Shimano XT M8130 LinkGlide Friction NSMB Andrew Major
DOES THE FUTURE HAVE FEWER GEARS PT IX

Shimano Inadvertently Upgrades Friction Shifting

Photos Andrew Major
Reading time

XT M8130 Continued

Shimano's LinkGlide M8130 XT drivetrain is the most positive cable-actuated shifting I've ridden. Under heavy pedaling loads or backing off, the chain happily walks up or down looking to embrace the next cog.

Shimano XT M8130 LinkGlide NSMB Andrew Major

The XT M8130 is an XT quality shifter that multi-shifts up, into a lower gear but single-releases down into a higher one.

Shimano XT M8130 LinkGlide Friction NSMB Andrew Major (1)

The shifting ergonomics and the lever action are as good as any Shimano shifter I've used and the quality seems XT-level excellent.

I've written about XT M8130 and the CUES LinkGlide drivetrains previously, for those looking for a more robust explanation. In short, LinkGlide cassettes have significantly thicker cogs that interface more fully with an 11-spd chain, regardless of whether it's a 9, 10, or 11-spd LG drivetrain. How much thicker? An 11-spd LG cassette takes up the same real estate as a 12-spd HG+ unit.

The LinkGlide-specific parts are fully interchangeable between various component levels and consist of just the cassette, shifter, and rear derailleur with the cassette providing most of the magic. Said cassette rides on a legacy HG freehub driver, which helps Shimano bring LG to lower price points and ensure max swap-ability of LG components.

Shimano Friction Thumb Shifter NSMB AndrewM.JPG

Shimano's DuraAce rear barcon shifter, seen here on a Paul Components Thumbie plate, can be run in an indexed mode (with clicks for each gear) or a friction mode (without).

Shimano Friction Thumb Shifter NSMB AndrewM (2).JPG

In order to mate my thumb shifter to this Box-9 drivetrain I needed to run it in friction mode. The indexed option didn't pull enough cable per shift, and also I like friction mode better.

What Is Friction Shifting

The XT M8130 shifter performs in an exemplary fashion, but more importantly it was igniting possibilities in my brain: as improved as LinkGlide is, hitting gears quickly and under load with an indexed setup, wouldn't all those benefits also translate to friction shifting?

Friction shifting confuses some folks who've never used it before, but the simplest way to think of it is the absence of any shift-clicks. A rider moves the shift lever to find the next derailleur position. There's often some confusion as many rear thumb-shifters of yore can be run in both indexed and friction modes. This is true of the rear DuraAce barcon shifters that folks convert to thumbie action with an adapter plate, like the Paul Components Thumbie that I use.

Shimano XT M8130 LinkGlide Friction NSMB Andrew Major (2)

My DuraAce barcon front shifter (flipped upside down) has just enough throw to run an M8130 rear derailleur through all eleven gears.

Shimano XT M8130 LinkGlide Friction NSMB Andrew Major (5)

Luckily with a 30t front ring I rarely use the lowest two cogs so the ergonomic shifting range works beautifully for me.

Shimano XT M8130 LinkGlide Friction NSMB Andrew Major (3)

LinkGlide is fantastic for friction shifting as the chain always wants to walk up, or down, and hug the next cog.

Many years ago I had a friend who was in a local Bob Dylan Appreciation Club. I once asked if the members spent their meetings sitting around debating Bob Dylan lyrics. He quickly replied: "No, we appreciate them." It's something that comes to mind every time someone asks me to explain why I'd choose to ride a friction-shifting setup over an indexed one.

If you love friction shifting then I'll tell you now, you've never experienced friction shifting like what Shimano LinkGlide delivers. I'm hitting shifts faster and harder than I can with any other drivetrain I've tried - HG, HG+, SRAM. If you don't appreciate the mechanical poetry that is pushing a derailleur through gears entirely on muscle memory and feel, LinkGlide is not going to make you covet a friction setup.

