Gripshift……a forgotten pleasure.

must be well over 10yrs since I ran a bike with gripshift, so I decided to try some again.
having trouble with a fused wrist, and knackered thumb, I put some sram attack shifters on my tourer today.

bloody fantastic!! easy to shift, comfy rubber grip, move up all the block at once. I like em.

why did they go out of favour?

did you pretend you were revving a motorbike? vrmmm vrmmm

I got a set on my fat bike{for use with thick gloves}, got to say I love them and think I might put them on the rest of the fleet

why did they go out of favour

because they are crap?

easy to shift

if youre shifting at a time when youre happy letting go of the bar so you can twist your wrist, not when climbing or descending, riding tricky terrain etc.

comfy rubber grip

mine werent, clumsy uncomfortable ridges which gave me blisters/callouses (decent quality sram that were OE on a Trek Y22 backintheday).

move up all the block at once

never found the need to go instantaneously from smallest sprocket to biggest in 20 years of MTBing all over the world.

having trouble with a fused wrist, and knackered thumb

Obviously works for you with specific requirements, but theyre one of the few components I actively disliked after using them (on a par with flexstems).

My boys bike has them and he’s fine with them (8 yr old) but one is starting to get sticky and needs a new cable…I keep putting it off as it looks like a right pig of a job on the videos I’ve seen.

in what way are they crap?

I’m not a fan personally, but then I quite like Thumbies. 🙂

Good that there are still enough sets to go around them as wants them.

the wife has got the microshift thumbies on her troll.
they are very good.

I used to have grip shifts back in the ’90s and loved them. They were stiff but reliable and gave more control as you kept your thumb wrapped around the bar whilst shifting. I’ve often thought about trying the latest generation but they’re a bit pricey. Also I’ve sort of got used to one-finger braking at the same time you’re changing gear in some situations which you couldn’t do with grip shifts. I might give a go one day

Whenever i had a go on a friends bike with grip shift i kept changing gear by accident.

Until recently I had gripshift for front mech and trigger for rear. I wanted the space for my revert. X0 gripshift, worked very well. Best bit wad you could adjust the front mech position slightly with a click, so no rubbing at extremes.
Gone 1×10 now so dont need it

I used to use Sachs shift, which was the same but a gripper grip. Same principal and used to like them. People who didn’t like them, always used to try and get 20 years out of a seized gear cable.

Don’t like ’em, too hard to shift when you want to, too easy to shift when you don’t. PS want an X0 shifter? 😉

will a xo shifter work with a shimno rear mech?

will a xo shifter work with a shimno rear mech?

A 9sp XO shifter will work with a Shimano 10sp mech (on a 9sp cassette, obviously) if you put a 6mm (0.236 inch to be precise) spacer on the mech where the cable is clamped.

North wind, if that’s a 10s x0 shifter I’d be interested…. Dc30online AT gmail.com

On-One doing deals on XO gripshifts at the mo.

I have always used grip shift,a great simple design that works a treat, I can use thicker gloves in winter too..;)

why did they go out of favour?

Because Shimano’s Dual Control brake/shift lever combo was vastly superior and has taken over the whole market…not! 😆

I have a 8 and 9 speed attack half pipe shifter still boxed with cable and small grip section

from what I reckon (correct me if I am wrong) but a gripshift works on the same plan as a thumbie. it gathers cable round a peg when rotated.
a simple design which works, what is not to like.

rp16v, do you want to sell?

I’ve always used grip shift , think the new 10 speed ones are a little over complex inside but very smooth
The older x0 9 speed ones Still work a treat on the old bike.

Yeah sure drop me a msg here’s a link to a pic of mine Prohttp://m.pinkbike.com/photo/5956102/

Had gripshift on my last 3 bikes, its very easy and smooth positive shifts and lighter than thumbshit too, oops sorry i meant shift (i think) 😉

Ton, did the front shifter work with the rear mech? Curious…

I started with thumbies BITD then went to XTR Rapidfire. they were great but I moved over to X0 Gripshift after a quick try out. The shift is very positive and almost impossible to do inadvertently, and you keep a permanent grip on the bars at all times when shifting (unless you try to grab a handful of gears at once). Major benefit is that you can micro-adjust the front mech. Oh, and you get a (rather fragile) gear indicator if you like that sort of thing.

Recently went 1×10 on my new bike and decided to try out the X0 trigger. Works nicely and as good – not better or worse – as Gripshift. If I ever go 1×11 I’ll go for whichever X0 shifter is cheapest as I can happily use both.

So, it’s down to personal preference and taste and what works best for you.

I might try this at some point. Current shifter hits the top tube when the bar spins round. Brakes clear it, and the shifter is set to rotate if it hits, but it would be better if nothing hits it at all. So gripshift may be the answer. Haven’t ridden gripshift since about 1995.

I can’t remember anything wrong with it back then, but then back then we had canti brakes, super narrow bars, bar-ends like boomerangs, massive stems, purples things etc…. I assume gripshift is as slick as everything else now?

tomhoward – Member

Ton, did the front shifter work with the rear mech? Curious

sort of, but felt like the clicks were too close.
I put a rear rocket shifter on yesterday, it is crisp, fast, ace.
you do not have to take your hands off the bars to shift, the tweakability on the front is ace too.

I’ve just built up an Inbred 1×10 with the X0 gripshift, still getting used to it but it all seems good so far with nice accurate shifts.

in what way are they crap?

thought I’d gone on to explain some of my issues 🙂 +1 Northwind’s comments. Bit like my experience of Campag road kit; felt primitive and agricultural, less accurate shifting for more physical effort than Shimano.

you do not have to take your hands off the bars to shift

really? You can shift completely across the block without releasing grip on the bar with the rest of your hand? You must have far bigger more supple hands than me (the medical issues you listed suggest otherwise).

So, it’s down to personal preference and taste and what works best for you.

Ultimately this, which is why I begged to differ with the OP (who has a bottomless source of cheap lightly used twistshifters out there!).

IIRC the orignal gripshift were a typical usa product, nice and light, worked OK in dry conditions but knackered if shown a bit of mud, only after they bought sachs with their wavey shifter and direct cable (dirt?) mechs that they were a reasonable proposition. I used sachs waveys they were good, proper cheap, light, big flange you could grip if your mech got gunked up, just worked. Had some gripshift in early 00s was using a road cassette on an mtb (shift-tastic) so moving across the entire block in one go was good. The 2 finger brake levers I was using at the time meant I was using super short grips and riding with my hands on the shifters so wheelies/bunnyhops ended up with the odd shift. Use longer brake levers and you may be ok with longer grips and not riding on the shifters, dunno.

Friction front shifting is cool.

triggers are just better for pretty much everything else tho.

I was running the 9 speed X0 ones and loved them up until smashing my rear mech in half – I then decided to go 10 speed and treated myself to full XTR, ispec, clutch mech, blah blah…

Huge mistake!

My old 9 Speed X0 gripshift gearing was superior in every way – now toying of selling the XTR shifters and rear mech and swapping back to X0 10 speed gripshift

Not used gripshift since my old Raleigh Grifter. Brings back too many bad memories.

Do these new fangled ones have 10 positions, or do they twist one way or the other one click to change gear, and then return to the center position?

It’s passable for tootling along, but rubbish for anything more severe. The idea of a rotating grip is stupid, as if you are on a downhill you are constantly having to move your hand to shift. I also tended to end up with blisters from my thumb rubbing on the ridge between grip and shifter. It wasn’t nicknamed Gripsh*t for nothing.

I had one on my commute bike, worked OK but I got rid of it in the end as it was so uncomfortable!

had some sachs early models bought from a trade show when they first came out and really liked them, worked wonderfully. then didnt sram buy up sachs and refine it but shimano continues to have the majority OEM market for shifters so most of use use Shimano shifters from day one. It shows their dmoiniance as to why these arent so widely used but, like apple, its nice to have an alternative.

I’ve never seen a good quality gripshift – the only ones I’ve seen have been on kids’ bikes and so cheap that they have worn out and stopped working properly.

then didnt sram buy up sachs and refine it

I’d argue sram binned gripshift and rebranded the sachs design, new grips too obviously.

SRAM seem to be giving shimano a run for their money in OEM stakes nowadays. It’s telling that sram all but dropped gripshift and, ahem, refined shimano’s trigger shifter design. Did they do that because everyone was used to triggers or because they are the most ergonomic/practical design? It seems there’s still a bit of a market for gripshift*, but the majority are happy with triggers.

*weightweenie shifter of choice iirc

horses for courses – its all about feel at the end of the day.

Which feel better to use to you? Pick one, go with it, happy days.

Used them back in t’day (JMC influence) but didn’t get on with them. Triggers work fine for me.