Friction Shifters on a modern bicycle
Nowadays most bicycles come with shifters that are indexed, so that one click on the lever mechanism equates to one change in gear. This is a good idea for someone new to riding a bike with 27 gears, but the cable tension constantly needs adjustment to keep the indexed gear lever in line with the cogs on the rear cluster and front chain rings.
I grew up with bicycles fitted with friction shifters, where the rider shifted the lever until the gear change was felt. Moving the lever one way, changed gear in one direction, and moving the lever the other way, changed gear in the opposite direction. These shifters were usually mounted on the down tube or the gooseneck, requiring the rider to take a hand off of the handlebars to change gear. Indexed shifters are usually mounted on the handlebars.
My latest bike came with what are called Brifters. These are integrated brake levers and shifters. These things are even worse than indexed shifters on their own. To change gear up to a bigger cog, one pushes the brake lever (yes, brake lever) towards the centre of the bike. To change to a smaller cog, one uses the little lever poking out of the side of the brake hoods, as can be seen in the photo below. Having a problem with my right hand I was unable to operate these shifters, and found that they have several other faults.
As the chain is moved across to different cogs on the rear cluster, it runs at different angles from the front chain rings and results in what is known as chain rub as it rubs against the front derailleur. It's noise alone can drive you insane. Most shifters have a way where you can nudge the derailleur using the gear lever. These type of shifters have the facility to do it in one direction, but not the other. To make it worse, most levers that control the front derailleur have a cable adjustment thumbscrew where the cable exits the lever housing. In the case of my ones, there is none. Only the rear derailleur has a cable tension adjuster at the rear of the bike.
So with half dead fingers in the right hand, riding a steep hill into a head wind, and using rear gears that resulted in severe chain rub, and having no way to adjust the cable tension, I swore that I would get rid of these stupid shifters. I could also imagine being out on tour and riding down a corrugated road, and having one of these shifters explode. I'd never get a spare.
After approaching a few bike stores, the answer was that it is impossible, and you can't even buy friction shifters. I was also told that even if I could find an old set of friction shifters they wouldn't work, because the lever for the rear would not have enough throw to control the rear derailleur as it's a nine speed derailleur. It's actually a nine speed derailleur, but I'm running an eight speed cluster. How wrong they were, as the lever still has room to throw the chain another couple of cogs.
I had to make some modifications to the front of the bike to fit the handlebar bag on underneath the aero bars, as I wanted to keep the aero bars. I had some spare room on the lower bar, and I thought what could I fit there, when the light bulb went off in my head. A few weeks earlier, Crank had sent me some good old fashioned friction shifters that he had picked up at the local rubbish tip. They originally were mounted to the gooseneck, but my bike has an A head system, and a neck extender fitted, and the bracket for the the friction shifters was too small. It would not fit the ovalised aluminium down tube either, but it fitted the lower bar installed for the handlebar bag perfectly. So that's where they went.
View from the seat.
As you can see in the photograph above, the top lever controls the rear derailleur, and the lower lever controls the front. I can also change gears without my hand having to leave the handlebars. The front brake is on the right hand side, which is the brake that I use the most. Now when I get a bit of chain rub on the front derailleur, I only have to nudge the lower lever slightly to get rid of the noise. The best thing of all is that I will never ever have to adjust the cable tension again as there is no indexing to worry about. The gear changes are quiet and smooth.
Side view. The top lever is pointing directly at the camera.
Apart from a snapped cable on tour, the friction levers have no way of failing unless the friction washer eventually fails to give anymore friction. This is rare, and the remedy, is to take it apart, coat it in grease, drop it in the gravel, and then reassemble it. The gravel provides the friction until I can get to a rubbish tip to get another set of levers.