Shimano XT M8130 LinkGlide Friction NSMB Andrew Major (6)

Max throw for the lowest gear with the cable routing changed on the M8130 rear derailleur.

Shimano XT M8130 LinkGlide Friction NSMB Andrew Major (7)

Max throw for the lowest gear using the standard cable routing on the M8130 rear derailleur.

Leveraged

The biggest hurdle of combining a friction thumb shifter with a modern 11- or 12-spd drivetrain is the lack throw, which makes it challenging to hit all the gears. Specifically, hitting the last couple of low gears is a stretch unless I'm on pavement or gravel, where I can take my hand off the bar and crank the shifter. This isn't a concern for me as I rarely use the last couple of gears unless I'm doing a sustained steep gravel climb and frankly, I'm quite happy pedaling out of the saddle if I find myself in the wrong gear.

I recognize the challenge of being able to run this system in index mode is a barrier to others potentially falling in love with a friction-shifting setup. I want to shoot some credit here to a rider I internet-know named Marc Pfister, who encouraged me to chase ways to reduce the number of millimetres of cable pull necessary to move the derailleur between cogs. While I'm throwing out thank yous, cheers to Bean for the friction-LG encouragement to begin with.

With the big under-bar lever, there's no issue with leverage or degradation in shifting, but running the cable a shorter distance to the fixing bolt significantly reduces the amount of thumbie-throw necessary to hit all eleven cogs. This requires some precise shifting, thankfully aided by LinkGlide's excellent shifting under load. I did add a piece of rubber over the cable because in this orientation there is cable wear in the lowest gears. The photos below likely paint a better explanation of the 'how' but the result is excellent.

Shimano XT M8130 LinkGlide Friction NSMB Andrew Major (8)

Standard cable routing for an M8130 LinkGlide rear derailleur optimized for indexed shifting.

Shimano XT M8130 LinkGlide Friction NSMB Andrew Major

The opposite routing moves the derailleur significantly further per millimeter of cable pulled.

Does The Future Have Fewer Gears?

In the next few years, there will be some riders, currently on 12sp drivetrains who will seek out 11 or 10sp Shimano LinkGlide setups. They should experience better, more robust, and significantly longer wearing shifting in exchange for a few grams and one or two fewer clicks at their shifter.

Marin El Roy NSMB Andrew Major

This pre-thumb-shifter-conversion complete bicycle photo is for Marty so he'll stop noting the absence of complete bicycle photos. If you dig pics of hardtails leaning on stuff then click the handy link I've included to the NSMB forum posting.

There is something beyond the crush to build drivetrains that are optimized to shift under any load that people-powered-people, motor-assisted-people, or people-assisted-motors can produce. Out past spooling cable ratchets and yet another battery to manage, a friction-shifting setup awaits. Mated to all the advantages that derailleur clutch systems and wide-ranging 1x setups offer, trying a friction thumb shifter is a relatively inexpensive way to have a different riding experience using all the other components of any cable-actuated drivetrain.

And, again, for the record, Shimano's LinkGlide is the best friction-friendly drivetrain on the market being more intuitive and exact when shifting in single track. It also has the potential, though I have not yet tried it myself, to mate all the advantages of Shimano's LinkGlide cassettes to any existing cable-actuated derailleur, Shimano or otherwise, which is an exciting follow-up project I'm attending to.

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Comments

Rowdy
+8 Andrew Major bushtrucker Velocipedestrian BadNudes Cr4w Martin Hardlylikely minotaur

What a time we live in... We can have it any way we want (and it's great) and still just be riding a bike in the woods (:

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AndrewMajor
+11 Tadpoledancer Andy Eunson olaa Velocipedestrian Timer BadNudes doodersonmcbroseph Martin Hardlylikely DanL minotaur

Definitely. I do have to laugh though that this week on NSMB we have LinkGlide that shifts itself and LinkGlide you shift by feel.

