Harold74

So my friction shifting resume looks like this:

1) Last summer, I rebuilt a 1997 Trek 730 and did it up with friction stem shifter for sport. This setup feels great to me: responsive and solid.

2) Last month, I rebuilt a 1986 Miyata 210 with Shimano downtube friction shifters. They're nice and make little clicky noises. This setup feels... meh to me. Kinda "spongy".

3) Last week, I rebuilt a 1983 Nishiki Olympic with Suntour Power Ratchet downtube friction shifters. This setup feels cheap and very spongy to me.

Given that I love the friction shifting on my Trek, I really expected to love it on these other bikes, perhaps even more. When you read about friction DT shifting, its fans often comment on how good it feels owing to the short cable runs and minimal housing. That's not how it feels to me though.

So my questions are these:

1) Do I need to adjust my expectations of friction shifting downwards?

2) Is there anything that I might do to improve my setup?

3) Would high end cables help? All three bikes got some cheapo cables from the developing world. I expected that friction shifting would be fairly insensitive to cable quality and nice cables would cost almost as much as I paid for these bikes.

4) The only explanation that I can come up with for why the Trek feels good to me and the older bikes don't is that, perhaps, the more modern derailleur offers less shifting resistance and that tends to make the shifting experience feel more "positive"? Is this what is meant when derailleurs are sometimes described as having "light action"? With the older bikes, shifting feels kind of like trying to reel in a big fish with a lot of line out...


Trek

Miyata

Nishiki

noobinsf 

There are folks here who will offer detailed and specific advice (and are much more qualified than I am to do so), but the short answer is that all of those things and more can affect how a drivetrain feels -- cable and housing quality, derailleur design, shifter design, freewheel/cassette tooth profiles, chain design, chain length, wear to individual components...

juvela

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one type you might wish to explore, if you have not done so already, are the Retrofriction shift levers from Lucien Juy (Simplex)

catalogue page of 1974 -

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many members find these most pleasing...

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Harold74

Thanks for the comments guys. For what it's worth, all three of my bikes:

1) Have new chains.

2) Have new cassettes / freewheels with teeth that are ramped, pinned etc.

3) Feel good as far as the actual gear changes go. Things dance around in spritely fashion as they should. My issues seem to occur between my hand and the guide jockey wheel. Or, at the least, that's my perception of it to date.

Harold74

I appreciate the input but I'll not be taking any of these bikes to the bike shop for expert opinions. None of them is of a high enough value to justify that in my opinion and, more importantly, all of these bikes are meant to be personal project bikes. If I can't improve the feel of the friction shifters myself, with the help of this community, I'll do one of the following:

1) live with what I've got.

2) tinker endlessly.

3) divest myself of the bikes.

Educated guesses are precisely what I seek here.

clubman 

Three words...Suntour Power Shifters.

Available for any configuration, including stem shifters. Do an image search.

Whoops, I didn't scroll down below the Trek.

Well, they may feel cheap and spongy but that could be cables, housing or personal preference. When set up correctly, they don't slip. And they last.

And I would say yourrear loop on the Nishiki is big and combined with cheap housing, may be part of the problem.

noobinsf 

I can't really make out what you have as a rear derailleur on the Miyata, but on the Nishiki, it looks like a Suntour ARx, which is okay, but not the best Suntour has to offer. If you can find a Cyclone, Vx, V-GT, or BL, give one of those a try. I have a Cyclone on one bike with a modern ramped cassette, Suntour Symmetric shifters, and cheap cables/housing, and shifting has always been crisp, light, and precise. Also be sure to check droupout and derailleur hanger alignment. As a comparison, I had an older Suntour GT matched with a Suntour freewheel on a different bike, and while it was reliable, it always needed overshifting.

SJX426 

"SPONGY" is of interest to me in your description. My interpretation is that the cable has flex in combination with resistance. Is the housing to the RD specific shifting housing? Don't use the spiral wound housing for shift cables.

