Originally Posted by
cyccommute
Again, I don’t have experience with SRAM road stuff. I’m going on extensive usage of their mountain equipment. The return spring on all levels of SRAM’s front derailers are far stronger than what Shimano uses. They “clunk” hard on down shifts and I’ve never had a SRAM front just run against the chain when there is a load on the chain like I’ve experienced many, many, many times with Shimano.
For their mountain bike stuff, I’ve never run across a shifter that was gummed up like Shimano shifters get. My XO shifters are 9 speed from around 2000. They have worked flawlessly for more than 20 years. They are also a simpler mechanism. Just this weekend at the co-op, I ran across several (more than 3) Shimano shifters of a similar age that simply wouldn’t shift through all the gears even after flushing and lubrication.
Yeah I think they are certainly best at MTB on those fronts.
It depends on the shifters though I have gotten some shifters working and some not from generally all on the STI style front a few triggers but usually those tend to be farther gone but I don't have hard numbers on how many of each so I cannot quantify that in any good way.