Dual brake and gear lever swap over ?

filthyturk

Hi all, apologies in advance for my poor parts knowledge. I have a full suspension bike ( GIANT ANTHEM X4 circa 2010ish) which I bought used, it has dual brake and gear levers like they have on road bikes (STI) but I really cannot get on with them at all and wondered if I could just remove them and replace with dedicated gear and brake levers. The group set is Shimano XT and the brakes are hydraulic disc. I did look at getting a new group set etc but the price for new XT stuff is almost as much as I paid for the bike itself.

steve_sordy

Yes remove them and sell on eBay, PinkBike, wherever.

Buy whatever separate brakes and shifter that float your boat. I would recommend however that you make a decision to match them up. For example if you like Shimano brakes, then get Shimano shifters. It can be made to work, but Sram and Shimano don't work well together. If you get Sram, then I believe that all Sram brakes and shifter can be fitted on one Matchmaker mount. In my opinion, Sram's Matchmaker is a work of genius and much better than Shimano's I-spec.

I don't know if other brands (Hope, Magura, Hayes....) than Sram and Shimano work together or not, I've only ever had those two.

The Rookie

Yes, best to swap shifter and brakes and sell what you don't want, or you could get two Shimano brake lever assemblies and just swap the hoses over.

Word of warning, your rear mech is almost certainly 'rapid rise' (sometimes called 'low normal') and as such if you fit shifters they will work in the opposite way to normal.

steve_sordy

The Rookie said:

..............
Word of warning, your rear mech is almost certainly 'rapid rise' (sometimes called 'low normal') and as such if you fit shifters they will work in the opposite way to normal.

Ooooohh, I don't like the sound of that! Do you mean that the big lever will trigger gear shifts to smaller gears and the little lever will have to push the chain up to the larger gears, instead of triggering a drop to smaller gears one at a time? That sounds awful. The mechanical advantage is all wrong. I'd have to get another rear mech.

The Rookie

Mechanical advantage works just the same as before big lever for pulling cable and small for releasing ratchet, just the gears work the other way round, a rapid rise mech starts on the lowest gear (biggest sprocket) and you use the bigger lever (that pulls cable) to move to the higher gear.
Great on an XC bike as you get more positive and faster/crisper upshifts while accelerating (pedalling) and flip through the downshifts under braking. I've had a few bikes with rapid Rise and my wife's still is (although swapping back and forward between bikes messes with your head on shifting).