Are the ends square with the stop? I always cut the ends with the housing in the final curved position to ensure the housing wires are the correct length when in that position. They should not be cut while the housing is in the straight position because you can get compression movement as some are compressed and other are not touching the stop.

Are the cables as tight as they can be with the derailleur in its relaxed adjusted position?

canopus 

Friction shifting "feel" is most definitely dependent on cables. Good stainless thick cables and firm outer housing that is lined makes a world of difference. Derailleur spring, cleanliness, lubrication and the play in the pivot joints make a difference.
Up to seven speeds is good. 8 and up gets touchy so practice makes perfect. Personally I love my indexed DT 10Sp Campy shifting.
Ramped freewheel or cassette can assist shifts.
Derailleur hanger alignment makes a huge difference also.

Ultimately it will come down to feel, and that just requires a lot of riding and shifting to get the feel of where to place the lever for your speed and cadence.

ps - Jockey wheel play can make a difference also in the feel and needing to overshift and trim.

masi61

Having a generous rear loop is a pretty good idea but I think you could remove a bit of the loop and still be fine. Also It is a good idea to use index ready "compressionless" housing for derailleur housing, it has much crisper action. BTW, no one mentioned the adjuster screw that changes where the upper jockey pulley rests with respect to the smallest freewheel cog. I believe this is called the "B" adjuster (please correct me if I'm wrong here, B-adjuster doesn't sound right). By tightening this up you can get quicker shifts on the tighter cogs, just don't over do it because you still want crisp shifting in the big cogs.

rccardr 

^^This.
Plus, the housing loop for the RD is way too long on each bike. Should be just long enough to make a smooth curve, that’s usually around a foot long.
Quality housing and quality cables make a huge difference. I give away zinc coated cables and use only premium Shimano stainless drawn cables and Jagwire housing for both brakes and shifters. That’s a bike-lifetime investment.
Better RD’s result in better shifting, just like your ramped and pinned chainrings. Even the cheapest Shimano 105 RD made after 1987 will give you outstanding shifting quality.

jamesdak 

Yep, as others are saying. Good modern cables and housing go a long way towards improving feel. Make sure your RD pullers are good too. It's a system so getting every part of it the best you can helps. Case in point an old Campagnolo Victory setup on a bike I worked over this past year. It was balky, heavy feeling, and imprecise when I got it. Had to overshift and then trim back each gear change. I took it all apart, fully serviced and lubed the RD, replaced the pulleys that had to much play, new modern cables and housing. I also took apart the DT shifters and fully cleaned and serviced them also, going as fair as polishing the inside of the barrel sections and such. When I reassembled it all everything was night and day. What had been my worse function friction setup ever now equaled the best I've ever had. Light touch, precise shifting, no trimming, etc. Oh and I did swap the rear wheel from an old 6 speed freewheel setup to a modern freehub with an 8 speed cassette. So, tighter gears with better shift capability that showed in operation.

ThermionicScott 

I can't speak to SunTour power ratchet shifters, but sometimes my Shimano downtube shifters get a little dry, and so they get noisier and seem to have more resistance. When that happens, I'll take off the mounting bolt and squirt a little WD-40 in there. That quiets them down and makes them feel nice again.

clubman 

One last thing not mentioned...ferrules.

cb400bill

Nothing to do with shifting, but that Trek is a small frame. If the saddle is the correct height for you, then that frame is too small.

dddd

I too usually go in and lubricate the shift lever's innards, both the friction surfaces and the pivot itself! I keep a TriFlow bottle with motor oil in it for this.

The old grease can cause a rubbery/viscous feel at the lever that is awful, quite detrimental to shifting ease.

The cabling has the pull path (inner wire) and the push path (housing and stops) which together add up to allow some unwanted elasticity between the shift lever and the derailer.

The "pull" elasticity is increased by sharp bends, such as skewed cable exits from ferrules or from a tight-radius cable guide atop the bb shell.
These bends tend to straighten in response to changes in cable tension such that the tangents straighten out, and which thus increases the cable's elasticity.

