Jan Heine a écrit:
>That said, many users are happy with Shimano
>derailleurs and friction shifting. They probably
>are so skilled on their bikes that they remember
>the position of the lever, rather than relying
>on feedback. I only have ridden such setups on
>Bicycle Quarterly test bikes, and even during a
>500+ mile test, I never became totally
>proficient at this. But the mishifts certainly
>became less frequent as I spent more miles on
>the bike.
This brings up a good point. Those of us in the biz tend to be a bit promiscuous, riding lots of different bikes.
A typical cyclist who only rides one bike will become accustomed to its idiosyncrasies and learn to get whatever shift system it has to work fine without conscious thought.
I've also suffered this syndrome as a photographer, because I've got even more cameras than bikes. The Nikons and the Contaxes and Bronicas turn the focus in the opposite direction from the Leica and the Retinas, and the ergonomics of the Rolleiflex are unlike anything else. This often slows me down.
Contrast this with the Cartier-Bresson approach...he had one Leica M3, with one 50 mm Summicron. He couldn't do many of the things that I can do with my various more exotic optics, but he learned to use _that_ camera as if it was an extension of his body. This extreme familiarity would let him grab the "decisive moment" while I would still be figuring out which way to turn the focus barrel of the camera du jour.
It sometimes drives me crazy when I get email questions from new riders who are obsessing about "perfect shifting."
"Perfect shifting" only matters on an unfamiliar bike. Once you've spent a few hundred miles with any reasonable shifting system, you learn and internalize its idiosyncrasies and then you don't notice them any more.
Sheldon "Control" Brown
+----------------------------------------------------------+
| I have to mention how wary I am whenever I read bike |
| reviews which talk about how great some bike handled |
| the instant the rider mounted up. |
| If the bike immediately feels right, it's most likely |
| because it handles very similarly to whatever the |
| rider most recently rode. |
| I have bikes that I have ridden thousands of miles, |
| that handle and perform flawlessly. Yet if I've been |
| riding something different, like the tandem (especially |
| captaining) or my commuter with a heavy saddle bag or |
| pannier and then hop back on my sporty single, I spend |
| the first mile or so hardly able to get out of the |
| saddle. I'm all over the road. I would swear the bike |
| has been chopped in half. But within a short time, |
| everything is back to normal, and my trusty old bike |
| is handling great again. --Pamela Blalock |
+----------------------------------------------------------+
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