What shifter do you prefer on your hybrid or mountain e-bike

[kmxtornado]

I suppose your favorite will depend on what type of throttle you have. I'm getting a thumb throttle and wondering what type of shifter will work best with the bike. Perhaps twist grip? I'm used to it already and am leaning towards that anyway b/c:

1. Thumb throttle with trigger shifter would be weird since the thumb throttle is a similar mechanism or at least the mechanics of it is similar.
2. Not sure if there'd be enough room. I figure a twist grip shifter with a thumb throttle would be a perfect match.

Thoughts? Recommendations?

 

[FastDemise]

I'm currently using trigger shifting with a thumb throttle. It was tricky for me to get it setup between the 2 shifting levers but it works for me since the brakes and shifter are 1 unit. I only got thumb as my last bike had twist shifters so I couldn't use the twist throttle. Just a post noob so hope I help in some small way.

Cheers

 

[biohazardman]

Love the trigger shifters! I used the stock front derailleur shifter for a throttle as the derailleur itself was removed cuz I really don't need all the gears. It’s a Shimano rapid shift so the thumb lever works the throttle 0-30mph, it clicks and locks on at 30mph if I push it far enough. I can then control 30-40mph with the lever. I need to release the throttle with the finger lever to slow down. Or I can hit my rear brake lever and kill the motor. Werqs well for me and the few that have been on the bike never complained so it must be OK. Lots of way of doing things. I have seven gears in hte back but use only four.

So no wires on the bars and things look stock as well as the throttle stays dry where it is cuz it rains a bit here.

 

[SamTexas]

I used the stock front derailleur shifter for a throttle as the derailleur itself was removed cuz I really don't need all the gears. It’s a Shimano rapid shift so the thumb lever works the throttle 0-30mph, it clicks and locks on at 30mph if I push it far enough. I can then control 30-40mph with the lever. I need to release the throttle with the finger lever to slow down. Or I can hit my rear brake lever and kill the motor. Werqs well for me and the few that have been on the bike never complained so it must be OK. Lots of way of doing things. I have seven gears in hte back but use only four.

So no wires on the bars and things look stock as well as the throttle stays dry where it is cuz it rains a bit here.

Very creative! Can you post additional pictures showing how the shifter cable is connected to the actual throttle?

 

[biohazardman]

It is the stock shifter cable you see in pic two going into a hole in the thumb throttle inside the bag. The throttle is mounted to a plastic rod bolted through the sidewall of the battery box you can see the nut that holds things on. Pic one is the stock Shimano Rapid shift that came on the bike when new. It's all there is to it other than the three wires going to the controller that come out the bottom out of sight.
Only problem with this type of shifter is the single pull is not long enough for full throttle. So you have to pull to click then release and do it again for full throttle. At least with the two throttles I have had anyway. Really not to bad of a deal as it's like having cruise control at whatever speed you adjust it for. Grip shifters are easier because they will give you full throttle and return to zero easy once you remove the locking spring.

 

[StudEbiker]

I like top bar shifters with thumb throttle with no LEDs. Top bar shifters are not in the poll so I didn't vote.

 

[kmxtornado]

Sorry, I added the top bar shifter to the poll but it reset everyone's responses. Hoping you guys wouldn't mind revoting. While I'm at it, am I missing any other types of shifters you guys use?

 

[Drunkskunk]

Trigger shifters and half twist throttles. Every bike I've built has had some version of this. Usualy Shimano rapidfires, because I like the extra long brake leaver they use.

 

[kmxtornado]

I've installed my kit and I found that the thumb throttle (at least the ones that move sideways horizontally parallel to the ground) needs a lot of clearance. It's more ergonomic than the ones that push downwards vertically, but at the expensive of needing more space. The twist grip shifter had to be moved way over to the right to provide the clearance needed for the thumb throttle I have:

Please feel free (and I encourage you) to post pics of any conflicts you had btw different types of shifters vs throttles. This will help the newbies in their decisions in choosing stuff like this and inform them of what to expect and think about. None of this occurred to me until the day of the build. A bit disappointed that I have to slide over and regrip to change gears and engage the throttle. It should still work okay. Minor detail worth noting.

 

[Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh]

dude, u can't ketch a break.
where's the 'other'

i very much doubt there's anyone else on here that's a.b. normale who actually prefers shitmano sti.
can't stand having excess crap on the bars.
guess i'll just lump it into triggr.

 

[kmxtornado]

That's very cool and yes, very clean too! I love it....at least the concept of it. I'd like to try it before buying though. Just read you article. Did you write that by chance? Anyway, it's definitely something to explore. Thanks for posting it up. I'm definitely an advocate for cleaning up the handlebars with minimal components on it as possible (at least appearancewise but still have all the functions). That's another reason why I like the Gripshifters - blends right into the handlebar and no need to change grips to engage shifting.

 

[amberwolf]

I *prefer* automatic shifting, but that's not available on very many bikes. :lol: I have one Landrider autoshifter but it needs tuning to shift at some slightly different speeds than it does by default, and I havent' sat down to figure out how to do that (add or trim the weights, probably).

I've also got the NuVinci autshifting devkit, but that's not installed yet as the bike is still in progress. Once it's done and tuned I'm sure I'll like it way better than any of the others.


I actually prefer gripshifters for manual shifting, simply because my hands are getting arthritic and using a finger to push a shifter with can be problematic especially when it is 65F or below, and I have had problems with the well-used trigger shifters I've got so far (otherwise I'd probably prefer those). Gripshifters I can at least use most of my hand to shift with, so while it stil hurts it isnt' nearly as bad.

 

[Enpro]

Well with a thumb throttle i would say gripshift but i just hate the feel of a cut in half grip .
Lock on grips rule! so i just stick with my scram x 0.9 shifter with a slight modification on the triggers to fit around my thumb throttle.

 

[Alan B]

Moved the grip shifters onto short bar ends. Used Magura twist grip throttle and corresponding off side grip. Don't shift often with the motor but if needed it is easy to do. Bike was originally gripshift, and triggers are problematic with hayes hydraulic front brake.

 

[Kingfish]

On Triggers:
With my custom 2WD, I have a Campy Chainring on the front and MtB Freewheel on the back. The front uses the Campy Derailleur and the rear uses Shimano. I created a custom mounting for the forward derailleur which adapts the road-racing design to FS MtB frame. One small problem that I did not anticipate is that the MtB Triggers used (in my case SRAM) index differently than they would for road-racing. In other words, I could dial in the correct default position for the typical chainring, however the offsets were not lining up precisely, with accumulating error so that my 3rd ring could not align without a lot of noise… which naturally reduced the utility.

For my road trip last summer, I figured out a workaround in the field: Only use the first two largest chainring settings in conjunction with the first 3 smallest freewheel gears, resulting in alignments/indexes that were never far off. Really the only time I needed to downshift was on the steepest hill climbs to reduce consumption and extend range. In theory though, the implied design was there in case of complete power failure, and that did not occur until the dark and stormy night when my second hub seized up from rust on the way home from work after I was already near the top of the last hill.

Admittedly my configuration is a rare case, though interesting nonetheless.
In gear, KF