I have just bought my son a s/h Marin Rift Zone. He is 11 years old and is finding it a bit of a struggle changing on the front mech due to the throw of the shimano deore shifter. I heard that SRAM use a 1:1 ratio which would shorten the throw soemwhat but would it work with the LX rear mech?
Or any other ideas would be appreciated.
You need to use the gear shifters and mech in conjunction. If its hard look at the cables first are they old or poor quality replace them with better ones and see if it improves things.
sram numbered shifters (eg X.3 X.5) are NOT compatible with shimano.
sram named shifters (eg rocket) are.
As Jonk says cables are the most likely cause of hard shifting
Sram shifters work with a Shimano front mech but not a rear mech.
as above the actuation distance [cable pull] is only different for REAR mech not the front one
Like Bassspine says, it depends on the shifter, I've got SRAM Rocket shifters funing my XT Shadow rear mech, and they're great.
Thanks for the quick replies.
So Grumm and Junkyard says that you can use SRAM for front mechs only, that is correct?
And Rocket for rear mechs?
New bike arrived with SRAM shifters and rear mech, shimano front all working fine (all be it after a bit of tinkering on my behalf, think that was just down to poor bike setup).
Thanks for the quick replies.
So Grumm and Junkyard says that you can use SRAM for front mechs only, that is correct?
And Rocket for rear mechs?
Yup. (edit: well you can use normal SRAM shifters for either Shimano or SRAM front mechs, but you can't interchange them for rear mechs - just realised that wasn't very clear after reading the last post 🙂 )
My bike came with an LX front mech and SRAM shifters - http://www.specialized.com/gb/en/bc/SBCBkModel.jsp?sid=08Pitch
Curly68,
You've misread things.
On mtb's the front mechs all use the same actuation. You can interchange Sram and Shimano shifters and mechs.
Rear derailieurs are different. Sram's 'X-' ranges of mechs use 1-1 actuation and need a Sram 'X-' shifter albeit a trigger of grip shifter. Shimano use a 2-1 actuation on all their mechs so need 2-1 shifter (which oddly enough their shifters are). Sram also do a range of 2-1 actuation shifters but they are not the 'X-' range.
If your son is struggling with shifting the front mech using trigger / sti shifters then why not try a gripshifter? The current Sram items are, IMO, very good.