Slohan47

What Kind of Touch is used ; What do I feel; How Slow or how much does the lever need to move; move it until the chain leaves the current gear and my pedals are not driving me forward ?
If my hearing is not good enough to hear chain noises How will I know., what might I feel ?

I have read about shifters with something like motorcycle manual gear shifting-
Sounds good, but I'll be a "Retro-Nut" until... I can't get the Friction system to work.or feel the Need to Upgrade.
I acknowledge All Things must be in correct condition & Adjustment The bike of my youth was a Sturmey-Archer 3 spd. but that was in the flatlands and a long time gone.

I want the Friction system to work for me, more Simple, less Tech - upside down in the den, I'm having some success..As a parting question: When I put a Load on the Drive system will the Derailer system operate as without a load?
Hope Y'All out there enjoying a God-nice ride !

repechage

If you cannot hear or sense poor chain alignment, index for you.
hyperglide or similar, that Shimano design will allow shifts under load reasonably well.
Upside down for working is Ok but there are changes, best is right side up and a road test. Consider hanging the bike right side up, small Italian repair shops did it that way.

RH Clark

I don't know what issues you are having. Have you ridden it yet, or just setting it up? If setting it up, make sure your derailleur cogs are perfectly in line with the high and low cogs of your cassette through the range of the shift lever. When you shift just move the lever slowly until it shifts into the next cog. I find it easier to get perfectly aligned shifts when going into a lower gear. It's like driving a stick shift. You will have it mastered in no time. Good luck.

Pompiere

If your chain alignment is far enough off, you might feel the vibration through the frame, but you might not hear minor rubbing after a shift. But if you already are having hearing loss, it would be very difficult to learn friction shifting without hearing the feedback of the chain rub to fine tune the lever position. If you use friction shifting long enough, you develop muscle memory so that you can move the lever just the right amount to shift a gear. It's much the same as a trombone player knows how far to move the slide, or a violin player knows where to put their fingers.

Mr. 66

It may take a while to get the right feel of shifting and trim to ride with out rub and clatter. Trim is the amount it takes to align the chain to the chainring or cog after the shift moves the chain to a larger ring or cog and pedal without clatter from the friction shifts.

nlerner

My main commuter has downtube friction shifters, moving a chain across an 8-speed cassette. In the winter, I'm wearing various ear covers, which make it pretty impossible to use hearing to know whether I need to trim the shifter or not. But I can feel it in the drivetrain if there's some rubbing on a front or rear derailleur. And I think I've also gotten used to seeing the position of the lever and how much I need to move it in order to shift successfully. Probably wouldn't work if I were in a race, but for my short commute, it's just fine.

sd5782 

And to make it all more interesting, various rear derailleurs shift quite differently so there is no hard and fast rule and the same goes with the tooth profile on the cogs. Hyperglide teeth on rear cogs shift easiest as has been mentioned already. Uniglide cogs seem to shift better than Suntour to me as they have a twist on the gear teeth. A 5 or 6 speed will also be different than a 7 speed if we are just considering freewheels. Some of us feel that this is all part of the character of each individual bike and requires different techniques on an individual basis.

Chombi1 

There's no "standard amount of movement or force used on friction shifters. It all depends on how quickly your derailleur can shift. A Nouvo Record Rear derailleur, for example will need quite a bit more movement of the lever with a good amount of overshift and back trim to make it go from one rear cog, to another. The Suntour Cyclone Mk II RD on the other hand, would shift with much less lever movement and barely any overshift needed. All because os the difference in the design of the derailleur. And it all changes at the shift levers for almost all the different derailleurs. So friction shifting is a truly pure "analog" process. Even with clicking "power shifters (But not indexed.) Shifting would still be different per each different derailleur.
Now, with Simplex or similar, "Retrofriction" shifters, it would be different. Retrofriction shifters have an internal clutch (But no indexing or ratcheting.) that makes shifting feel much lighter and thus feel more precise. Amount of lever movement would still be different between different derailleurs.

repechage

If one really reads the original post, the issues are multifaceted, all the finesse comments are good BUT, if one cannot hear or feel how the bike’s drivetrain is “talking”, why waste time, money and effort?

find the parts, let a competent shop tune it or assemble it and get out and ride. Lots of Shimano 600 tricolor out there that would work really well.

Slohan47

Ride on Bro, Bra's
> Thanks for most excellent Responses; Also appreciate the thought & experience that build Them! I do like to work on Machines, enjoy knowing how & why it works, and if it doesn't perform to some usuable standard; clean, disassemble inspect, Etc.> to make it better. Having much more Patience than money at this time of life; Karma dictates much of my acheivements. Biking and related support activities will be enjoyable and healthy way to use my time.
I have made two test-rides mostly for balance & brakes, surely I can find a gear to ride off-road @LoCal park-trails until I can finesse my ancient machine up to Cruising speeds.
I have aquired two other bikes/ same drive train I believe; Schwinn Approved -French "SPRINT" [RD's]; as "Chombi1" pointed out It's an analog process so one of the extra RD's will be sacrificed for science/engineering and FUN! Suggestions/ directions/ links or warning in dissambly of the RD-Sprint- type will be concidered :LOL !

