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Join Date: Feb 2012
Location: Rochester, NY
Posts: 18,084
Bikes: Stewart S&S coupled sport tourer, Stewart Sunday light, Stewart Commuting, Stewart Touring, Co Motion Tandem, Stewart 3-Spd, Stewart Track, Fuji Finest, Mongoose Tomac ATB, GT Bravado ATB, JCP Folder, Stewart 650B ATB
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Please excuse 30 years ago thinking form getting of your modern experiences. Back then as indexing was just coming onto the market and the whole stiffer is THE WAY had yet to be fully established (and Cannondale was still getting panned for their ride quality), the narrower spacing cog sets combined with shift enhanced profiles shift levers with "soft" positioning ghost shifting was a much more common issue then today. Customers would ask for a tune up on their bike and expect that the "fault" that caused power shifting would be corrected. But the base issue was their equipment, frames that flexed more then before and shifters that migrated with each pedal stroke. We did what we could think of back then.
Such was my test for what caused the ghost shifting. What I was after was that the equipment (and the rider's stressing the bike) was the cause when the equipment wasn't up to the task of the rider's "strength". I needed to show customers that our shop's mechanical skills weren't at fault. That when the shifter lever friction setting was really tightened down the ghost shifting went away. But that the resulting shift lever's reluctance to move smoothly was lost wasn't my liability.
The removal of the frame flex from the picture showed that my explanations were correct and the customer understood that I wasn't going to make an acceptable difference without a major cost (new frame of gear system).
Fast forward to today's situation with indexed shifters being the norm and (overly) stiff frames ruling and we find this situation rather different. Both in how common it is and how the current riders view the options/choices/aspects. If In were to suggest (and I did a few times, only to learn my lesson as to what a customer was willing to listen to...) full length casing I would have been associated with department store Huffys, the type of bikes with full length casings back then.
With out context past understandings are mistakenly thought of as incomplete. For many it's hard to forget what we currently accept as fact was once unknown. Andy
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AndrewRStewart