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Rowdy
+1 Andrew Major

Absolutely this!!

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DanL
+5 mnihiser lewis collins Vik Banerjee HughJass Doug M.

I'm also enjoying the front page where
Yeti unveil a bike article = zero comments
Shimano Friction shifting article = 29 comments so far

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AndrewMajor
+1 fartymarty

To be fair, releases are always hard because, even with an advanced look, there’s so much competition for engagement. Not much competition out there writing about friction-shifting-LinkGlide.

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Vikb
+10 mnihiser Andrew Major minotaur fartymarty HughJass Lynx . utopic katko Whitesell1041 Velocipedestrian

I think another $10K bike drop with a minor design change for 2.5% more vertical compliance while being 4.2% more laterally stiff just doesn't interest that many people. Even with brands I have some affinity for, like GG, there is so much hype getting pumped out about new stuff that's pretty lame you can't help, but tune it out. Especially when you get bombarded by marketing material from every angle from a ton of different brands.

Heck I get friends sending me links to pro shedits all the time that I mostly don't watch. Another drone shot opening and another pro rider doing some wild stuff that has no connection to what I do on the trail and that looks a lot like the other 1,000+ shredits I've seen in the past. Eventually your brain doesn't even need to see the video it can just fill in the blanks.

I'm not running friction shifting on a bike and don't plan to, but at least this is an article with some interesting ideas getting discussed that haven't been hashed over endlessly.

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craw
+5 Andrew Major BadNudes BarryW Kristian Øvrum taprider

Not sure what it is with the old guys and friction shifting but keep it up.

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AndrewMajor
+9 BadNudes Cr4w Skooks Rowdy Velocipedestrian lewis collins taprider HughJass Lynx . Whitesell1041 Kristian Øvrum

For lack of a more packaged philosophical sound bite, and lifted directly from Morgan Taylor, in large part it’s just about keeping mountain biking weird. Cheers!

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cooperquinn
+10 Andrew Major mnihiser PowellRiviera Hbar Cr4w BarryW taprider 4Runner1 Kristian Øvrum HughJass

I'd say you're succeeding.

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AndrewMajor
+1 BarryW

Thank you!

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Don
+3 Andrew Major BadNudes Hardlylikely

Russ at Path Less Pedaled is working with Dia-Compe on a bar end friction shifter that pulls more cable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skKA6FwrIjQ

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AndrewMajor
+1 BadNudes

Neat! I’m stoked on my cable pull solution but also love that folks are still committing mental energy to friction setups. I’d try that shifter for sure!

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BadNudes
+1 Andrew Major

That's a great shifter and it's already available on a thumbie mount if you search around. But "rear" only so not right side under-bar compatible. PLP is doing the great work of putting that shifter on a bar-end pod.

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AndrewMajor
+1 BadNudes

Ahhhh, yes. I love my under-bar Thumbie setup. Didn’t right away but I did A Lot of back to back testing with above and below setups and once I was used to both it was no contest. 

The on the fly shift to a lower gear is rad.

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trumpstinyhands
+3 Andrew Major Rick M minotaur

When I ran a friction thumbshifter on a 10sp cassette a few years ago, I drilled a hole in the 'arm' of the derailleur and put the cable through that to increase leverage on the derailleur and lessen the lever throw.

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minotaur
+1 Andrew Major

I use the same trick to run a 10 speed xt clutch  derailleur on a 8 speed custom 11-42 cassette with a sram 9 speed shifter

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drwelby
+1 Andrew Major

And if you can't stand drilling your derailleur for some reason you can use a hose clamp to "choke up" the cable.

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BadNudes
+2 Andrew Major Cr4w

But at what point is friction shifting too easy? A big part of why I love friction shifters is that I can screw it up so bad, just make the most horrendous crunching noises with the chain trying to exist on two cogs at once, a stark reminder that I am a complete idiot. It's how I stay humble.

I guess that can make getting it right feel pretty nice too.

