I tried Shimano and didn't care for it. It shifts good, I just don't like whacking the lever over and over again. I have a frame right now that the build is stalled because I can't decide what drivetrain to put on it. If all I had to do was push some buttons, that might work. I just don't want to whack the levers I brake the bike with. The other BF C & V people that ride SOTR and I are going to discuss it this year on the ride. Maybe we will come up with something.
SOTR is still open for more riders. I know plenty of Richmond riders do it. You need to go ahead, register, and give it a try! I am so not ready for it this year. It will be a lot of riding over the next 2 weeks to get into some kind of reasonable shape.

So, pick your drivetrain. A double in front and whatever you want in back. You are hammering down a hill on your big/small combo. At the bottom you come to an up that sends you to your small/big combo, or close to it. You top that hill and back to your big/small combo. Each time you are hitting those STIs to move that drivetrain however many cogs it takes. All of those other 2-3 cog shifts as well.

Same situations with friction, you move 1 or both levers 1 time each to get to the gear you want. Over the course of a long ride, that is a lot less moving of the shifting levers. I know what the advantages of STIs/indexing are, and have tried them. For the riding I do I prefer friction.

I have never desired to go from big/small to small/big as one change, and I ride some pretty hilly terrain. If I ever even need to downshift the front without going up a few cogs in the rear I'd guess that I was totally sleeping/ignoring the signs that I should have been shifting long ago.

That said, with Campy Chorus it would take one push on the left shifter and and three on the right to go big/small to small/big using an 11 speed cassette. Going small/big to big/small would be one of the left and two on the right.

This. The movement of the derailleurs needs to be the same in both cases. I don't see how having friction prevents a dropped chain or poor reaction. If anything its easier because as you carry your momentum into the 10% hill you can shift while standing easily with STIs and continue to bang out gears without missing a beat. I've ridden friction plenty and never felt like either was limiting, and I've never felt at the end of a ride that I spent too much time shifting, usually just too much time suffering. I know steep hills with poor run ins. I ride and commute in seattle and the greater PNW.

Thanks for answering earnestly, but the above does raise another question - when was the last time that you tried integrated shifters? Given the actuation force for everything except the small-to-big chainring, "whacking" is probably the last word that springs to mind for me.

I had no idea some people found shifting so complex.

I missed the part where padding in shorts and/or saddles linked to shifting.

I guess momentum doesn't exist where seypat lives.

It does. It's all about marketing.

I don't think he is even saying that friction prevents a poor reaction. If I had to guess, it's that friction makes it so undesirable to make small gearing tweaks that he waits until the last second to shift in situations with greatly varying terrain so that he only needs to shift once per change. Why else would someone find it acceptable to give up so much momentum by making such a vast gearing change as big/small to small/big?

You've bought that 'momentum' marketing the industry keeps pushing, haven't you?

I believe it's because he was probably wearing these:

I actually had to go do some work, so let me catch up here.

First of all, let's talk about padded shorts vs padded saddles. Really, whatever works for you is fine and dandy. Life is too short to worry about it.

We have to consider the quality of the rider here. I am about as low as it gets as far as climbing ability. Really scraping the bottom of the barrel. Heck, I might have to go up a cog just to get over a speed bump in the parking lot. Where others see a mole hill, I see a mountain.

The chain dropping and poor reactions are from other riders. I see it every year at the same place on the same ride. It could be rider/route inexperience there. Nice fun rolling descent, then a 90 degree right to an immediate out of the saddle to start up the hill. After that turn, you are barely moving. People look up and start going through the gears. If they haven't got to the gear they need it about 5 or 10 yards, it is too late. They try to stand and grind it out, but momentum is gone and they fall over.(after a few front wheel waggles) 2 years in a row my rear axle slipped in the dropout at the start of that grind. I finally wised up and always make it extra tight before we start going down the hill before that turn.

I've been found out.

Tight enough to stay put under normal use is not "extra tight", it's correct tightness.

I'm obviously a slow typist as well.

With friction I only have to move the lever/levers only once whether I am moving 1 gear(ratio) away or 10. I don't know if that makes sense to the rest of you or not. Here is an analogy. I have type O blood so I get called every 2 weeks to donate platelets. You have to sit on the machine and during the draw cycle, you have to squeeze a palm ball every 3-5 seconds. The physical movement(to me) of squeezing that ball is similar to shifting a STI lever, just more exaggerated. I was thinking about this very thing last time I donated as I was pondering that frame I need to build. After an hour of squeezing that ball, my forearm is really pumped up and tight. I've had about all of it I can take. Comparing the squeezing of the ball with the bike shifting, if it is friction, I only have to squeeze that ball(shift/move the lever) once or twice(if I shift both front and back) each 3 to 5 seconds. If it is indexed/STI I have to squeeze that ball(shift/move the lever) more that only once or twice per squeeze.(unless I only move 1 cog) With the indexed/STI I might be squeezing that ball 5+ times every 3-5 seconds. That is a whole lot more squeezing/shifting over an hours worth of donating/riding and my forearms get pumped/tighter/uncomfortable faster.

That analogy probably confuses everyone even more. Maybe I'm just a big wuss and need to HTFU!

Believe it or not, I rode each of those bikes around steady for over a year with no problems until that ride.

This still doesn't show how friction shifting or being able to go from big/small to small/big in one shift makes a difference in terms of dropping a chain.

Last year, when I started cycling and knew nothing about nothing regarding the sport, I bought those silly gel seat covers. Turns out, they made riding less comfortable so I tried the padded cycling shorts as suggested by some new found cycling friends.
Unbeknownst to me, I wore underwear with them and gym shorts over the cycling shorts. I must have looked like a total ass and once home, the underwear were sweat soaked and grungy.
Eventually, I learned that a quality pair of cycling shorts is all that you want or need and the difference in comfort was amazing.
I don't know why padded shorts work FAR better than padded saddle's but that's just the way it is. I learned that through trial and error, but think the general consensus agrees with that statement.
What hurts even more is the money that I've spent to learn how to comfortably ride a road bike!

I have never considered there were supposed to be gains from the additional cogs. And yet now that you bring it up, I do get very significant gains. I ride in Flatland and use very few cogs to cover my range of speeds. With an 11-speed cassette starting at 12 teeth, I have about 5 useful cogs. With 8 speed, I might have 3. I like the closer spacing. It makes a difference to me.

And yet back in the day we had neither much padding in the shorts or the saddle and glory be, we thought we were comfortable. How silly of us.

That's dumb.