Does anyone else hate Shi**no as much as I do?

[screenman]

That would be me. Cycling was all about racing or leisure riding, using a bike for day to day transport was never on.

Same here, although I did train and race mid week as well, but the businesses I own do not lend themselves to commuting by bike.

 

[raleighnut]

Same here, although I did train and race mid week as well, but the businesses I own do not lend themselves to commuting by bike.

I didn't just commute by bike, shopping, holidays and buying DIY materials all done by bike. I once brought a 3.4 metre 50mm stair rail home by bike and have been known to cycle with a trailer loaded with camping gear up to Monyash* in Derbyshire, put the tent up and kip overnight before an early rise to cycle home and collect Maz and the dog to travel Bus-Train-Bus-Walk to the campsite for a weeks holiday then do it the other way at the end, I've done similar many times once Maz decided she wanted a bigger tent with a front porch so the weight got too much to carry, so take the tent,sleeping bags,cooking stuff,roll mats,change of clothes and wet weather gear etc. up in the trailer.
BTW if you've never been to Monyash it is fantastic, great pub (the Bulls Head) and the start of Lathkill dale, used as a rest stop on L'eroica UK

* Leicester to Monyash is 64.4 miles by direct (car) route but by bike using NCN 6 then 'The Cloud Trail' to Derby then Ashbourne followed by The Tissington Trail/High Peak trail and then a couple of miles on country lanes probably adds 15-20 miles

 

[fritz katzenjammer]

interesting , have you much experience with the "third" party stuff like sensah / ltwoo ? from the sound of it shimano has decided anything below 105 is not worth their attention so it lumps everything else into a cross compatible system that saves them money by making one system that works across them all but not very well .I have claris on my commuter abd it just works even though it may not be as quick as the higher stuff it certainly works as well as the old 10 speed 105 on the retro build .
Its like the disc only systems , nowt wrong with disc and i am not even going to start a discussion as its been covered enough but lack of support seems like another way to drive people who cant upgrade to another make that will .
Will this be enough to put people off cycling or will they accept the shifting is supposed to be like that ?

That crazy as claris rd work fine so why didn't they just use that?

I don’t get to work on the other makes, just Shimano and Sram. I have Claris on one of my road bikes and find it works just fine. As an “old” guy I do still like the older stuff though so even though Claris is a great system out of the box mine did end up with wing friction shifters and a seven speed cassette… just to be different.

 

[sevenfourate]

Maybe during the week, the people who only ride at weekends are working hard to provide for their families; maybe they, like myself, have wanted to provide well for their families; the term "weekend warrior" is offensive to me.

Right.

A mere 67 hours at work for me last week. I’d love to ride more. But work, family duties, dog walks, chores and DIY means cycling is pretty much twice a week here (For pure pleasure and as a stand alone activity). Unless I cycle to or when undertaking another ‘task’……

 

[Windle]

I’ve used Campagnolo in the past, but now I use a mixture of older Ultegra 6600 and Dura Ace 7800 2x10 speed on my Van Nicholas, and it’s beautifully engineered, the previous generation 9 speed Ultegra 6500 and Dura Ace 7700 IMO is even better, the nicest groupset I’ve ever used.

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However I’m not a fan of the newer Shimano groupsets, they just feel a bit like they’ve lost that precision and quality of the earlier stuff.

That's a lovely looking crank set, simple and not fussy. It also looks rather like the Campag C Record one form the eighties that I had on my Kirk, which In reckon was the best looking crank set ever!

 

[Exlaser2]

As others have said , hate is a strong . Do I prefer Campag definitely. Does that stop me buying bikes with Sram or Shimano , no . It all depends on suitably and cost . Which is out of the four bikes I own , two are Campag, one is Sram and one Shimano . They all have different strengths and weaknesses. My best bike is a Van Nicolas and it has Sram rival on because when I bought it, I could only afford Rival or 105 and I have small hands and I don’t like Shimano hoods, so it had to be Rival. Is it as good and well engineered as the Campag Athena I have on my Rose road bike ( which i bought second second ) , no but it’s light and it works reliably .

 

[T4tomo]

Only my hack bike has a Shi**no component, a dynamo hub front wheel I bought second hand. I hate that they dominate the industry and some of their business practices over the years have been very dodgy.

So did you use Shimano a lot in the past and what was it about it that made you hate it, or was this just "one of those" posts to provoke a debate?

