Front mechs are the worst idea in the world.

[Bats]

As title. Just put the second chainring on and a front mech, and it's bloody horrible with a friction lever, a total pain in the arse to use, and given it's 42/52 that means only 3 of my 12 speeds are actually just crap impersonations of the rest.

I should have asked father christmas for 10 cogs on the back and a long cage rear mech. Single chainsets are the way forward.

 

[daccordimark]

You just need to practice.

Mark.

 

[lewisfoto]

I agree but not for the reason that you state. I find the front mech to be a bad design because it is so crude on what is otherwise a finely designed machine. I have often looked at the lowly front derailleur and wondered how it could be made better, more refined and smoother. Meanwhile the bicycling industry has just made it bulkier and hideously ugly. Pity the poor front mech.

 

[Bats]

You just need to practice.

Mark.

Practice won't stop there being ratio overlap, or it being stupid, rubbish engineering. There's three whole combinations that are totally useless copies of the others.

Too many gears not enough ratios

 

[daccordimark]

You just need to practice.

Mark.

Practice won't stop there being ratio overlap, or it being stupid, rubbish engineering. There's three whole combinations that are totally useless copies of the others.

Too many gears not enough ratios

Every time I ride my old bike with plain chainrings and a simple front mech I'm amazed at how smoothly it changes rings. Whether going from little to big or vice versa it all works very well. The friction lever means I can fine tune the trim easily as I change across the rear sprockets. Going onto my modern bike with it's pinned and ramped chainrings and sculpted front mech plates makes no difference as far as I can tell. What's more the indexed ErgoPower front lever means trimming is more limited than the friction lever.

I will concede that it seems crude but really only a matter of degree compared with rear derailleurs which are almost as crude. Rear changing is one area where all that shaping and indexing does seem to improve shifting.

When Campag turned it up to 11 I toyed with the idea of 1 x 11 and worked out that given my slow descending speeds and tendency to twiddle I could just about get the gears I need with a 44T chainring and a 12-29 cassette. It could even be done with 10 speed cassettes. The gaps between ratios were a bit wide in places but probably would have been liveable with. What I wasn't sure about was the chain line. Would the first and last sprockets actually be usable or do people who run 1 x 10 just accept that 2 sprockets are only for occasional use?

If you run 2 chainrings then duplicating or overlapping ratios is a good idea because you then don't have to change rings quite so often. Two chainrings is pretty much essential for a wimp like me round here on an old bike with only a 6 speed freewheel. I lose 2 gears to extreme chain line so I only have 10 usable ones and 2 of those are practically the same so I get 9 gear ratios.

Mark.

 

[stringfellow1946]

Ask David Millar about that one when he un-shiped his chain in the prologue of the TDF & lost the stage because he didn't have a front mec fitted. I believe the Mechanic responsible for NOT fitting the front med was sacked.

 

[Bats]

That says more about the chainrings than not having a front mech. All that ££££ and the front mech is the only thing stopping chains going walkabout? singlespeeds must be walk on water holy magic!

 

[dyna-ti]

Personally i'd like to see a reintroduction of the 4 ring chainset :?

 

[stringfellow1946]

That says more about the chainrings than not having a front mech. All that ££££ and the front mech is the only thing stopping chains going walkabout? singlespeeds must be walk on water holy magic!

Wrong! it says more about idiots using 8/9/10 speed blocks running with an extreme chain line on the outer rear sprockets with a single chainring & wondering why their chain comes off.

 

[dyna-ti]

Crumbs, getting a bit strong with 'idiots' :shock: