khatfull

Oh Dear Lord, you're mainlining! Intervention! Intervention!

XR2

You're all mistaken. It's all about the ride. If I didn't enjoy the ride why would I get offa the couch?

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

Totally with you on that one man I needed a 1/8" chain in a pinch and the only thing I could get my hands on at the LBS was BMX chain, and my options were White or Green!


I agree completely even though I know those very folks will respond with further reasons why we're both wrong wrong wrong!

That said if it works well enough for me, and I like it that's all the reasoning I need to use it.....of course I'm not about to try and convince the world that i'm more "Right" for doing it.

I just like it all....I've got that Rod Shifter/Cyclo equipped bike, some DT shifter equipped bikes of varying age, some Barcon shifted bikes of varying age....now I'm working on an 80's Raleigh speedy thing that is probably gonna get some 105 Brifters! Its all fun, and its all personal preference. I know some folks who'd never learn to like 11sp Ergo levers....because they want indexed twist grip shifters. Are they wrong? maybe Contador would think so but who am I to say.

khatfull

Can we take up a collection to get you a proper chain for that bike, please?

I agree too...it's just that I personally have too much fun with my "anachronisms". Crap, my main home computer is a 10 year old Athlon XP 2100 with 1GB RAM running Windows 7. Go figure.

KonAaron Snake 

Dude, talk about something with NO charm - "vintage" computers.

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

I know, right!!!?

That's like saying "Well I've got my sack in a vice and I'm really tightening that sucker down good and hard and it hurts like a MF, but its damn hot out there and the Cold Steel really feels good against my skin"


Keith, I am currently accepting Links for a new chain. I've got a PO box though so I can only accept one or two links at a time. Feel free to add to the chain !!

seriously though, yeah I gotta get a better looking chain on that thing.

to keith's computer's credit, Windows 7 is pretty great (comparatively to other windows OS's) and does pretty well on minimal hardware requirements.

aixaix 

The appreciation of old technology has everything to do with aesthetics: the way you feel riding, handling, admiring, servicing and fixing an old bike is what makes it special. With a few notable exceptions, new technology performs better, often far better than old stuff. What a fine old bicycle can do that a modern one can almost never match is connect you to your past, hook you up with great engineering minds and fine craftsmen's hands, reveal the many ways tinkerers and geniuses have solved the design & construction problems of human powered vehicles, and stimulate flights of fancy.

ColonelJLloyd 

Well put, aixaix.

mazdaspeed

I have to disagree that all DT shifters are crap. Well adjusted tri color or dura ace 7 speed with a sram 8 speed chain shifts extremely fast and consistently. Almost everything else from the 80's and older sucks in comparison IME. Still no replacement for a good STI/ergo/sram setup if you enjoy all out performance.

khatfull

And would you believe to get it all to work I have drivers from W2000, XP, Vista, AND W7 on the machine? For a couple I had to muck the INI files to get the drivers to load for Windows 7...I was damned sure gonna make it work!

Zaphod Beeblebrox 

There's nobody to disagree with. Nobody is arguing that.


@keith (w/ tongue firmly planted in cheek) - Shoulda gone with Ubuntu

KonAaron Snake 

I am not arguing that anyway. Btw- I think the biggest pile of useless garbage is dt index shifting. I prefer 6 sp friction to that.

gaucho777 

I respectfully disagree.



(Edit: Though, I admit that I do still prefer Simplex retrofriction DT shifters to these DA indexed shifters.)

mazdaspeed

How can you say it's useless garbage? My drivetrain couldn't shift more perfectly or consistently. If you're really hammering it's a lot easier to reach down and just shift up or down however many gears than to finesse the shifter. Maybe it's just me but I honestly can't understand how you could think 6 speed friction is better than 7 speed dura ace or ultegra.

BTW you said "I grew up with DT shifters, and like em' ok, but compared to modern 11sp Ergo? It's unrefined, inconvenient, CRAP". I'm not sure how to interpret that other than that you're saying all DT shifters are crap (compared to ergo).

KonAaron Snake 

Read it again. Keyword - compared with.

I can say it because it's my opinion...like your opinions you float out as fact

mazdaspeed

No seriously, if you're in a situation where every last amount of peformance counts, how is 6 speed friction superior to perfectly indexed 7 speed? There are less gears and it takes longer to shift. I seriously don't understand. If you prefer the feel or whatever that's one thing, but it's just plain wrong to call indexing 'useless'. Maybe you were traumatized by campy indexing? I don't know.

fender1

Yes all the pros are using 7 speed indexing because it is the bee's knees.....

mazdaspeed

Thanks for the irrelevant snarky comment.

KonAaron Snake 

Anytime.

KonAaron Snake 

no, seriously...they are chunky shifting, require constant tuning and don't fine tune well. I'd rather use friction.

ColonelJLloyd 

Sounds relevant to me as what you described sounds like a race.

fender1

LesterOfPuppets

Hmmm. I remember my 6-speed 105 index DT shifters working just fine for a LONG time. It's been a while since I ran them though.

I finally got around to running 8-speed Ergos in the late 90s and they were just OK. I went back to friction DT after 2 years on Ergos.

