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29.09.2019 - Die SIS die
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Back in the 90s when I was young I had a bicycle with a 3 by 6
drivetrain. I didnt knew much about it and just rode it. It had a
friction based shifter where you had to adjust each shift manually
at change. At what I know now it must have also been an Uniglide
cassette because most shifts where more or less followed with a
crunch when you did it not carefully. Apart from the quirky handling
I had not to adjust the drivetrain in anyway because I did it on the
fly while shifting. Old cables and housings dont bother this type of
shifter much. Then the next generation of shifter arrived. They had
an rasterisation/index, called the SIS system. At first view the
whole drive train becomes easier usable because you dont have to
feel in when you change gears and just push a button. But on the
long run you end up replacing cables and housing maybe double the
often because the precision of you drivetrain depens heavily on very
low friction in your cable routing. When you have a bikecycle
standing outside and depending on how intelligent your cables are
guided, you may often end up having an drivetrain which does not
work well very long and have quirks on either up or down shifts.

When I did an education to a bicycle mechanic, bikes with 9 or more
speeds were quiete usual. Most service was about replacing chain,
cassette + cables and housing plus aditional set up of the
derailleur. This takes aproximately 1h of work in a shop. The SIS
shifters for 5-8 Speed are the same. They are based on the same
distance between each cog. 9 speed up, every system needs its own
shifter paired to cassette. on 8 speed somehow old cables work quite
ok, but when you have something newer, 9 speed might be the lower
standart on entry bikes, you have to have good cables otherwise your
drivetrain works like shit. So you might depend heavy on maintance
on your local bike shop spening lots of money for this overall
designflaw. A solution to this dilemma could be to assemble this
oldskool kiss suckless friction shifters again. But you have to be 
interested in bicycle stuff to go back in step of handling. Which
many people going to bikeshops in my experience are not. Or the
big manufactures could start making rear derailleurs with index
inside the derailleur! So the need of good cables would be strongly
minimized to have a good working drivetrain. But yeah, designing and
selling bicycle stuff is like selling every other stuff too.Maybe
we see something like this after the apokalypse where its more
important to have a good working product rather than a good selling
one.
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