Why can I buy 3x8 brake shifters for flat bars for £14 but.............................

[jonnyboy666]

@bagpuss i charge £3 for a stainless inner gear or brake cable, with outer it's £7, it's a generic brand but they've always been good. the carded shimano cables, yes, they are expensive, i think a genuine shimano inner stainless is now £7, standard i think is £5.

 

[Mangizmo]

so here's the thing, you had some shifters on a bike, that bike was bought from a shop, this means the parts were genuine, they lasted well for several reasons, first is that shimano generally is well designed, the materials are generally good, and on the cheaper stuff it tends to be more solid as it's not trying to be lightweight, the most common issue i get with those style of shifters is they can seize up with lack of use, usually a load of lube sorts this out.

now you said you got those shifters for £14, this tells me the ones you have bought are likely fake, as has been suggested. the reason i think this is that the retail price is around £40, at £40 they come in nice shimano box, with both gear and brake cables, both inner and outer. even if these are knocked out cheap by a mail order company they wouldn't be doing them at 65% off as that is way below trade price, this screams fake parts, OR IF WE ARE BEING POSITIVE maybe all the cables were not supplied, or if you were lucky they are genuine but they have been pulled off a bike for some reason and then sold cheap.

if you bought them from Wish, Amazon, eBay or Ali baba or any other similar dodgy website then it is likely you have bought dodgy knock off shifters.

here is a similar set that i had come through my shop, 8 speed, brake lever snapped, gear assembly seized up, generally poor performance and i rarely see rusty stains leaking out of a genuine shifter, and there are small differences in the shape of barrel adjusters, lever blade shape etc. the fake set is the bottom set.
View attachment 720323

also, you basically said in one of your posts that essentially your shifters and XTR did the same thing, well yes, but that suggests you don't value better quality components. that seems odd to me, i have a nice vehicle, i value that it's in good condition and quite a high spec, to go back to a more basic spec or older vehicle does not appeal.

I must admit I hadn't considered that possibility but £14 is crazy cheap so you may well be correct, they seem good at the moment, time will tell

 

[legrandefromage]

got an 8spd road sti here if you want for postage, left lever is iffy, grumpy even, maybe just downright in a huff

 

[Mangizmo]

got an 8spd road sti here if you want for postage, left lever is iffy, grumpy even, maybe just downright in a huff

My 8sp drop brake SORA shifter has just failed and so I am using a bar end shifter to tide me over, its not a SORA by any chance is it ?

 

[legrandefromage]

tiagra I think, but its grumpy and wont say

 

[Woz]

Like @greencat and @pigman said earlier, the rock bottom Shimano stuff does it's job. That's where Shimano shines at the end of the day of low-end stuff just working and they rake the cash in to put into other stuff. I had some of these shifters, but I think Alivio / Acera from a generation or so before on a beater commuter.

Ugly as sin but they worked. One issue was wearing gloves with them, and of course you couldn't shift more than one sprocket at a time. I used to call them "the fcuking space ships" on the handlebars - I would imagine in my head that it was like Battlestar Galactica vs. USS Enterprise going on.

God what a dream job it must be working in the low-end design department in a company having superb knowledge about what makes a good shifter and having the remit to make it all a bit nasty / cheap with crap metals and plastic; I'm sure it would be the only department where you could get away with coming in late with an hangover and even still drunk - just as long as you could make 1€ on every unit sold to flood the market.

Worth mentioning, all of this low end stuff is off-shored production not in Japan.

 

[Mangizmo]

e. I used to call them "the fcuking space ships" on the handlebars - I would imagine in my head that it was like Battlestar Galactica vs. USS Enterprise going on.

Thats a good one, yes they do look a little bit Star Trek dont they

 

[rwm1962]

so here's the thing, you had some shifters on a bike, that bike was bought from a shop, this means the parts were genuine, they lasted well for several reasons, first is that shimano generally is well designed, the materials are generally good, and on the cheaper stuff it tends to be more solid as it's not trying to be lightweight, the most common issue i get with those style of shifters is they can seize up with lack of use, usually a load of lube sorts this out.

now you said you got those shifters for £14, this tells me the ones you have bought are likely fake, as has been suggested. the reason i think this is that the retail price is around £40, at £40 they come in nice shimano box, with both gear and brake cables, both inner and outer. even if these are knocked out cheap by a mail order company they wouldn't be doing them at 65% off as that is way below trade price, this screams fake parts, OR IF WE ARE BEING POSITIVE maybe all the cables were not supplied, or if you were lucky they are genuine but they have been pulled off a bike for some reason and then sold cheap.

if you bought them from Wish, Amazon, eBay or Ali baba or any other similar dodgy website then it is likely you have bought dodgy knock off shifters.

here is a similar set that i had come through my shop, 8 speed, brake lever snapped, gear assembly seized up, generally poor performance and i rarely see rusty stains leaking out of a genuine shifter, and there are small differences in the shape of barrel adjusters, lever blade shape etc. the fake set is the bottom set.
View attachment 720323

also, you basically said in one of your posts that essentially your shifters and XTR did the same thing, well yes, but that suggests you don't value better quality components. that seems odd to me, i have a nice vehicle, i value that it's in good condition and quite a high spec, to go back to a more basic spec or older vehicle does not appeal.

For me one good thing has come out of this rant. I wasn't aware there were Shimano snides on the market! Naive I guess. I just checked my records & my Acera 8 speed shifter was from ebay at £8.68 last year. It's on my ebike so not my main rider (although it has been this last month as I'm a bit jaded & it shortens the commute!). While it's working fine I noticed the case screws have rusted like in your pic. I'll be taking a close look at it & comparing to images of genuine product.

 

[Imlach]

For me one good thing has come out of this rant. I wasn't aware there were Shimano snides on the market! Naive I guess. I just checked my records & my Acera 8 speed shifter was from ebay at £8.68 last year. It's on my ebike so not my main rider (although it has been this last month as I'm a bit jaded & it shortens the commute!). While it's working fine I noticed the case screws have rusted like in your pic. I'll be taking a close look at it & comparing to images of genuine product.

Original low end Shimano stuff rusts. Works fine but the corrosion resistance is crap, it doesn't mean its a knock off.

From bike shops here most commuters are kitted with original low end shimano kit but all steel bits, bolts rust to feck.. even the alu stuff oxidises in seconds.

The Asian market isn't flooded with knock offs of entry level shimano kit, there isn't any incentive.

 

[squirrelchaser]

Might not the economy of scale play here too ? They'll make many times more flat bar shifters than drop bars shifters.