rumrunn6

long time rider but new to brifters. only used them on a couple short test rides. fnally got a new bike (3yrs old) w/ brifters (Tiagra). I'll be done swapping accesories and ready for test rides and adjustments to my fit this weekend. anyone remember their first rides with brifters? any tips or suggestions about techniques?

1nterceptor

The 1st couple of times I had a hard time remembering
if it was the big lever or the small lever to upshift/downshift.
Then I taught myself - small lever/smaller sprocket; big lever/bigger sprocket.
Works on both the left and right side

CraigB

That's the key, right there. For Shimano, anyway. The only other thing I learned later was that, at least on 105 stuff, you can trim the front derailleur with the left hand lever to avoid chain rub.

bud16415

I was totally confused the first time I rode my STI bike. The way I learned is I pictured the rings and the cassette as they are on the bike and you have to push the chain up the hill from small to big. So when you use the left control you are pushing the chain onto the larger rings. In the back the right hand pushes the chain up the cassette. The smaller handle then lets it drop down the hill. As soon as I had that mental picture it was second nature shifting.
When I got a bike with Sora shifting with the thumb button the same mental picture worked.

As mentioned above get used to how the trim feature works also. If you google your shifter type with the word trim or trimming there are a lot of good write ups on how it should work and be adjusted.

jtexfisher

Ever go back and forth from friction down tube to brifters and find yourself mashing on a brake lever and getting no shift?

Retro Grouch 

I remember my first ride on a brifter equipped bike. I told another rider that my rear derailleur is only going to last half as long because I'm shifting twice as much.

rumrunn6

haha, yikes. glad I asked. interesting stuff.

tsl

Yes. I remember going, Yowee! This IS way more better.

Won't ever go back. You can't make me.

fietsbob

read the terrain.
up shifting from lower gears to higher ones ,
particularly with the front derailleur chainring up shift
goes so much better
when you are spinning the pedals and not mashing heavy on them.

IthaDan 

I have a single speed with aero levers I keep trying to downshift when I first start off.

a1penguin

I remember my first brifters.... along with the clipless pedals. I only had one tipover. It will take a while for you to remember the shifting. Sometimes I have to think as I mostly use the middle ring on my front derailleur. Drop bars and brifters FTW!

cyclist2000

It seems like I never shift with DT shifters anymore

Bianchigirll 

My first ride whould have been a test ride on someones elses bike (sniff sniff) since I could not afford them back then. Actually I don't think they had even come up with the brifter term then it was still Ergo and STI.

Just remember two things well three actually.

Don't get in the habit of shifting to an easier gear just because you can, sometimes your better off getting out od the saddle and grunting a bit.

It is OK to take your hands off the brifters to either signal a turn or a brief wave to another cyclist.


YES! Actually between DT and barends (both index and friction) Thumb, Rapidfire and evena *gasp* Stem Shifter I always seem to reaching the wrong way to shift.

njkayaker

And then you get SRAM (after Shimano)...

Nermal

So, fill us in on SRAM. Even better?

coldfeet

My opinion also.

BarracksSi

+100. Except that I never owned a road bike with downtube shifters -- I thought it was a dumb idea to begin with, so I didn't want one. My first multispeed bike -- this was around 1982 -- had friction thumb levers on its wide "bull moose" handlebars, so it basically acted like modern MTBs minus the indexing.

Anyway, whenever I tell someone about shifting with brifters (Shimano, at least), I tell them what 1nterceptor said -- big lever=big gear, small lever=small gear. They get the hang of it pretty quickly. With Sram, it's big swing=big gear, small tap=small gear; Campy is big paddle=big gear, small lever=small gear.

BarracksSi

Eh, sorta, except that you need to remember if you're at one end of the cassette. Since the same lever is used for shifting both directions, you might upshift instead of having your 11th downshift blocked.

I have Shimano (Tiagra and DA) on my bikes, but I really like how Campy works. One function per lever.

LesterOfPuppets

Hahaha! Surprisingly that doesn't happen to me and I go from thumbshifters to gripshifts to brifters to DT shifters all the time. I even have a wishbone shifter on one of my MTBs!

I'm always trying to shift invisible thumbshifters or gripshifts on my singlespeed MTB, though

Paul01

No problems at switching between brifters on the new road bike, XTRs on the 1993 beater mountain bike/utility bike, and DT shifters on the 1983 Vitus 979.

Mobile 155

SRAM double tap is different in that if you simply lightly tap the little lever it drops into the smaller cassette ring. Push the lever and it pushes it up the ring. On the other side a tap drops into the small ring a push moves it to the large ring. SRAM only trims in the small ring. Jump back on Shimano and you might find yourself trying to push the little lever to shift up and that doesn't work.

Some Campy ergo and Shimano Sora shifters use a thumb tab to drop into a smaller gear and the lever to push up to a larger sprocket. Easier to remember I think. The best part about Brifters in my opinion is it is easier to shift while on a hill and the ability to shift and not have to remove a hand from the bar.

BarracksSi

I think that Red (pre-2012) trims on the big ring while Force and lower trim the small, but yeah, the point is that Sram only has trim on one ring and not the other. It's another limitation of the single lever concept. The new Red, though, has a FD that pivots around a vertical axis to avoid chain rub -- which is a pretty slick way around trim, I'd say.

Mobile 155

You could be right I haven't tried the new Red and I was more or less drilled not to cross chain from big to big or small to small but every now and then I do have to trim the small ring now. Between my SRAM and Dura Ace I like the SRAM for its mechanical like shift and the Dura Ace for smoothness. The Dura Ace shifts and you never "feel" it except by pedal effort. The SRAM clicks into position. I also like pulling the SRAM lever close to the bar when in the drops so I can shift from that position.

I have never learned to love campy but then I haven't tried their new quick shifters either.

JonnyHK 

That really hurts if you are already hurting enough to be hunting for that elusive extra gear.

This is the only problem I had with the change from Shimano to SRAM. Now that I'm used to it, SRAM is great - but I think the Shimano is simpler and I can swap back very easily.

BarracksSi

That's the thing I like about Sram, too, the clear pop when shifting. My road bike has 7800 shifters and 6600 derailleurs, and it's smooth like a nice watch or an SLR camera lens.

To be fair, the only Campy I've spent any time with was Chorus 11sp on a demo bike for a week. One trick that it had was that it could dump half the cassette with one push of the thumb lever, which was nice when I started going downhill. It also lets the paddle levers swing towards the bars like Sram does for easy shifting from the drops. Plus, the front trim has several stops, so it's almost like adjusting a friction shifter.

I think that, if I went away from Shimano, I'd want to go Campy. I'd only be concerned about compatibility (really not much of an issue for me since I haven't swapped parts among my bikes) and how the thumb lever doesn't allow me to just plop my hand on the brifter hoods any ol' way I want.