Coolwall Jan 2011 - Shimano MTB groupsets

Yea the stuff does its job very very well and will allways choose it over anything else but so does a JCB and is that cool, nope sorry.

Good vfm engineering (by and large), functional and with a simplicity that encouraged more folk to ride. That's cool enough for me.

kaytronika":1swgzr5g said:

Something so functional can never be considered cool.

Click to expand...

Not always, but sometimes simple functionality through design can be way cooler than simply pretty design.

"Form and function should be on an equal footing, with form ever so slightly ahead."

I think I have an example of how cool function can be

I am working on a Campagnolo Euclid bike right now. A previous owner was probably not very happy with the original shifting, so had the shifters and rear mech replaced with SRT600 and STX SE. That is a bit too blue collar for this aristocrat, so I decided to swap to XTII thumbies and mech. The cassette is an 80s Maillard screw on example. Of course no HyperGlide. No, big burly teeth instead. Heavy Sachs chain. I had some cables laying around in a colour I like, but they were brake cables, no gear. I anticipated I would have to go with friction setting on the thumbies. Fine with me. Anyway, I attached the cable, gave it a try in index mode and what happens: flawless performance. I say cool.

Sounds like the chain and screwon were doing the work! Those thumbies ionly move cable.

C'mon two words..... XT Sharkfin........

How can Shimano be uncool with that in the range once upon a time !

Shimano is the Microsoft/ Starbucks/ News Corporation of the bike industry. I don't like them due to global domination.
They also inflicted the needless complexity of rapidfire on the world, as well as the heedless complexity rapid fire with gear indicators! What price simplicity?
Not completely evil though...

They gave the world Biopace, which I really liked but no else ever seemed to,
Sharkfins
Their first rapidfire shifters had grey ends on the levers which had understated early nineteen nineties class and would have looked great with grey Specialized Autopilot Comp grips and grey amber-walls,
And they didn't invent gripshift!

So some redeeming features but remember; world domination is only ok if it is me... :twisted:

Mavic sort of dominate their area of parts as well but don't seem to get the grief Shimano get.

Mavic sort of dominate their area of parts as well but don't seem to get the grief Shimano get.

Cool? NO!

Functional, good, but cool, nope.