Tuesday, November 05, 2013

Shifter Noodle Update

The Serotta tri bike on which I installed the shifter noodles  in April came back for some adjustments, including shifting problems. The junction ferrules I installed did not stand up to the twisting of the housing, so the linear wires of the housing were starting to push through. When that happens the shifting will not stay adjusted. The tension keeps easing as the housing collapses.

The rider also wanted to replace the old Deore XT derailleur I put on there to handle her wide-range gears with a newer model that might work more precisely on her 10-speed cassette.

Ten-speed is about to get shoved way down-market, along with derailleurs mechanically operated with cables. Did you spend thousands of dollars on a bike with a ten-speed cassette and mechanical shifters? Sucker.

The next stage after SIS (Shimano Index Shifting) and STI (Shimano Total Integration) is SMEGMA: Shimano Mechanical-Electrical Gear Manipulation Apparatus.

Until SMEGMA gets applied to every bike and imitated throughout the industry, we in the mechanical trade still have to keep people's old garbage more or less working. So I'll be upgrading the shifter noodles to try to make them as close to trouble free as anything can be.

The New XT derailleur has no cable adjuster on it. The system has no other adjuster, so an in-line adjuster may help as I try to replace the failed ferrules with something more robust. Lots of ideas jostle in my brain like clowns in a tiny car right now. We'll see who gets out the door first.

The solution may include 4 mm housing. A 4 mm ferrule might fit inside the junction ferrule of a standard brake noodle. Or I might try flat-wound housing, used on brake cables, because the progressive, bar-con shifters are not quite as fussy as brifters. And I will need to incorporate an in-line adjuster on the right side, at least, because adjusting the rear shifting without a fine-tuner is a huge pain.

Tomorrow I'll start collecting potentially useful bits for the next phase of experimentation.

4 comments:

Matt Boulanger said...

What on Earth is the point of a derailleur without a cable adjuster?

Janice in GA said...

No cable adjuster on the derailleur? Jeezopete...

Mike Jenkins said...

Time to go long in the old shifter market. I'm almost out of Suntour triple FD.

cafiend said...

Shi-no assumes no one would be so foolish as to mate one of their derailleurs with a different shifter than their manual recommends. Therefore, the adjuster would be up on the shifter. If the derailleur was paired with a brifter the adjuster would probably be at the cable stop on the down tube. With cogs getting narrower and more closely spaced all the time no one should try to ride without an adjuster in easy reach. So eliminating it from the rear derailleur probably seemed like a safe bet.

Friction shifters don't help the bike industry sell equipment. And lots of people have become dependent on the crutch of index shifting. Among competitors, if one rider is going to have it, everyone has to have it. But that makes the bike industry business model basically the same as the cocaine dealer's. Get people to spend whatever it takes to keep getting what they "need." So what if it wears off (out) absurdly quickly? Give me the next great thing!