This LG stuff Looks Great (performance wise; aesthetically... meh, give me something silver and black a la old XT 8 speed) definitely the leading contender for a replacement when current cassettes wear out.

FYI Dia-compe make a nice 11sp+ capable thumbie with a larger barrel, but it's "rear" only so not right side under-bar compatible.

Thanks for the tip about routing the cable - those photos makes this page so bookmarkable!

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AndrewMajor
+1 BadNudes

Hahahaha. Not the first poke I’ve received about dumbing down friction shifting. 

It’s still friction shifting. You either love it or hate it. But if you love it, I think the LG setup will make you smile.

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andreww
+2 Marc Pfister Andrew Major

Awesome!

I've been using the same cable routing setup for friction-shifting bliss on a Deore 5100 derailleur. It's almost like Shimano intended you to to be able to route the cable that way. I don't know if it's dimensionally equivalent to the LG derailleurs but it does look super close.

I hadn't considered that the cable would rub on the arm in the furthest-inward position, though, so thanks for the tip on the rubber protector.

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AndrewMajor
0

Cheers! Yeah, it will eat a cable if you use the low gear a lot. 

What friction shifter are you using? Photos of your setup!?!?!!!

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andreww
+2 Andrew Major Cr4w

I'm using a Rivendell Silver2 bar-end, this RD-M5100, and a Microshift 10sp 11-48 cassette. With this routing, and a bar-end pod, it pulls juuuuust enough cable to get to both ends of the cassette. If I had an 11-speed cassette, I'd need to either grind off part of the bar-end pod (so it can go through a larger arc) or find some way to move the cable attachment point even further. As a thumb shifter, though, it should work fine, if a little awkward at the extreme low end.

Here's a closeup of the cable routing. Looks awfully similar to yours! I've been wondering how exactly the LG derailleurs differ, and if the pull ratio is actually different. Something to look at more, maybe.

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AndrewMajor
0

The LG movement and cable pull ratios are different, as is the cog pitch - I’ve played with mix-matching quite a bit. Friction shifting though - the universal key!

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papa44
+1 Andrew Major

I can’t find anything info on it, but is the link glide stuff I-spec compatible in any way? I actually like mated levers and shifters. Also, will my beloved 10sp short cage zee mech work with the other linkglide components? It could take me another 10 years to commit to a new transmission

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AndrewMajor
0

There’s an I-Spec EV version of the M8130 shifter, which is LinkGlide (LG).

LinkGlide is almost universally inter-compatible with other LG parts regardless of number of gears - into the new budget-friendlier Cues parts - but not with any past indexed drivetrains.

The good news is you can keep running Zee 10/11 as long as you want if it works for you.

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velocipedestrian
+1 Andrew Major

That is one nice looking head tube, like a classic Ritchey, mmmm.

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AndrewMajor
+1 Velocipedestrian

It’s a really nice frame for an SRP of 880 CAD. Which includes a basic FSA headset.

Re. Ritchey. The El Roy is also the only non-Ritchey frame I’ve come across that uses a 33mm seat post collar (seat tube OD).

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Blofeld
+1 Andrew Major

On the cog thickness - did Shimano have a marketing image of HG vs LG stricken from the record? I may be hallucinating but I thought I remembered seeing it more widely a month ago. I originally thought it was problematic as the chain compatibility with HG-11 meant LG would have to be the same thickness where the chain actually sits. 

The thickness would leave more space for lovely shift ramps, though. On that front, does hunting for a gear with a thumbie make you more likely to break a cog-tooth?

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AndrewMajor
+1 Blofeld

The chain interfaces tighter than HG-11 so I’d assume the cogs are thicker all the way through but I haven’t put a caliper on the teeth. 

I did a poor job of explaining it in my effort not to oversell it but with LinkGlide, especially with the regular-pull cable configuration, but either way, I’m really not hunting for gears. The chain guides me home with every shift.

