Intercooperability

2002 Shimano Ultegra Brifters

I love my Shimano brifters. I have two sets, 105ST-R600 3/9 on my old aluminum Trek2000 and Ultegra6700 2/10 on my newer Madone. And when The Managing Partner went to buy a road bike, I strongly advised going with Ultegra (6600 era). I love having the ability to shift without removing my hands from the hoods. So I was really pissed when recently The Managing Partner’s shifters starting acting up. Hard to push up to the top chain ring. It happened on a century and the on-site mechanic did a little fiddling before declaring there was nothing he could do. 

A couple days later the bike was taken into the shop where the tech did some more fiddling which seems to have made at least a modest improvement. But he pointed out that Shimano shifters are basically designed to be disposable, unlike Campagnolo and SRAM; they basically can’t be overhauled or repaired. I was shocked to find when asked what it would cost to replace the errant shifter, that newer versions of Ultegra aren’t backward compatible either. The only option is to replace the Ultegra shifters with Tiagra or Sora. Tiagra! Either that or we have to replace the entire drive train. 

1986 Suntour Friction Shifters

Newer Ultegra shifters just aren’t backward compatible. Holy crap! Not repairable. Not interoperable. Not backward compatible. I understand Bic pens being disposable, but shifters are something akin to a durable good. I would think they ought to last a little longer than ten years before you are forced to just throw them away and replace them. Unfortunately, I suspect that modern manufacturers think of the entire bicycle in much the same way. 

As Grant Says… 

Grant Petersen is of the opinion that carbon forks are unsafe and that even a carbon frame becomes unsafe after ten years of exposure to light. And he’s not alone. Hmmm… My ’86 Fuji still has all the original low-end drive train parts, including the friction shifters, which still work just fine. And even today there are replacement parts being made by several companies (implying intercompatibility). Why have we come to accept bikes that cost more than cars but don’t last as long as a pair of sneakers? Grant would say it’s because we revere racers and buy the products they use rather than choosing sensible, practical, durable stuff that balances performance and value.

What’s weird is that I thought of Ultegra as the practical middle ground in shifters, providing all the benefits of modern design and technology without the likely touchiness of the elite level racing products. I guess I was wrong.