts on my commuter bike, but it wouldn't make any difference to me if it were index. The shifting demands of riding around town are just not demanding enough for the type of shifting to matter (to me).

I guess you are not a fan of the Grip Shift?

I didn't think anybody was, until I saw that the top-end SRAM X11 (1x11) mtn group offers a grip-shifting option (or trigger). I was told there are some who swear by grips; me? They lost me the first time a bump from my hand caused an unintended shift.

Also, they are extremely common on kids' bikes, but my smallest doesn't have enough grip strength to downshift when he needs it. I replaced his grips with a pair of these (left/front is friction)

I used to absolutely detest grip-shifters when I was riding a lot of single-track and like RubeRad would have unintended shifts, sometimes dangerously so.

I started tolerating grip-shifters in the wintertime because they're easy to use with big gloves/mittens and IME they tend to be reliable mechanically.

while Im not exactly a fan, I don't have a problem with them... I also did see the higher end grip shifters because of this thread, which I thought were interesting.

I prefer friction and have D/A bar-cons on my Fantom CX. But I ride singlespeed most of the time anyway and as such do not shift at all. :)

I'm on my third bike with Grip Shift twist shifters, and like 'em just fine.

I also use thumb shifters, indexed down tube shifters, STI, Ergopower, and friction stem mount stem shifters in the fleet without difficulty, so I'm quite adaptable.

I look for old steel on Craigslist for all my commuter gear. Friction is one huge reason why.
I look at index as the single worst 'improvement' to bikes in my lifetime :)

There is definitely a skill to be mastered in friction shifting...

...which apparently some can savor for a lifetime! :p

But then, I'm also a Unix guy... I enjoy a challenge once in a while?

Never met a mechanic who was;)

It's not the mechanism...it's simple enough...it the cable routing that is usually the problem. Trying to get the shifter back together after you've replaced the cable can be difficult, especially with the versions that loop the cable around the shifter before exiting to the derailer.

I usually think of it the other way around - I use Windows occasionally, so I like challenges :). Still, your comment makes me think I should try friction shifting sometime.

Well, I'm also half-deaf-- and my drive-side ear is the dead one-- so trimming while riding through traffic is... well... extremely difficult for me.

But I do appreciate the mechanical simplicity and repairability of friction shifting hardware. There is simply nothing to break in a friction shifter. But that slippery slope led to the purchase of an SS bike. :D

my Grip shifter has 2 cables Pulling in both directions , so always works .. Shifter sequencing in the back Hub.

I have derailleur bikes too . there the FD with a friction shifter works so well , I never seen a reason to use STI.
Ka thunk , Ka thunk throws

You may like them , To Each Their Own.. I fix bikes with them , an acquired Taste..

this is why i switched to linux 11 years ago.

after switching to indexed shifting in the 90s i have never looked back. i'm not a fan of trimming and it's nice to see shimano do away with it on ultegra and dura ace. the di2 bikes i've test ridden are sweet and di2 with an igh makes a lot of sense (igh hubs are not my thing, however).

Never seen the Di2 Alfine 11, did see a UK tourist last summer with the Versa 11 speed Mechanical Brifter.

That's why I like SRAM triggers;they use two thumb levers which are easy to use with thick gloves or even mittens.

Yeah, I like that design a lot. Definitely what I prefer for flat-bars by a long shot.

I kept downtube friction shifters on my 2 classic steel bikes from the 80s, but I paired them with 10 speed cassette wheels, one Campy the other Shimano. Guess what, they shift flawlessly and silently too. I still have the original Campy NR derailleur on one and SR on the other.

10 speed (and other) cassettes have much better shifting performance than the old freewheels ever did due to the ramps and profiles on the teeth and better chains. Just a touch of the shifter puts me in the next gear either way, and I can always multi shift too with a swing of the lever.

I have all the systems, friction, indexing, and integrated, of the three I like indexing the best because it shifts faster then integrated and it can be converted to friction mode, I find integrated shifting to be about as fast as friction so no advantage in that department between the two. Indexing require more frequent adjusting that can be painstaking to keep things working exactly, whereas friction is simple and doesn't require exacting or frequent adjustments. Friction opens up more door for usable parts like mixing derailleurs, shifters and cassettes whereas with indexing you have to get indexing compatible parts even though they can be made to work in friction mode. With indexing if you derailleur, derailleur hanger, shifter, cable and chain gets damaged you can't shift whereas with friction you can usually get it to work if not fully at least partially and if all else fails you can shift it by kicking it! With integrated shifting you can't get it work if your drive train gets damaged, and parts are more expensive, most of the time cannot be repaired in the field, and won't last as long.

Due to each kinds unique personality I like friction the best due to it's simplicity and is what I use on my touring bike and couple of road bikes, however I do like indexing because it does snap into gear faster then any system made to date and is fairly cheap and easy enough to work on but it could become useless if some part of the drive train is damaged. Integrated I like the least! It's too finicky, chances are very high you're not going to be able to repair in the field, cost to repair or replace is very high, and it doesn't shift any faster then friction (once you know how to shift a friction system), but it is convenient to have the shifter located in the brake lever.