Growtac Equal Friction Brifters
 

Havent seen a post on these yet, but if thee is one I apologize.
On the back of the new SRAM stuff comes this from Growtac.
Friction drop bar shift levers. I have been very impressed with their brakes and other products so have high hopes that these will be awesome as well. They have lots of cool features. Looks like it will work with anything. And you can maybe get them custom indexed too? Really glad companies are making new products that can keep bikes on the road and allow interchangeability between parts.
https://growtac.com/en/2023/03/20/eq...ei/#outline__6

That is some much needed good news for cycling. Thanks for sharing. Terrific concept and I hope is succeeds.

That's really cool

LOVE this idea!

One ticket to mechanical disk Ekar please

That's a really great bit of engineering. I give it 4 weeks before Russ at PathLessPedaled has a set to test out. :)

These shifters seem great. If the shift lever feel is consistent regardless of which index disc or friction that would be really special. I like the Sram AXS I have for its modularity with derailleurs and cassettes and that the electro shifting feels pretty good. These shifters seem to promise more modularity albeit with more tinkering. But, uh, I like tinkering. And not having to hack or bodge a shifter to work with this derailleur or that cassette would make tinkering more like Lego which is something I can appreciate with a young baby at home now. I think the Path Less Peddled crowd will go wild for this (I think I’m in that crowd?)

Converting yen to USD I get ~$382-460 in today’s money. I guess we’ll see in November when they launch and maybe Velo Orange will coincide it with another discount code

The hubs look nice too!

So you can have “free” friction shifting from 2-13

OR

Install different index plates for indexed “fixed” shifting in said range above?

Very cool, I'll be an early adopter

Huh! What a delightful and unexpected development.

Can anyone explain this part to me:

“RD can be operated with both hands: right hand for shifting up and left hand for shifting down (paddle shift mode)”

I’ve watched the YouTube clip demonstrating this a couple times now and I can’t quite get my head around how the cable routing would work to make this possible.

This must be made possible by an indexed junction box of some sort. In the video this is likely out of sight under the handlebar. The indexing disk would be in the junction box, with a single cable between the junction box and the derailleur. Each brifter would have a cable to the junction box, these cables operated by the paddle on each brifter, and each cable rotating the shifting disk in a different direction.

It looks like you can add index plates in the location indicated below to index in your preferred ratio to match the RD. No junction box needed. Just swap the index plates if you're switching between RD manufacturers.

https://growtac.com/en/wp-content/up...x-1024x730.png

https://growtac.com/en/wp-content/up...x-1024x375.png

That's bananas. What an interesting idea.

Just spitballing here, theoretically with the right index plate you could have "indexed" shifting across like a 6-speed freewheel on an old restored bike?

Not that that would be especially useful or anything, but it's fun to think about.

That’s awesome, hope they make it to market soon. And love the rebranding of “friction” to “stepless”.

So you can brifterize the Rene Herse Nivex derailleur, which is a loop
cable controlled ?

They'll sell dozens of 'em.:)