Re: Helping a tourist with STI problems

Am Wed, 21 May 2025 20:04:08 -0400 schrieb Frank Krygowski
<frkrygow@sbcglobal.net>:

Last night we hosted a touring cyclist from Japan. He's ridden here from
NYC and is on his way to LA, by a route that I think is too ambitious,
given his time frame. He's a chef and was nice enough to cook dinner!
He's riding a Jamis touring bike, disc brakes, Tiagra 2x10, very heavily
loaded.
>

...

Spraying the guts thoroughly with lubricant has been the only thing I've
ever done to fix STI. Eventually, doing that enabled him to get the
levers working again and allowed the repair to complete. As a result of
all this, the young guy is going to do an extra overnight here.
>
To me, it's justification for my preference for bar end shifters for
touring. I prefer simple devices with only visible problems.

Then you should not use modern cars or cell phones. 

I too liked the bar end shifter on the touring bike I got in nineties of
the last century, even after getting a nasty stich from a broken wire
from the inner cable, while shifting.  Does that count as a visible
problem? :-O

Even the wireless shifting components that I used for building our
current road bikes in 2023 are easily installed or replaced, in
comparison to what your options are with a modern laptop, mobile phone,
or car.  Even in comparison to their mechanical counterparts, these are
simple and more robust.  Software doesn't degrade like mechanical parts
do and different from mechanics, complexity _can_ be hidden without
cost. Counterexamples are mostly caused by product policy and occur with
mechanical products, too.

From a consumers point of view, there isn't much difference between a
Tiagra STI lever and a SRAM eTap AXS Shift/Brake Lever, he or she can't
repair either one. Nor can I.  But the former component is a lot more
complicated than the latter.  A STI lever, whether Tiagra, 105 or
Ultegra contains a complicated ratchet mechanism inside, comparable to a
mechanical clock, while the latter one is a simple switch combined with
some electronics. Robust near distance communication by wire or over the
air is essentially a solved problem.  

Of course we can design and build bicycles that a village blacksmith can
repair. Some people do. Who needs more than two gears? You don't need a
shifting device for only two gears. And so on.

Personally, I'd like some enforced openness for IoT devices, say
standards that would, for example, force SRAM and Shimano to open up
their protocols in a way that allows some company in Poland to produce a
replacement shift lever that can be paired with a wireless derailleur
from SRAM, just like Alugear is able to produce SRAM compatible chain
rings. Problem: Most of the people who write our laws lack the knowledge
to even formulate the problem in a coherent way.

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