Monday, February 14

Gripshift Sucks!

They suck.

It's been a good six or seven months since I've ridden with twist shifters. Yesterday I was ghost shifting whenever I wasn't paying attention and it sucked. Super sucked! Now, I won't be jumping ship to Shimano, because I do like the sram x series triggers, but twisting will become a memory of mine in the nearish future.

That's all. Just thought I'd share.

14 comments:

Chaybo said...

well...i kinda agree with you ganz if you're referring to the defunct 'gripshift', however the new SRAM twisters are pretty damb good (they got smart and installed a return spring internally). I don't run'em personally but i've seen enough of them, and worked on enough of them that i wouldn't hesitate recommending em'....on the other hand....i've never warrantied shifters like i have this year with the Sram triggers. Personally i wouldn't own them. Triggers are best left to the other S-brand. BTW...eight speed pods and XTR cassettes are still available !!!!

debaser said...

Leave that 8 speed stuff for bdiddy.
The shifters on the 9er are halfpipes. They were driving my crazy.

I've not run anything above lx shifters. They work fine. So have my x.7 stuff, so i'll keep running those.

Chaybo said...

i'll leave the 8spd stuff for bdid, but only if you leave the halfpipes to sk8brds.


are you running x7 on the enduro ?

debaser said...

x7 shifter, x9 der.

mw said...

thumbs!!!

Chaybo said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
bdiddy said...

Ya i'm still running 8 speed on everything but my road bike. I don't really see the need for 9 speeds on MTB. My opinion is based on the durability questions i have with nine speed, but i'll give a try in '05 k.

The only thing that I know about the x series triggers is what i saw at the '03 show which is what would be the '04 product line. With that said... the first thing i said to chaybo when i saw them was "wow there sure is a lot of plastic in there!" I not sure the places they were using plastic were such a good idear especially for peps that don't do a lot of maintenance like changing out cables and housing. The leverage inside those things would probably snap those little plastic pieces faster than the rifler could shake magic down for his last duckett! Now I'm sure that sram has addressed such things. You can't reproduce xtr your first year out. But I would probably give them at least till '06.

my .02

debaser said...

I think Velonews did a piece on the 06 line, including x.o triggers. Sounds nice? How about ~$200 for shifters. I'll pass.

redstone said...

Thumbies... My J&B rep just put the new Pauls 9sp thumbies on his bike. They are very, very sweet.

I'm with Chad on the old vs new grip shift. I probably haven't seen as many in the stand, too, but I haven't had any probs with the X- triggers from SRAM. All of them that I've played with have been pretty top notch. I haven't been as impressed with the Rockets, though. Maybe it's the 2:1 vs 1:1 but Rocket Shifter/Shimano rear der doesn't work near as well as X- shifter with X- rear der.

scott showen said...

just run single speed, then you wouldnt have to worry about shifting..

debaser said...

Yeah, I got me one of those too.

bdiddy said...

Good point scott! I do like to try stuff even the crappy stuff sometimes. Parts can always be moved to a commuter or beer bike!

mw said...

i'll be forced to 9spd (or whatever is next) when the cassettes become unavailable. i've heard 8spd bar cons (to use with those sweet pauls' mounts) are not available anymore.

i've become a single speed believer and i wish i could ride single speed everywhere but it just doesn't work for epic mountain rides like over 3 or 4 hours with the homies. life's too short and shifting ain't that hard or complicated. that being said, once i get over my new gearys newness i'll probably ride the single 75 percent of the time.

cvo said...

Damn right grip shift sucks, the only good thing about that company is their chains and well, they seem to have damn good customer serivice, but man, do I ever hate grip shift....
cvo