In absolute terms will there be more wear than an indexed setup? Probably. Almost certainly. But comparing HG v. HG I’ve never found my friction setups to be wear notably faster than indexing that the LG friction setup is so. Much. SmOOOoooooother. So it’s not something I’m worried about.

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ackshunW
+1 Andrew Major

That’s just dang cool and interesting. The concept of revisiting friction tech using 21st century, computer-optimized cassette tech is very cool. I’m sure it feels light years different than the 5-speed straight cut cassette I remember trying Friction on, on my dad’s terrible department store 1970’s “road” bike.

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AndrewMajor
+1 Velocipedestrian

It’s the best friction shifting ever. It’s still friction shifting. 

Anyone who’d like to make their mountain biking experience just a little bit more weird might love it.

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xy9ine
+2 Andrew Major Morgan Heater

i'm holding out for non-indexed electronic shifting. envision axs, but the buttons just move the mech up & down the cassette like a friction shifter. cable free plus universal cassette compatibility!

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AndrewMajor
0

This would be so easy for SRAM to program but I feel it would suck the battery dry in 1/3 the time. I hope your AXS-Infinite dream comes to fruition, regardless.

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cooperquinn
+1 Andrew Major

I'd imagine you could hack the Archer system to do that.

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xy9ine
0

true. the ability to program the archer to index any cassette in existence IS pretty cool. of course sram would never willingly open up their ecosystem like that, but i wonder if AXS is hackable.

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AndrewMajor
+1 BadNudes

The worst part about Transmission / the Transmission launch is definitely how much I’m seeing the word ‘ecosystem’ in the bicycle world these days.

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andreww
+1 Andrew Major

I've been saying someone needs to make a electronic shifter that works like a single-axis analog joystick where you just nudge it forward or backward to move the derailleur back and forth. I'm sure it would be equal parts dumb and fun.

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AndrewMajor
0

Hahaha. I would try that.

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XXX_er
+1 DanL

i got friends who don't use their dishwasher one guy even ripped his out but I'm gona keep using mine

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AndrewMajor
+1 Kos

This hits home. I’d been limping my dishwasher along for a couple years one dead part at a time and when it died I didn’t miss it at all.

(But I have a dishwasher again because it wasn’t solely my decision).

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XXX_er
0

The bike racing coach who couldn't get the national & world class atheletes to check if the DW had clean or dirty dishes in it before putting in a dirty dish = smart people who can't  operate a DW

of course the  enviro-luddite who said " I can't ethicaly use use a DW "  to which i replied " well I'm using the MoFOing DW " so if you wash your stuff by hand we are just using twice as much soap & water, 

the other guy admits he is useless in the kitchen so washing dishes makes it look like he is contributing

I scoped a new DW last  week cuz i have fixed mine multiple times, apparently Bosch is the one but its clear to me

we need a DW thread

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AndrewMajor
0

I wired in the cheapest option from IKEA. It does the job and cost less that the last part I needed for the GE.

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BarryW
+1 Velocipedestrian

In the 11 years my wife and I have been together we have not had a dishwasher, back even with 4 kids in the house. 

I would so desperately love to have one, just don't have a space to put one.

Great article Andrew, even if you are beautifully daft and keeping it weird for weird sake. Gotta ask, if you were a rock climber you would be a trad guy right?

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AndrewMajor
0

“Gotta ask, if you were a rock climber you would be a trad guy right?“

I have no idea what that means!?!

I can tell you if I was a skier I wouldn’t be a ‘free-heeler’ because I only do esoteric sh*t when it’s justifiable. Hahahaha.

I’m into keeping it weird - but not just for weird’s sake. Friction shifting, single-speeding, rigid forks - it’s all legitimately awesome.

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craw
+3 BarryW Velocipedestrian BadNudes

Nobody here believes you aren't a tele guy.

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AndrewMajor
+1 BarryW

I mean, I don’t ski so it’s pure conjecture.

