Pics of the Ridge Searcher? (And who comes up with these names? It's as bad as pharmaceuticals.)
As to why bike mfrs complicate what is really a very simple and easily learned action -- shifting a chain to different cogs or rings -- I think it's largely marketing: #1: make it idiot-proof (*) so that you don't scare away neophytes and therefore can sell more bikes, and #2: make it more "techie" so that you attract more buyers interested in "latest and greatest" who after purchase will leave the bike in the garage for 15 years until a relative posts it on Craigslist. I'm exaggerating, but I do think that these 2 motives drive much innovation -- some of which, I grant, ends up being very, very useful indeed -- clipless pedals, modern LED lighting, plastic-base saddles (sorry, tho' just bought B17N, love the original Flite), aero levers, close ratio fixed IGHs. (Wait ...) Really, to fully inoculate yourself against all this sort of thing, reduce your entire bike stable to fixed gears. Patrick Moore, who fondly remembers hot-rodding a 1992 XO-1 with purple anodized 370 gram Sun M14As, Specialized 26X1" Turbos, a 12-19 7-sp with Topline SL triple, and Twist Grip (tm) drop bar shifters (they worked -- not badly; you did have to very slightly overshift for best performance). On Sun, May 5, 2024 at 3:43 PM George Schick <bhim...@gmail.com> wrote: > I recently finished rehabbing a '95 Schwinn "Ridge Searcher" that was in > very neglected condition. It was given to a lady who has little or no > money by someone who had "stored the bike away in the basement" for many > years without any maintenance. Bad a shape as it was in - and it was > pretty darn bad - I only had to replace two major components, the BB and > the chain. Having cleaned everything up (which included two hours in an > ultrasonic tank to get the cassette knocked loose of all the built up grime > and lots and lots of elbow grease on other parts) I finally began to > reassemble everything last week. And although the cleaned and lubed RD > worked just fine, I had a devil of a time getting the FD to work properly > over the three chainrings. > > And, of course, this was one of those bikes with upright bars and those > accursed "twist lock" shifters. The RD shifter on the right side of the > bar worked OK with little adjustment necessary of the RD. But the FD was a > nightmare which included multiple tightenings of the shift cable, > penetrating lube on the FD pivoting points, etc. in order to get it dialed > in properly. And, also of course, it too was a three-position twist lock > shifter on the left side of the bar. > > The main reason I'm bringing this rant to this forum is to agree with > Grant's recent Blahg about the over-the-top work that some bike manf's are > doing with something along the lines of AI in order to insure that the FD > gets positioned properly in relationship with the cassette cog in which the > rear is positioned. Grant's premise is that nothing could be simpler than > shifting the FD back and forth and manually "trimming" it to accommodate > whatever gear the rear happens to be in at the moment. I couldn't agree > more. This "twist shift" business is bad enough in some respects for the > RD, but couldn't be more of a of a disaster for the FD. Why bring about > yet another costly intervention that would be completely unnecessary if > riders would just take the time to learn how to "feel an adjustment" into > place instead of relying on some next generation gadget to do their work > for them! Could be DT shifters, barcons, stem shifters - doesn't matter as > long as they require a bit of manual adjustment on the part of the rider. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/0ad6fc88-5e6f-4441-b38e-f10e75d39320n%40googlegroups.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/0ad6fc88-5e6f-4441-b38e-f10e75d39320n%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- Patrick Moore Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Executive resumes, LinkedIn profiles, bios, letters, and other writing services ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *When thou didst not, savage, k**now thine own meaning,* *But wouldst gabble like a** thing most brutish,* *I endowed thy purposes w**ith words that made them known.* -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/CALuTfgtzxJC6Zfj01SdjMfvdBCUW6Q8dVnY6mQbiJd2y95j%3DhQ%40mail.gmail.com.
