Gear shift options

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goody

Veteran
Location
Carshalton
I've never really liked twist grip shifters, the front shifter takes fair bit of effort and it's not made easier with sweaty palms. The cable run could be a bit better but as I've got a hardly used set of sram X7 shifters on a shelf in my shed any reason not to use them? Cheers!
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
If it's one of those on https://www.sram.com/sram/mountain/family/x7 then as long as your current rear mech is SRAM 1:1 (9-speed) or EA (10-speed), then OK, but I'm not sure if it's compatible with Shimano rears and I think Shimano is 2:1 so it won't work without a shiftmate that SJS Cycles may sell.
 
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goody

goody

Veteran
Location
Carshalton
The rear mech is sram X7 so don't think there are any compatability issues. It was more are those type of shifters awkward to use on recumbent bars. Haven't really got much to lose by getting some new cables and trying them I suppose.
 

starhawk

Senior Member
Location
Bandhagen Sweden
As far as twist-shifter goes SRAM is the best of the bunch, they have the longest "griptube" of them all. But twistshifters are not a good choice for a recumbent I never liked mine so a couple of years ago I swapped them for barend shifters, one of the best choises I made. I absolutely love my barens shifter, smooth shifting and you can see at a glance which position is in. Of course I had to remove my rearview mirrors but they now resides on the helping handles which is a much better position for them.

The only 8-position barend shifters I could find was Shimano Ultegra and my rear derailleur is a SRAM X-9. According to all experts it wouldn't work with the index-setting, but as stubborn as I am I opted for the index-setting when I went for my test-run. No problem! all positions but one (seldom used) works perfectly. I actually have an Ultegra rear derailleur in my "spares-cache" but I haven't mustered enough ambition to mount it yet.
 
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zoxed

Über Member
When my gears wore such that the indexing did not work very well I just replaced the grip shifts (which I never really liked !) with old friction bar-end shifters. Works great !
 

Scoosh

Velocouchiste
Moderator
Location
Edinburgh
I've never really liked twist grip shifters, the front shifter takes fair bit of effort and it's not made easier with sweaty palms. The cable run could be a bit better but as I've got a hardly used set of sram X7 shifters on a shelf in my shed any reason not to use them? Cheers!
I'm in a similar situation myself, as I have an injury in my left arm that makes twist-grip shifting very painful :sad:, so I am also looking to change at least the front mech to triggers. I'm SRAM X7 too, so if you have some lying around ... and decide not to use them ... :whistle:
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goody

goody

Veteran
Location
Carshalton
I had a tidy up of the shed the other day and I have got another X7 front shifter. PM me your address and I'll send it to you. I'm just about to leave for the rest of the week but I'll post it when I get back.
 

BlackPanther

Hyper-Fast Recumbent Riding Member.
Location
Doncaster.
My 'naked' Trice gas bar end shifters. The Borealis Trice has twist shift. No real problems with either, though I do wear fingerless gloves, so sweat slip isn't an issue for the twist grips.

Only probs with bar end shifters is the lack of adjustment whilst on the move as the barrel adjuster is on the rear mech. This was only a problem when I replaced the cables a while ago and had a few annoying clicky clicks. But then you can just pull out the little semi circular clip, and go to frictionless until you get home (not sure if all bar end shifters had friction AND frictionless settings?)

The other (bigger?) problem with bar end shifters on trikes is that you can't just slot in a mirrycle mirror on top of the grips.
 

byegad

Legendary Member
Location
NE England
I had twisters on my Catrike Trail when it was new. They lasted a week before I fitted barend changers. The combination of twist grips and direct steering was not a good one!

I was OK if I changed the front, or the back on its own. With a single change you could be ready for the gear to go and the tension come off and keep it straight, because you knew which way you would need to correct. Changing front and rear simultaneously was totally rubbish. The release of the twisting motion on both sides never coincided and sometimes the front would go first and other times the rear. The end result was a swerve first one way then the other.
 

starhawk

Senior Member
Location
Bandhagen Sweden
The other (bigger?) problem with bar end shifters on trikes is that you can't just slot in a mirrycle mirror on top of the grips.

No problem with ICEs superb Mirror mounts. When I changed to Bar end shifters I thought "put them in the tops of the helping handles" but as it turned out the tubes for the helping handles have the same outer diameter as the steering arm but the walls of them are much thicker so the adapter wouldnt go down. But I had two Mirrormounts and mounted them right under the handles of the helping handles. The advantage with them there compared to on the steering arms is that they still work when you take a turn, you still see what is happening behind you instead of far right or left.
 

Dan's Owd Man

Senior Member
When i built my Atomic Zombi Warrior Trike i did not want to use twist grips :evil:as they where hard to use on one of my old MTB's.
So i used a pair of Shimano Thumb/Trigger shifters as used on MTB's.
Easy to use with thumb / first finger,the position i mounted them on the bars was a very natural position as you held the vertical bars.
This is a picture of the Left hand control, using first or middle finger to drop down the chain ring then thumb to lift up onto bigger ring.

20160818_114040.jpg
 
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