Camilo

The bike came with Tektro mechanical discs, which seem to work fine - she hasn't had any issues. I know I'd hear of it because on a previous road bike, it had some no-name rim brakes (a specialized Dolce with a Tiagra group except brakes) which she actually vocalized dissatisfaction with. I replaced the pads without satisfaction and then put 105 brakes on and she said they worked much better. The brakes had the same Koolstop pads, so it was totally in the brakes. The flex in the brake arms was pretty obviously different and with her hand strength (small in her 60s), that made a big difference. The low-level mechanical discs seem to work comparably to the "better" hydraulic discs on her other bike, at least in her opinion. They both work easily and that's all she cares about.

The Claris R2000 medium cage RD works fine with a 11-36t cassette and 43-30 crank, so the range - at least on the low end - is just like her road bikes with road triples and XT RDs.

I've set up a couple of road bikes for her with road shifters and XT RDs, both 9 and 10 speed shifters with 8 or 9 speed XT RDs.

She's happy because the range of this new gravel bike is the same as her road bikes; she doesn't care if she loses a couple of high gears. Like many of us, the low gears are most important!

MikeWMass

I have 2 generations of 10 speed 105, and SRAM Apex 10 speed. None of them will shift the front up unless you hold the lever until the shift is completed.



There may not be cars with 8 speed manuals or split shifts, but there are plenty of trucks with lots of speeds and split shifts. They face the same problem as bicycles: narrow effective rev range of the motor over a wide range of speed. Back in the day, 4 speeds was a lot, now 6 speeds are common (if you can even find a manual transmission). If the 3 to 6 speed cars wouldn't make it up hills, people would shift as many gears as it took.

52-42 with 13-28 is ancient history. Your 1x setup is certainly not low enough for me: We 's have a lot of steep hills around here, and I am admittedly not the world's strongest (or youngest) cyclist. I went from a 15-34 with 12-27 to a 50-39-30 triple withm12-30 and am very happy I did so. I rarely use the 12 tooth cog, but I do on occasion; I use the the 30-30 more frequently. I would have a hard time duplicating that with a 1x.

70sSanO

I set hers up 7/8 years ago with th the old 2400. I understand the R2000 is an upgrade with more trickle down features.

John

McFlyRides

Maybe the year to year changes aren’t much, but over 5-10 years shifting has gotten much better historically. On road bikes I went from a late 80s suntour 7 speed down tube shifting bike (that thing never ever shifted very well) to mid 2000s ultegra 10 speed. Absolutely a quantum leap forward in shifting performance. Now I’m getting to know di2 105, and that’s even better, although shimano made the decision for me on 105, that I would want wide range gearing and not tight steps. The low gear is soooo low.

For MTB, I really loved X-9 grip shifters. So responsive, so easy to quickly dump a ton of gears. Now with sram 1x12 axs, I don’t miss the front shifts at all, or the cables.

Frkl

​​​​​​I agree about the 8 speed groups back then. I've never used Dura Ace indexed, only set to friction, but 8 speed 600 Ultegra, XTR and XT all worked great, in that they indexed reliably, accurately, quickly, easily, and were durable too. By the early 90s, Shimano (And probably the others, i just haven't used them) had indexing figured out.

The question of whether 8 speed worked well and whether you need/want more than 8 speeds are different questions. And they are being clumped together in this thread. You can have both. 8, esp high end 8, worked (and usually still works) great, but you can want 12, too.

freeranger

My old (ancient?) '98 off-road hardtail is a 3 x 8. Doesn't get much use these days, but got used often for a good while, and always worked flawlessly. There were times when I wish the cassette had closer gear spacing. Guess I could have built one with closer ratios, never really needed the smallest cog. But never did, and managed to grind thru somehow. But thinking about it, the 3 x 9 on my road bike has performed flawlessly also. Good maintenance and keeping a drivetrain in adjustment should make any one work well, unless it's a bottom of the barrel groupset.

LesterOfPuppets

I used to run 13-26 cassettes which had really nice spacing but for most trails around here I need a 32 big cog to get up them hills these days.

Russ Roth

This is why pneumatic shifting failed except on downhill bikes which didn't need to shift as much. Shimano figured 400 shifts would be enough for one ride and they were very wrong, turns out that people who are really into riding tend to shift a lot.

RCMoeur 

Heck, I remember when Ultra-7 freewheels were the new fancy thing that all of us wanted.

I've had very few problems using or rehabilitating 8-speed bikes, although gummed-up 8-speed brifters / Rapidfires are just as time-consuming in the ultrasonic to get really clean as 11s/10s/9s/7s/6s. Just cleaned a set late last week.

On Saturday, I rode a 3x7 drivetrain and Sunday rode a 1x9. I was happy with both, although the 3x7 has higher overall gearing (not used much) and a few steps lower when needed.

PeteHski

I have never had any major problems with 5, 6, 8, 9, 11 or 12 speed drivetrains I have used over the years. But the 11 and 12 speed are the best I’ve experienced - super quick, precise shifting across a wide range. Currently using SRAM 1x12 mechanical on my MTB and SRAM 2x12 AXS on my road bike. Both flawless and the electronic shifting is sublime.

People on the internet have trouble with anything and everything and the retro-grouches think everything was better bitd.

PeteHski

That’s a major disadvantage in my book. But each to their own.

georges1

so was the eight speed dura ace 7410