Originally Posted by
noodle soup
They could easily use a larger radius on the internal shift mechanism, which would reduce the strain on the end of the cable, but this would increase the effort required to shift, and make it shift like SRAM(crap).
Actually, come to think of it, they could increase that radius without increasing effort (if you increase cable pull, you're increasing the amount of cable friction felt, but nothing more, since you're still moving the RD the same distance), by reducing the lever throw so the cable pull is the same.
As for SRAM's crap shifting, I don't feel like it has too much effort, but the Doubletap mechanism definitely has a couple of drawbacks - it's easy to shift to a smaller cog by mistake when you're shagged, which absolutely sucks when it happens. And the shift feel is okay when you're dropping the chain to smaller cogs, but it feels like arse when you're going the other way and you've gotta pull the shift mechanism past that release click.
Escapement mechanisms all feel a bit crap if you ask me, next to Ultrashift, or whatever the original Ergo mechanism is called with the G springs - basically the same deal as a countersprung indexed downtube lever, pretty much the apex of shift feel. Unlike an escapement mechanism, you can feel what the chain is doing when you release the cable as well as pulling it.