Anyone else think the new Shimano levers are harder to shift?
I do a lot of custom bikes for folks that want non-mainstream, i.e. not racing bikes, and many are over 40 and often in their 60's. They have plenty of $$ and want nice stuff. Used to be, I could recommend Shimano shifters ( brifters in BF-ese) because the rather direct shift cable routing offered very low shift effort which is important, especially to older women who have little hand strength. But now, since Shimano has bowed to fashion and made their levers so that the cable routing is tortured, the shift effort is much higher. We actually measured it with pressure sensing pads and discovered it takes nearly twice as much force to shift.
So just go Campy or Sram, you might say, but neither of them offer a triple...and shift effort really isn't any better with either of them.
Shimano told me they expected it to be that way, and so mandate the use of their proprietary cables and housing....which I must say does not seem to help in any meaningful way.
I guess we'll be hoarding 5500 and 6600 levers for some of our customers. Oh how I hate fashion over form.