Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark McM
I wouldn't be surprised if this were the case. One of the prominent features of early indexed (down tube) shifters was retaining the ability to revert to friction mode. At the time, it was thought that indexing could be finicky, and therefore a potential liability, so it was thought to be desirable to have a friction mode available as a backup (many wouldn't buy an indexed shifter that didn't have a friction setting). For those who had honed their friction shifting skills over many years and miles, indexed down tube shifters was only a marginal improvement.
The real advance came with dual control shifters, which allowed riders to shift at any time, including in the middle of a sprint or while standing on the pedals. The precision hand motion required for friction shifting would be difficult to do with dual control shifting (especially when sprinting or standing), so dual control shifters virtually requires indexing. At first, there was still a little consternation about having no friction backup in dual control shifting, but indexed shifting soon showed itself to be quite reliable, and people forgot about wanting a friction backup.
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Kinda/sorta. Suntour Command shifters can be run on friction while retaining the same return to center operation as dual control does. Same with Ergo for the front derailleur, as well as some versions of Gripshift. So indexing isn't a necessity for this type of shifter.
And the "finicky" thing never really left us - virtually all road bikes using on the bar shifters have a tension adjustment barrel in easy reach of the rider, like all those DT boss cable stops that came with Shimano and Campy bar shifters. So I wouldn't say everyone started to trust their indexing absolutely, they just went from on-the-fly friction to on-the-fly tension adjustment to deal minor derailleur bangs and poor planning.
I like how Campy went from secondary lever on Syncro 1, to a knurled ring on II and then finally to a miniature tension adjuster on the last DT/bar end shifters.