I’ve got a fairly large stable of high-ish end bikes with a variety of drive trains ranging from 6 speed to 10 speed shimano but honestly only partially shimano because my all weather commuter is a belt drive internal gear bike and my 87 paramount, Dahon P9 Folder and Salsa Cassaroll low trail conversion are in friction shift mode and fully independent of manufacturers and spacing fashions of the day.
I am impressed by the shifting of my Bombadil which has a 9 speed Sun XCD drivetrain with a SRAM cassette and a KMC chain. The derailleurs are said to be more highly polished versions of the Sunrace mech. It all works really well. Indexes perfectly. There was a recent post on the list about a new group set 9 speed with a rear mech with a clutch for $125 and I would say check if out. 9 speed and a good chain rocks. And if you are open to friction shifting “do what you want to”. https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000002796999/slomo.html John On Fri, Feb 22, 2019 at 8:08 PM Lefebeaver <[email protected]> wrote: > I bought myself an Atlantis frame last fall and am building it up slowly > over winter. I've been riding a Novara gravel bike for the past 3 years, my > first exposure to a 21st century bike with discs, 10-spd index shifting, > yada yada. Except I'm not real impressed with any of it - the harsh ride, > the disc brakes or the 10-spd cassette. I can make rim brakes stop much > better than these discs, and the index shifting has been very finicky - it > even seems temperature dependent (!) - the whole system seems very delicate > compared to the bombproof 7-speed Deore thumbies on my venerable > Stumpjumper. I've also broken 2 chains in 2 years. I'm a big guy and I've > always broken stuff on bikes, but this is ridiculous. So my philosophy on > these things is happily in line with Grant's - keep it simple and robust, > and don't shave weight at the cost of reliability. With regard to gears, he > has said "seven is heaven, eight is great, nine is fine, but ten is too > many". I'd be perfectly happy to go with a 7 or 8 speed, friction or > friction-capable gear system with a heavy-duty chain and solid shifting, > but I'm hearing that it's getting harder and harder to get a quality 7- or > 8-speed cassette and I worry they may go extinct too soon. Since I'm having > a set of sturdy wheels built for this bike and I'm told the hub choice > depends on cassette choice, I need to decide soon on what hubs to use. So I > guess my question is twofold - how locked into a cassette size will I be > with a given choice of hub; and are high quality 8-spd cassettes likely to > remain available for the next, say, 10-15 years? > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