Traditional (wound) cable housing becomes more elastic wherever the coils aren't aligned in a straight line, so are best replaced with modern derailer housing (with it's structural wires running longitudinally). These modern cable housings also won't cause changes in cable tension as the handlebars are turned, so while they were invented to deal with indexed-shifting precision needs, they also greatly improve the friction-shifting experience!

Friction in the cable housings or in the derailer mechanism is what causes more of a change in the range of cable tension while shifting, and this frictional force mathematically multiplies the realized elasticity of both the cable and housings to produce error and unresponsiveness between the lever's movement and the derailer's movement.
And, where the cable follows any curved "wrap-around" path, the friction and thus error will be found to increase logarithmically with any surface-friction variable (according to T2 = T1^eμθ or "rope friction" laws of science).

All of the above, plus adding some kind of lubricated plastic material at the bottom bracket cable guide, are what I pay attention to on every vintage build that I take on.

Lastly, clean (inside), lined cable housing, combined with a silicone-based cable-specific grease such as sold by Shimano, SRAM and Finish Line, allow the cable to move with the absolute minimum of friction, so contribute to lowest-effort and greatest precision while shifting.

BFisher

One little point to add - make sure that when you cut your cable housing, you get a nice flat, even end. This can be achieved with either a high quality cable cutter, a Dremel and cutoff wheel, or a bench grinder.

dweenk

In my experience a friction system can shift very well as long as the shifter hub has the proper diameter for the rear mech. I noticed that the Trek 730 has stem shifters. My first thought was that those shifters cannot pull enough cable to go over 7 cogs reliably. As I recall the 730 Treks came with indexed twist shifters.

Harold74

The stem shifters have enough pull to handle the 7speed cassette with about 20 degrees rotation to spare I'd say. That's correct about the twist shifters: early generation SRAM. They're much reviled, it seem, but they worked very well for me without any maintenance at all.

Harold74

Regarding the housing ends:

1) I cut them as square as I was able to.

2) I used the Park cutters.

3) I've got alloy end caps on the housing for the two DT bikes, some SRAM and some Shimano.

4) I've been putting some grease in the end caps.

blamester

There are Shimano shifters whuch do not have the ratchetting mechanism. Dura ace 7700 for certain and i am sure other types 600 and maybe 105. I tried the ratchetting type and i didn't like them. Same reason as you. Clean friction is better for me especially when shifting down a gear helped by the derailleur spring. It's just a nicer movement.
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Harold74

Noted. I just measured the housing lenghts:

Trek = 16" (shifts the best)
Miyata = 11" (shifts better than the Olympic)
Nishiki = 14" (shifts the worst)

Harold74

Yeah it is. If you're interested, I have a thread dedicated to precisely that issue: Link.

Interestingly, the only catalog photo that I could find of the bike actually has it set up not too far off of where I have it. It winds up with the bars an inch or two below the seat which is rather alot like all of my road bikes. Granted, I'm sure that the Trek was meant to be more upright than I ride it. Two things help to mitigate this:

1) I have disproportionately long arms.

2) That bike's sole function is to be the dog park dog trailer puller for use by everybody in the family. Even when it's me riding the bike, the excess stand over is helpful for all of the stop and go, fetch while in motion action.

Harold74

It's good to hear that I'm not alone in feeling that way. The ratchet shifters seem to have quite the following. The other thing that i don't love about them is that they rattle quite a bit when I hit rough patches of road. That's not a big deal but I don't love it. I may wind up using the stem shifters on al of these bikes, despite th extra housing that implies. They're cheap and they just feel good. I already have a spare pair that I bought for the appocolypse.

tkamd73 

I’ve got 7 bikes with DT friction shifters, they all feel different, even ones with the same system. If I ride one bike for a couple of days in a row, that’s the one that feels right. I guess that’s the downside of multiple bike ownership, first world problem.
Tim