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BarryW
+2 Andrew Major BadNudes

As a card carrying telemark skier I feel correctly put in my place. :-D

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AndrewMajor
+2 BarryW BadNudes

Hahahaha. Again, not a skier. But one thing I love about my thumb shifter and even my rigid single-speed is most other mountain bikers don’t notice it out in the woods. I’m stealth-weird.

I’ve seen telemark skiing. It’s about as stealthy as off-road unicycling.

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BarryW
+1 Andrew Major

Trad (traditional) climbing involves using gear to winch oneself up walls that cannot be physically climbed by a human. Like the multi-day Zion Canyon 3'000ft climbs where they are sleeping in porta-ledges on the way. 

Sport climbing is using pre-bolted routes where all you need is simple gear, someone to belay you are only climbing up under your own arms and legs. 

I believe if you were a climber it would certainly be trad. With tele skis on the way out.

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XXX_er
+1 Andrew Major

according to Hunter S Thompson " when the going gets wierd the wierd turn pro "

and this seems to be where these NSMB  articals are going

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AndrewMajor
+1 BadNudes

Choosing to take this as a compliment!

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XXX_er
0

Of course you know that HST blew his brains out

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cyclotoine
+1 Andrew Major

I think the diameter of a vintage XT thumbie is larger than the barcon. When was the last time you used one of those in friction mode? They're a little bulkier than your paul thumbie and barcon set-up but it would give you more cable pull for the same amount of throw wouldn't it?

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skooks
+1 Andrew Major

I still have my vintage Rocky mountain Blizzard complete with XT thumb shifters front and back. I happily run them in friction mode.

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AndrewMajor
0

It’s been a long time since I rode an XT friction thumb shifter. I have a friend who 1x’d his commuter and I tried to get the front off him to play with but he went a bit feral looking when I asked after it so I let it drop.

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fartymarty
+1 Andrew Major

Andrew, thanks for the dull bike photo.  That's a fine looking steed.

Edit "full not dull" (sorry big thumbs)

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AndrewMajor
0

Hahaha. Anytime.

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steelispossiblyreal
+1 Andrew Major

I absolutely love this series, Andrew. And I agree that for most mountain biking indexing isn’t all that important, just range is. 

I ended up trying out a left side Microshift thumby upside down on the right with a Paul pod shifting a Deore 11 speed derailleur on an Advent X cassette. I skipped the hose clamp and routed it the wrong way like you did with Linkglide and it works! Like you mentioned it’s a little finnicky in gears 2-4 but it’s worth it to get the upside down thumby. Dr. Welby and I have decided to dub this cable routing the “Werdna” routing (Andrew backwards). Cheers!

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AndrewMajor
+1 steelispossiblyreal

Dr. Welby and I have decided to dub this cable routing the “Werdna” routing (Andrew backwards).

That’s an honour I will cherish! Thank you. Still loving my Thumbie LinkGlide setup.

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fartymarty
0

Serious question for any Friction Shifters - how do you find up shifts (changing to harder gear) when you need to nail your shift - I'm thinking accelerating up to gaps etc where you need to be in the right gear no matter what?  I've never run friction shifters on a mtb (my first mtb in 1990 had index shifting) and while it maybe slower you will get the gear you need.  I could image pulling up short with friction shifters.  Or is this part of the fun / challenge of friction shifters? I can see that when it works it must feel awesome.

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AndrewMajor
0

As with single-speeding, sometimes I’m in a gear that’s a little bit wrong and I muscle through or try to pump and other times I’m in a gear that’s a lot wrong and meh. I am pretty good at hitting gears up and down though and that’s definitely all the fun.

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fartymarty
+2 Andrew Major Velocipedestrian

Mmm, getting tempting just to add a little spice to riding.  Was just looking at some sweet polished Dia Compe thumbies...

Have you tried running a matching thumbie under the bar as a dropper remote?