Slohan47

Thankyou Sir / Mr. 66.
If not too far out off the road - Your Reply is short & Informative which I Like; painted me a picture by words of what I will need to do with my machine.
Good / Safe Riding

Slohan47

Thankyou Sir / Mr. 66.
If not too far out off the road - Your Reply is short & Informative which I Like; painted me a picture by words of what I will need to do with my machine.
Good / Safe Riding

John E

You have to buy and use whatever system works for you. I grew up with friction shift, which I use exclusively. (I'm even the guy who friction-shifted a Sturmey-Archer 3-speed coaster hub with an old Huret friction downtube lever. )

I particularly like friction's ease of accommodating any mix-and-match combination of cogs, chainrings, chains, and derailleurs. Changing from 6 to 7 cogs or from 7 to 8 cogs in back? Been there ... done that. Easy. A bit of cable stretch? Just pull the lever back a bit more until you get a chance to readjust the system to accommodate the change (if necessary or desired).

Slohan47

whether I need to trim the shifter or not ... I can feel it in the drivetrain/ if there's some rubbing on a front or rear derailleur.And I think I've also gotten used to seeing the position of the lever and how much I need to move it in order to shift successfully.
>Thankyou nlerner
You verified there is a "Feeling"- AKA "VIBES" comiing through the frame - Etc. of the machine.Did run through shift-operation(s) in my workroom / Den; could hear & see / Cogs-gears & Chain were not in alignment.
I have made some Adj's and much better Vibes

sced

I have poor hearing and usually don't wear my hearing aids while biking (sweat and wind noise). My 3 friction-shifting bikes all have different components. Without problem all I do is one or more quick head-down look-backs at the chain/cog alignment and adjust as needed.

thinktubes 

It’s the same as “driving stick”

JohnDThompson 

And the barrel diameter on the shift lever. E.g. Simplex retrofriction levers have a smaller diameter than SunTour "Power" shifters, and require more lever travel than the SunTour levers regardless of the derailleur at the other end of the cable.

70sSanO

But it is difficult to find nicer shifters than Retrofriction, at least for me.

If I ever go back to friction, those are the ones I’d use. Although the cheap Shimano L-422 spring loaded ones are nice too.

John

Kontact 

I have been experimenting a lot over the past 3 years with friction, and my recommendation is to use Hyperglide style cogs (cassettes or freewheels by multiple makers) and run your upper pulley as far from the cogs as possible. This will make it possible to shift easily but not require any precision with the lever position because the chain will have room to angle up to the cogs.

droppedandlost 

I just wait for another rider to yell at me about the noise.

davester

Same for me. and his name is gugie .

Slohan47

repechage Thanks for Reply
An opinion if you have one concerning : Shimano's 400 FF, it's also Old School.
IT appears to be more modern and seems smoother working it by hand; was on '81 Schwinn Collegate

dddd

I also once felt bothered by what I am hearing the OP describe, until I started riding in competition.

There (where suffering and intense effort was expected), I seemingly forced my brain to start better tracking how my lever movements were effecting good and not-so-good shifts, and my technique magically improved from that point forward.
The intensity and repetition seemingly having reinforced some neural pathways.
Just like learning to argue with my (all of them older) siblings!

I still have annoyances with the shifting on used-bike purchases, where many factors can mess up the mental calibration I have developed.
Things like a shift lever needing lubrication (oil being good enough), or a "wrong" lever-travel/actuation balance, really forces me to slow my shifting effort with each gear change.
So besides perhaps changing the chain or freewheel, I often add a bit of cable housing liner to the bottom bracket cable guide, replace the cable housing, or even change the cable position at the rear derailer anchor bolt to adjust the actuation/leverage felt at the lever.
My recently-purchased Bridgestone features a roller as a bottom bracket cable guide, and the shifting using the low-end Lark-II rear derailer feels about as light as with Retrofriction levers. Slap-shift city!

I have had issues with using Hyperglide-style freewheels in friction shifting mode, particularly if the ratio spacing wasn't wide enough.
Shifting over "tightly"-geared Hyperglide freewheels means you can't always detect that your shift has even occurred, and dangerous ghost-shifting can strike you since those HG freewheel cogs give almost no audible/vibratory feedback as to a poorly positioned chain relative to the selected cog. And it seems to be yet more of a hazard when riding surrounded by other riders.

So, for spirited riding using friction levers, I find that the "sweet spot" for freewheels or cassettes are mostly pre-HG Shimano and Suntour units, the latter perhaps best exemplified by their later Alpha-series freewheels having bevels approximating the twisted teeth of Uniglide cogs.

A friction-shifted bike with all of the mechanical boxes checked is truly a pleasure to change gears on.
Though luckily, virtually all of the bikes that came with narrower than 8-speed cog-to-cog spacing came with indexing brifters from the factory.

seedsbelize2

I aplaud you for wanting to learn friction shifting. I have one bike, of four, with downtube index. The rest friction.