Gears (Newcomer enquiry)

Quoted message said:

So, eventually, to my question...

Are gripshift gears any good? Easy to use? Just the same as the thumbshift
ones... Are there problems with them... etc....

Hope you can help,

Willie.

Well I'm happy with mine no problems at all but I can't help thinking
if I was actually mountain biking and shifting and pulling the bike
all over the place they would be a nuisance and probably end up
changing when I didn't want them to if I gripped them by mistake.
Can't see a problem with a bike meant for the road though.

"Willie" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Are gripshift gears any good? Easy to use? Just the same as the

thumbshift

Quoted message said:

ones... Are there problems with them... etc....

I've got some on a budget bike I've used on the road in the winter for the
past 8 years(ish), never had a problem and it's poorly maintained (think
rust and manky blend of thick oil and crud).

Pete

Willie said:

Are gripshift gears any good? Easy to use? Just the same as the thumbshift
ones... Are there problems with them... etc....

Note that all gripshifts are not created equal. The basic shifting
mechanism is fine, but if it's attached to gear mechanisms made of
cheese the gears will be terrible. Exactly the same is true of thumb
shifters, of course.

So I wouldn't worry too much about it, as long as the basic bike is
okay. For a new hybrid of good basic quality look to spend £200 and up,
and at the lower price avoid front suspension (to be honest, I wouldn't
bother with it anyway). With a good basic bike, the gears should be
fine. One possibility would be hub gears rather than derailleurs. Not
as flexible for big hills and high speed, but for general purpose use
they're easier to use and take roughly zero maintenance.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email hidden] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/

Willie popped their head over the parapet saw what was going on and said

Quoted message said:

Are gripshift gears any good? Easy to use? Just the same as the
thumbshift ones... Are there problems with them... etc....

Youngest (10 (special school etc.)) has a habit of "revving" the
bike
handlebars so inadvertantly changing the gear , so much so that the
front derralieur has been "locked off" whilst the rear gear shift has
been changed from a grip shift to a thumb shift.
Have no personal experience of a grip shift but when eldest (12)
changes gear seems to be a bit of a faff, while using the thumb
shifters I seem to have no problem, may well be that having
greater experience I change gear just before I have too and
tend only to change one gear at a time.

NOTE :- above is just comment/opinion and in no way should
be taken as definitive.

--
yours S

Nihil curo de ista tua stulta superstitione

in message <[email hidden]>, Willie ([email hidden]'😉

Quoted message said:

Excuse me if this has been posted recently, but I'm looking to buy a
bike. I have been using a friend's Mountain bike for a while and now
need to buy a bike of my own.

I will only ever use it on the road and I don't fancy a racing bike so
I thought a hybrid would do me.

However, the bike I am using at the moment has thumbshift gears which
are
nice... a lot of the bikes I am looking at now have gripshift gears,
which I have never used...

So, eventually, to my question...

Are gripshift gears any good? Easy to use? Just the same as the
thumbshift
ones... Are there problems with them... etc....

Good gripshift gears are very good indeed, and very easy to use. I've
currently got them on my number two mountain bike, and will be fitting
them on my number one mountain bike next time it has a major overhaul.

--
[email hidden] (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

;; I'll have a proper rant later, when I get the time.

Willie said:

Are gripshift gears any good? Easy to use? Just the same as the thumbshift
ones... Are there problems with them... etc....

I personally prefer thumb shifters because it's harder to change them by
accident - besides which, twist shifting seems to put unnatural stresses
on the wrist, which I assume is not a good thing.

But as others have pointed out, good twist shifters are probably better
than bad thumb shifters.

I have Shimano EZ-fire shifters on my EBC hybrid and they are just fine
as far as I'm concerned. They have a thumb lever for shifting one way
(up for the front, down for the rear) and a finger trigger for shifting
the other way. The thumb lever has quite a long travel, which is a bit
of a nuisance on the front because you have to pull it all the way
across to shift up, but it's actually beneficial on the rear because you
can downshift up to three gears at a time depending on how far you pull
the lever.

d.

Thanks for all your responses.

Willie.

Willie said:

Thanks for all your responses.

Willie.

Here's another. My wife and I had bikes with gripshifts and found that
gear changing was difficult in hot weather with sweaty hands. This wasn't
always solved with mitts. We swapped them to rapidfire and find them much
better.

--
Michael MacClancy
Random putdown - "He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness
in others." -Samuel Johnson
www.macclancy.demon.co.uk
www.macclancy.co.uk

Willie' of said:

However, the bike I am using at the moment has thumbshift gears which are
nice... a lot of the bikes I am looking at now have gripshift gears, which
I have never used...

So, eventually, to my question...

Are gripshift gears any good? Easy to use? Just the same as the thumbshift
ones... Are there problems with them... etc....

I have a bike with bottom of the range Shimano thumbshifters, and another
with better quality gripshifts (both ancient, but similar vintage). I
greatly prefer the action of the thumbshifts. I click once, and get the
next gear. The gripshifts seem to have a stop point at the gear and then
just past it, with the result that I inevitably go past. I also find it
disconcerting that the marked numbers on the gripshifts don't match the
points where the gear changes are - I don't actually need the numbers and
wish they weren't there.

I think that this is a personal choice thing. I don't like the gripshift
movement, it puts a lot of pressure on my wrists. My small hands prefer
thumbshifters. But I'm sure other people's mileage will vary.
--
I've decided to become a doctor. People have to suck up to doctors, otherwise
they stick big needles into your body for practically no reason at all. A lot
of careers don't offer that kind of opportunity. - Dogbert
Steph Peters delete invalid from [email hidden]
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