Just wanted to check with you guys. I'm on the home stretch for my Cannondale build. With my measly budget in mind, I had been thinking about grabbing the Nashbar/Microshift RD and brifters, both at an excellent price! I think my mind is set on the brifters, but I just noticed today that Nashbar put up the Shimano 105 RDs for $59.99, just $20 bucks more. I guess at this point, im just crunching numbers, but wanted to know if anyone had experiece with the Nashbar things. Thanks a ton!

ive seen them on a few bikes on here but dont have any experience with them myself. ive read decent reviews of them as well. im not sure i would like having 2 shift levers like it has though. ive also seen them in carbon try doing a google search for them they look a lot better that way imo.

My son has them on his Felt. They work just fine.

like these
https://road.cc/content/review/14420-...10spd-groupset

that rear mech looks nice as well. im not sure if they are as cheap as the ones you are looking at but if so thats the way i would go.

My question has always been how well do they shift from the drops?

Pretty sure the R/D is perfectly compatible with Shimano's shifters, and iirc all the reviews I've read on them were really great, and that's for the cheap one they're selling at Nashbar. If my commuter's R/D ever fails, I'll put one of those on in a second (assuming they haven't raised the price by then). Great price with the ability to upgrade shifters and maintain compatibility. What's not to like.

-Jeremy

I am betting the RD will work just fine. I was recently able to ride a felt with the whole microshift setup on it. I didn't like the brifters as much as my shimano. they worked fine but took a little more effort to use. if your on a budget your main concern is getting on the road. just buy the microshift one and save your forty bucks for some cool fizik bartape and some extra co2's.

BTW ruined my cyclocross derailleur in mud a few weeks ago and I ordered the nashbar one without a second thought. i have no doubt it'll work fine.

I'd be curious to see how a bike assembled from imported eBay carbon bits (frame, bars, stem, saddle, etc) and the Microshift Arsis Carbon components would ride. Would be quite a budget build, but could end up with something quite ridable.

Yes indeed, the ten-speed stuff is top quality. It shifts perfectly; I almost think I like it better than DA7800. Not only have I done the regular morning ride a bunch of times on the Microshift-equipped bike, I've done several 200k brevets on it, and the Microshift was flawless.

The cable pull appears to be identical to Shimano, and compatibility with both SRAM and Shimano cassettes is perfect.

That said, I don't know what the longevity is. For all I know, in six months the stuff will fall apart, but it doesn't seem that way at this point.

Oh, and I almost only ride in the drops, and shifting is quite easy there.

Been riding on the Nashbar 10-speed rear derailleur for over 3K miles. It's as good as the Ultegra line from Shimano. The only minor downside is the quality of the pulleys...not as smooth as Dura Ace. Course you can always swap the pulleys with those from Shimano if $ permits. I paid around $27 for the shifter. Pull-ratio is identical to the stuffs from Shimano.

Thanks everyone! I think I'm going to just go ahead and pick em both up now. As far as the drops go, I was wondering that as well. With the button being where it is, as opposed to say, Sora STI, it seems like it wouldn't be too much of an issue at all. I'll get pics posted as soon as I get everything mounted up. (somewhere around 7-10 business days, ha)

First, the bold print. GiantNerd has Ultegra RD's for the same price if you're on a budget. As for the Microshift, I can't say enough about how much I like them. Crisp shifting (I have the 9 speed), but the hand position for the up/down shift is better for me than the 105 5600 I had. A bargain at twice the price. You will not be sorry. If you want to avoid the Nashbar/Forte badge, you can get them on eBay for about the same price.

Someone in my group has the shifters (Forte Microshift rather than Nashbar same). He like it a lot, much more than Sora/Tiagra and he is a hard core rider (he has them on a titanium road bike).

I've had Nashbar derailleurs on a bike for 2 years and I guess their good because until I saw this thread I had forgotten about them. It's kind of a rat-rod TT bike that doesn't get a lot of miles, but I've never had a shift problem.

I've used Nashbar and Performance brand. Stuff works fine.

I did a review of the Forte stuff. It here: https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ighlight=forte

My current set-up is Nashbar shifters with DA.

Excellent write up, full of useful info!

I have the Microshift 8 speed that came on a Fuji from Performance. It shifts fine, shifting from the drops is not a problem for me. The FD, however, is a little sluggish sometimes but a little tweaking fixes that. No complaints so far. I went down pretty hard the other day and most of the impact was on the left shifter and it still works just fine.

How do the hoods fit your hands? Similar to Shimano, SRAM, Campagnolo? For whatever reason, I have never been comfortable riding on the hoods on a Shimano equipped bike.

I can compare (hood-wise) the Forte 9 speed levers to the 105 5600 I had. They are almost exactly alike, but the Microshift/Forte shifters are a little steeper. The only time I notice this is standing on climbs with palms on the top of the apparatus, but it is hardly worth mentioning. My only gripe is that Microshift has not yet moved into the concealed cabling realm.

I notice the rear derailleur lists the max tooth size as 27. But I've read that a lot of the Shimano stuff that says 27 can actually fit a 28 (and more total capacity as well if you don't cross-chain). Do you think it's the same with this derailleur?

Dissenting vote for Microshift 10 speed brifters: I did my Ridley X-Fire build in December 2009 with the Forte version of Microshift 10-speed shifters. From the start, I liked how they felt in my hands, but I did not like that the FD shifter took two movements to go from the small to the large chain ring (unless I kept the FD cable under higher than normal tension all of the time) AND it kept breaking front brake cables right at the anchor. Some teflon grease at the archor seemed to help, but my confidence that a breakage would happen out on along ride was high. I started carrying spare brake cables--something I never had to do with Shimano brifters.

Another annoyance was that the throw of the small lever of the RD brifter seemed very long compared to the Ultegra shifter I replaced.

The icing on the cake--coming home from work the small lever of the RD brifter broke off in the middle of a shift. WTF!!!

That's called trim. It's supposed to be like that. I actually love that there are 3 trim settings as opposed to Shimano's two. It allows a greater use of gearing without chainrub.

The movements seemed so large, it almost felt like it was designed for a triple chainring crank. You may like it. I didn't.