For my pleasure rides I like friction the best. The less noise my bike makes the happier I am. I have 8-speed clincher and 7-speed tubular wheels and swapping back and forth is pretty easy.

Sometimes I can't stand riding near someone with clicky shifters on a plastic bike. The racket is unbearable.

mazdaspeed

I guess my 7400 and 6400 equipped bikes have both been anomalies. They do shift aggressively (chunky?) but they are fast and I've never had any difficulty dialing them in perfectly. I've only had to adjust the barrel adjuster on the 6400 bike once after the initial adjustment, and it's worked flawlessly over the last couple thousand miles. I use that bike on club rides (when I don't ride the modern rig) and it's never even come close to letting me down.

If what you say were true I'd understand but 2/2 of my first hand experiences with good indexed drivetrains have shown otherwise. Suntour and campagnolo, I can definitely buy what you're saying.

RobbieTunes

Often, before I put both feet in my mouth, I have to get my head out where they can get to it....so I go back to the OP startup...

"It IS about the bike..."

It is, and if I couldn't ride it, it wouldn't be a topic near my widest radar range.
I simply have no use for a bike I couldn't ride.
I assume the ride.

Now, as Keith says, it's a joy when the bike disappears beneath you, and it comes down to motion, and effort, and flicking gears. That could be where it ends for lots of cyclists, because that's all they want. I like that, too, but I like to take it a few steps backwards...

Before there were the uber-modern, uber-light, and absolutely great bikes that propel you like no man or woman before, there were bike bikes. These bikes were also the best of their era, and there was a point with those bikes, when properly tuned, they had their relative moments.

They also disappeared beneath the rider, and allowed motion, effort, and the blurry joy of a fast ride to occur.
They looked just as good sitting still, and if you looked hard enough, you not only saw the bike, you saw the men who made them.

You can tell, just by looking at them, that the performance curve was finite, given the materials and components. You can tell, just by looking at them, that these men coaxed, cajoled, and caressed them to get to the farthest end of that curve. In doing so, these men went beyond the utility, to craft, and, some say, to art.

There was only so much they could do, and they went for it. Unabashed.

Now, I appreciate a fine friction machine, the mental searching, using your ear and the tips of your fingers to find the sweet spot, where noise ends. Then, other noises can take over, the whir of spokes, the sound of fabric on a leather saddle, the soft slipping noise as you modulate that caliper. During that quiet, orderly hum, you have to look ahead, and anticipate, and actually think! man! about what you're doing.

You search for smooth. You have to manage the bike, manage the terrain, and you have to know yourself, understand the climb, and when to change the bike to yourself.

Some, older bikes I assume, are a more complex management of body, terrain, and machine. Different parts of that machine have to be managed, ridden, moved. You have to know what you can do. You have to know what it can do. You have to know what you can do with it.

After that, to indexed, you lose that tense, searching, precise moment of harmony with cog and chain. You anticipate, you shift, it happens. You go back to being a pedaling human. You still have to know the bike, but not as well, because some of the error has drifted away with the detents in the shifter ring. You can now focus more of yourself on power, anticipation, on getting a little more out of it, maybe of yourself. You sure hope so.

With Ergos and STI's, you focus less on managing what you want to do. A dancing chain is no longer a skill, but a flicking of paddles, a thumb on a stick. You can anticipate less, because to err is to simply correct and get on with it. If it's a modern bike, the other things are there, reliable and steady, and you're in workout mode, managing the bike far less, because a lot of it is managing itself. Part of your brain can take a break.

It's about the bike, for me, because I take the ride as my measure. I want the most out of the frame as possible. I want to prove I can do the same things with this "old" bike as those other guys are doing with wheels that cost more than 2 of my bikes. I don't want to have to ride a modern bike to keep up. I want to be just as good on steel. I put the modern stuff on the frames, and I tell the frame, like the quarter horse out back, "show me what you can do, I promise I'll hang on."

I also like the older bikes, the friction groups, the index DT shifters, where I actually have to have some skill besides turning those pedals. It's a much steeper learning curve than what you encounter when you buy a Kestrel RT1000 off the rack and have a go at it. It's probably not as fun for beginners, but boy, does it make you a better rider when and if you do ride a modern bike. If you employ the thinking, anticipation, and tactics from fast friction riding to a modern STI bike, you're going to be better, and faster. When I ride friction or DT shifting, I like to be alone, so I don't have to think about other riders, just being good on the bike.

Knowing all that leaves me awestruck at the guys who ran as fast 25 years ago as they do today. To ride in a 25mph peloton with friction would put me in cardiac arrest.

Now, the bikes. I like shiny things. I like things that look like they were made by hands, not robots. They make me feel that I can bring performance out of them, that they didn't start out already beyond my ability. Which leads to my wrenching mojo: make it live, make it perform, make it show off, make that frame smile, blush, and swagger. Do the Chariots of Fire thing with your bike, feel the intention. Touch the monolith and toss the chain whip in the air.

Drink the wine and not the electrolyte.
Hell, man, live a little.

I've probably said it better but not without drinking a bit....