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BadNudes
0

I've done that and it works alright. It's a bit tough to dial in the resistance since it's a fine line between rattling loose and too much friction for the dropper return spring, and you'll want to be sure you've got some loctite on the screw.

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kos
0

First, I'll admit to skimming a lot of the related, HUGE, e-bike related article.

I've gone from e-bike curious to being an owner. After a lifetime of endurance racing, I'm done, but I still love the long "sorta training" rides, but not the part about being wiped out for the rest of the day.

Enter the Trek Fuel EX-e. Heaven on earth. Based on these articles, I'm certain its XT drivetrain will soon be replaced with linkglide.

Will I really need a new derailleur?

Could I put linkglide chain, cassette, and chainring on my GX AXS Top Fuel, and keep the AXS derailleur and shifter to make my wonky right thumb happy?

Thanks, you guys rock!

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AndrewMajor
+1 Kos

There’s nothing stopping SRAM from writing a program for AXS to make it match the cog pitch of LinkGlide but as of right now your GX AXS will not shift a LinkGlide cassette.

You will need a new shifter & derailleur to run a LinkGlide cassette. The 11-spd LinkGlide cassette takes up ~ the same real estate as a 12-spd HG+ and the cable pull ratio and derailleur movement ratio is different. The good news is the M8130 shifter/cassette/derailleur and any 11spd chain are quite reasonably priced. 

LinkGlide is about mass intercompatibility going forward (CUES U4000 9spd through M8130 11spd) but is not backwards compatible.

Unless, you run a friction shifter. With a friction shifter your current XT derailleur should work.

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handsomedan
0

Hi Andrew, late commenter here, but wondering specifically what shimano says about running a 12 speed chainring with their 11 speed linkglide?  Will they make 10/11 speed compatible chainrings for their 12 speed cranks?  

We run about 8 10 or 11 speed set-ups in our family with shimano cranks using the one-up switch rings (which are now discontinued).  I used to buy NSB rings to get a 26 or 28 tooth chainring to run on a zee or XT set-up with a 36 or to 46 cassette.  NSB though says not to run their 12 speed shimano chainrings with 11 speed or 10 speed chains.  The beauty of the switch rings are they are 10, 11, and 12 speed chain compatible.  Anyway, just trying to plan for the drivetrain future... pretty bent on anything but 12 speed.  Was really happy with a 28 x 46 XT set-up, but will one day run out of 28 tooth chainrings now...

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stinhambo
0

Is there a technical reason why they ditched multi-shifts (to harder gears) with the XT Linkglide shifter?

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AndrewMajor
0

Multi-release is still available on most XTR/XT shifters so I don't know why it was ditched on LinkGlide.

I have a 9-speed XTR setup and I use the multi-release feature all the time, but I've found with the newer clutch setups, for whatever reason, it became faster to single-click my way through two gears and I don't personally notice its absence.

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stinhambo
+1 Andrew Major

I bought an XT 12sp shifter a couple of months ago and it's still sitting in my drawer because the Deore shifter is working better than I expected. Maybe I should sell it and put it towards an XO1 shifter to replace my son's SX shifter instead...

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grantpetersen
0

Good work, Andrew. It's wonderful to see an article espousing mechanical shifting, while there are still derailers. And friction, no less. Ninety percent of the bikes we've sold in the last 28 years have had friction shifters. Newish riders often come by, test bikes with friction--not knowing friction is supposed to be challenging,/hard/obsolete--and return on the bike raving about how easy and smooth it is. There's a huge misconception about friction. Yes, it's not guaranteed, but it's easy enough, and it can be satisfying to shift successfully when a successful shift isn't programmed into the sytem. Anyway..I think you've written a great story. Way to go. PM me one of these days, for fun.

Grant

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choonpiaw
0

Is there any reason the microshift 11s bar-end shifter wouldn't work with the link glide 11s rear derailleurs? Those can be put into friction mode.

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