FWIW Campag groupsets were / are far prettier than Shimano or Sram. I nearly went with Chorus at one point in the past, but given how ubiquitous Shimano have become with new bikes (to the detriment of the industry as a whole IMHO) I'm glad went with Ultegra for the replacement parts aspect.

Virtually no new bike comes with a Campag groupset nowadays, bar the odd Ekar gravel, where as 10-15 years ago it was quite common and most brands offered a Shimano or Campag version, with the odd SRAM offering thrown in.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I've used kit from a few different manufacturers and provided that they are set up right and work I've found them all much of a muchness. Brifters, DT shifters, thumb shifters each take 10 mins to get used to then I forget about them.

 

[overmind]

Shimano/Campagnola seems a bit like a PC/Mac discussion. I've always had bikes with Shimano and have never really had problems. Most of the bikes I have ridden and worked on were at the cheaper end - Tourney, Altus, Acera, Alivio.

In my experience, most of the issues were more to do with maintenance - DH alignment, worn out cassette/chain, cable adjustment/replacement - than the actual engineering involved.

 

[Gunk]

I work on mostly cheap BSO’s at the charity I volunteer for.

Bottom end Shimano is usually what’s fitted to these horrible bikes and it does a very basic job, but you just can’t compare it with 105 and above, it’s like they’re made by a different manufacturer.

The biggest challenge is indexing them properly, it can take 5 times longer than a decent group set. The 9 Speed Ultegra 6500 I posted on the first page took about 2 minutes to get it shifting like silk, same as 9 speed Chorus or Record, they are just a joy to work on.

 

[AndyRM]

The only corporation I hate is Weyland-Yutani which I think is entirely reasonable.

 

[mickle]

So did you use Shimano a lot in the past and what was it about it that made you hate it, or was this just "one of those" posts to provoke a debate?

FWIW Campag groupsets were / are far prettier than Shimano or Sram. I nearly went with Chorus at one point in the past, but given how ubiquitous Shimano have become with new bikes (to the detriment of the industry as a whole IMHO) I'm glad went with Ultegra for the replacement parts aspect.

Virtually no new bike comes with a Campag groupset nowadays, bar the odd Ekar gravel, where as 10-15 years ago it was quite common and most brands offered a Shimano or Campag version, with the odd SRAM offering thrown in.

I worked in the cycle industry for many years so saw, year on year, how Shi**no's obsession with industry domination drove lots of smaller companies into oblivion. The quality of their componentry and their commitment to constant improvement cannot be denied, but they routinely used underhand tactics to undermine other makers. The first one that got them into trouble was changing the spring rate of their rear derailleurs half way through a model year. It meant that every bike sold with GripShift shifters and Shi**no mechs worked like crap. They copied Suntour's brilliant Microdrive but changed the inner chainring BCD by 2mm to make their rings non-compatible. Because Shi**no has a cast-iron policy of *never* paying royalties to another manufacturer. Shi*no is so powerful in the cycle industry that they write the book every year which outlines all the standards that every bike manufacturer must adhere to. I like to support the little guy wherever I can. And Shi**no is the opposite of the little guy. It's a global corporate monster.

 

[SpokeyDokey]

I worked in the cycle industry for many years so saw, year on year, how Shi**no's obsession with industry domination drove lots of smaller companies into oblivion. The quality of their componentry and their commitment to constant improvement cannot be denied, but they routinely used underhand tactics to undermine other makers. The first one that got them into trouble was changing the spring rate of their rear derailleurs half way through a model year. It meant that every bike sold with GripShift shifters and Shi**no mechs worked like crap. They copied Suntour's brilliant Microdrive but changed the inner chainring BCD by 2mm to make their rings non-compatible. Because Shi**no has a cast-iron policy of *never* paying royalties to another manufacturer. Shi*no is so powerful in the cycle industry that they write the book every year which outlines all the standards that every bike manufacturer must adhere to. I like to support the little guy wherever I can. And Shi**no is the opposite of the little guy. It's a global corporate monster.

Is Shimano really a 'global corporate monster'?

It's a fair sized company but not exactly massive in the grand scheme of things.

 

[mustang1]

All my bikes are Shimano-equipped. I find them very reliable and I particularly like that they use mineral oil for their hydraulic brakes (I don't need the super high performance of prolonged downhill runs in hot weather that the dot oil is supposedly better for).

I DO like that their is competition from SRAM (especially) and Campagnolo. From memory, I believe Campy parts are more serviceable but my bikes are from about 2000 onwards.

I also like that other other drivetrain manufacturers are coming in from China to try and keep prices down.

 

[Ming the Merciless]