The idea of the matching group set has been something that has been the norm for decades. Like matching your belt and shoes, having matching mech, shifters and crank has become not just desirable but essential, and there’s one big reason for this that I call Designed Incompatibility.
Like it’s cousin Designed Redundancy, Designed Incompatibility is a concept that forces you to buy the complete set of something in order for the system to work. Any deviance from that group set will result in system failure, and possible ostracism from your social cycling group.
Now this isn’t a concept that’s unusual but it is something that has taken complete hold in cycling, which up until a certain point in time, was an industry that was mercifully free of forced product hegemony.
A look back at the spec sheets of bikes from the early 1980s, like this Raleigh catalogue from 1983, showed bikes specced to pick the very best from different manufacturers. Brakes by Weinmann, gears from Campagnolo, chainsets from Sugino, chains from Sedis – the veritable smorgasbord of great (and often defunct) small manufacturers goes on.
The point is that at this pivotal point in the history of bike manufacturing, there was a rich variety of components to choose from, and manufacturers could cherry pick the best part for the job, free of the tyranny of the groupset and not constrained by the dogma of compatibility.
Sure, there were full ‘gruppos’ available at this time and earlier, from the big manufacturers, but you didn’t need to buy the matching shoes and belt to make the whole outfit work.
So what happened? Well, indexed gearing, with its finite number of clicks and pull ratios, meant that one had to match cassette, mech, chain and shifters in order to successfully change gear. This advance was a boon to inexperienced riders who could invest less effort in the art of changing gear and just focus on riding. Which is great. There’s no argument against that. But what it did mean is that slowly but surely, consumers were getting locked into the cult of compatibility.
I won’t go into the many benefits of friction here because others on the internet have done the subject proud, such as friction firebrands Rivendell. I’ve also put in my digital two-penneth here.
And as sure as night follows day, other compatibility cruxes arrived. Brake calipers and levers designed to work together (remember Shimano SLR?) and before we know it, we’re in 2023 with electronic shifting and hydraulic brakes that require the matching suite of integrated components to make the simple act of riding the bike possible.
The sad thing is that before this happened the bicycle was one of the few devices that enjoyed a level of intercompatibility that other engineered products could only dream of. But along with the locked in shifting and braking came a host of new ‘standards’ for things like headsets, BB’s, hub spacing and rim compatibility that put paid to the glorious former universality of bike components.
But there is a glimmer of hope. There are still manufacturers out there making components that are free from the grip of the gruppo. Often labelled boutique or cottage components, people like Rivendell, Paul, Rene Herse, Velo Orange and others are keeping the friction shifting, mix and match bicycle rolling, in all of its liberated and multifarious glory.
This point has been eloquently made recently by Ronnie ‘Ultraromance’ in the video above, and possibly with even greater eloquence with Woods Cyclery’s Brother Cycles Mr Wooden build below, which showcases the way that, with friction shifting, you can curate a bike from NOS and modern boutique components that works as harmoniously as any cookie cutter Shimano, SRAM or Campag-adorned bike.
And with this, dear reader, lives hope.
The Everyday Cyclist 