Following my "Ghetto-shift" Hack about a year ago I've decided to make a sort of Commuter/tourer/gravel/Winter road bike using an old MTB frame and bits from my current fixed commuter.
I want the drivetrain to be a 2xN with some manner of "Sub-compact" chainset (Say 46/30 perhaps), and I sort of had it in my head that I could do a similar bit of DIY/bodgery to fit a pair of Downtube shifters on another pair of tektro RL-520 levers, a bit like the Gevenalle 'Audax'... but cheaper...
I had been looking at various Shimano 6 and 7 speed shifters with index/friction modes and was about ready to buy an old set of 105 or Exage shifters, but last night spotted a pair of (what I think are) band on Suntour 'Cyclone' going cheap on ebay, these are friction only, so on a whim I clicked buy and they're now on the way...
Part of my thinking is that by only having the option to use friction the number of sprockets on the rear hub sort of becomes an irrelevance and I'll be able to swap wheels and cassettes with wild abandon with no worries about indexing or alignment. The other part of my motivation is simply because I'm awkward, contrary git who likes odd things, and I maybe have rose-tinted rememberences of my first (10 speed) friction geared bike back in the 80's...
Reading around the interwebz it seems like people can start running into issues when they go running 9 and 10 speed cassettes friction setups mounted on their downtube.
Is anyone here running friction shifting of any sort?
And if so how hard is it to adapt back after several years with the clickers?
I used it on a Nexus bike for a bit, it was fine.
It wouldn't surprise me if things were different with narrow spacing on 9+speed.
From Reading other forums it sounds like people with nice "vintage" touring frames find the combination of closer stacked cassettes (9 or 10 speed) and a more flexible frame can lead to what some of them call "autoshifting" when giving it the beans out of the saddle... Others seem to attribute it to gummed up cables, some to friction shifters without sufficient friction.
One thing I noted was a few people recommended using a narrower 9 or 10 speed chain no matter how many sprockets were fitted, which sort of seems to make sense.
I guess the other question is floating top jockey? Good or bad with friction?
I'll be using an old kona MTB frame re-purposed for the task so it should be stiffer, I'm also wondering if having a shifter mounted at the hood will allow a bit more fine control than it would on the DT...
I've been using friction shifters on a 2x9 road/gravel drop-bar Croix de Fer for 8 years with minimal issues. Managed to pick up a used pair of Dura-ace 9spd brifters - by far the poshest bit of my bike! About once every 3 years the cable snaps on the LH shifter at the top end, where it bends sharply. Once this happened on a 200km solo ride, so I now carry a gear inner cable wrapped around the spare tube on longer audax type rides.
When I've swapped the gravel wheels in and raced it, they've worked perfectly in thick mud when indexed STI's around me have failed.
Only issue I had was with a rather longer set of Dia-Compe brifters fitted on flared drops, which would occasionally hit my knees and shift up the block as crucial points on steep climbs..