I do have experience with this change-including changes made to the same bikes and my stable of bikes with DT shifters, BE's, brifters and thumbies.
There's no magic bullet. The issue is one of technique and anticipation. On my touring bike, the closest approximation I have to your situation with the tandem, my strategy for rolling hills is to downshift just before or in the "valleys" then coast until I can spin comfortably up the hill. On a loaded tourer, momentum is lost quickly. I imagine the situation is the same on a tandem. At the top of the hill, if I'm not simply going to coast down the other side, I upshift. I seldom go into the big ring. This isn't racing technique, but it works just fine for casual riding. I've found my preference for touring to be barend shifters. My left thumb got really sore using thumbies on my last, long tour. On Jun 23, 6:20 am, MichaelH <mhech...@gmail.com> wrote: > I am considering a switch to thumbies on our tandem. I am finding the > BEs too slow on the tandem for the kind of rolling hills of Vt, which > require a lot of fast, double shifts to attack hills that often swing > from minus to plus 10%. The long cables, long rear derailleur cage, > and the need to move each separately from the shifter back to the bar > before I can reach for the other shifter causes too much delay and I > end up with too much pressure to drop the chain, or I shift early and > we end up spinning wildly, or even dropping the chain all together. > > Does anyone have any experience going from one to the other on a road > bike, that they can share. I suppose the other option is to ride more > on the drops, where I can reach the shifters faster. > > Michael > Westford, Vt -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
