Growtac Equal Control shifter review

 When Josh Kato won the 2015 tour divide with the tightest ever margin of 46 minutes covering the first 3 riders, his bike was an exercise in mechanical resilience. He used a 3x crank, a reverse normal derailleur that would default to the lowest gear if he had a rear cable failure, with 9 speed bar-end shifters he could set on friction, to rule out any indexing issues. He also used cable brakes.

I get the feeling Josh would like the Growtac Equal Control stepless (friction) cabled brake/gear levers.

I have been using the Growtac Equal cable brake calipers since a friend got me a pair from Japan last year, and it just so happened that he was back in Japan again this year when they launched their new Equal Control brake/gear levers on the Japanese market. I got in touch with Growtac and I was very lucky to be able to purchase a pair and have my friend pick them up. He even got a tour of the factory. So jealous.

What makes the Equal Control Levers different to other set-ups? Two things. They are cable brakes, and they are step-less (friction) shifters. 

Why would you want friction shifting? 
Good question. The main reason is compatibility options. You are not locked into proprietary ecosystems by your shifters. 8, 10, 11, 12 or 13 speeds, it doesn't matter how many. You can just throw any wheel on the back and change your chain, or maybe not, depending on what you are changing from. 

The Equal Control Levers come with variously sized spools (winding-pullies) that you can install to enable different cable pulls. If you want to, you can run an MTB rear derailleur or a road derailleur. You might have to tweak the limit screws at the start and finish of the range just to be safe. It's just a matter of looking at their chart and installing the appropriate spool. Not having to adjust the shifters to keep them in tune might also be seen as an advantage.

Spools (winding pullies) in diameters of 17, 18.5, 20, 22 and 24 mm

Graphic from the Growtac website

How does it work?
It's not like a thumbie or a bar end shifter, the lever returns to the start after each shift, nothing like a Gevenalle shifter. I haven't measured it but you can probably dump about 4 or 5 gears in each direction with a good long push of the lever. There is no return mechanism, you just push back on the inside lever to change in the opposite direction. It looks a little like a Campagnolo set-up with the little lever on the inside of the hood.

Pull back the hood, unscrew the cover and insert your cable in here.

What else can you do?
Well, according to one of their video demos you can wire the left shifter to connect it to the right, so you can use the left shifter to change in one direction, and the right shifter the other. I haven't tried it, largely because I haven't worked out how to do it yet.... Plus, I may use my left shifter to go back to 2x. Of course there is nothing to stop you putting the majority of your gears on the left, if you wanted to, very handy if you had a disability with your right hand.

For those people who can't deal with the "step-less" life, you will be able to install indexing plates to get the clicks that tell you what gear you are in. At the time of purchase 2 months ago the SRAM 11 speed indexing plates were not yet available. I'm not sure if they are now, I am running fully friction and expect to stay with that.

Weight
The weight of the Growtac Equal Control levers is 210 grams each. Substantially heavier than the crazy light 140 gram Sram Red cabled levers that they replaced on my bike. By comparison a Microshift Sword lever is around 270 grams. Who else is making cabled drop-bar brakes? I'm not sure, Shimano 105 11 speed are 250 grams each, Ultegra 212 grams, Durace are 186 grams. 

Comparing the Growtac Equal Control levers to the weight weener standard Sram Reds.

Feel
The levers feel quite narrow. More like a Sram Red mechanical brake hood but with even less girth. They should work well for smaller hands. I was initially wondering about the amount of room for my thumbs on the inside of the hoods, between the levers and the inside shifter, but once I mounted them on the bike it was not an issue. The hoods material is nothing special, smooth and thin. The inside shifter has quite a sharp edge to it although I didn't notice it getting in the way at all.

Tuneability
Friction - There is a slot at the top front of the brake lever where you can adjust the amount of friction you feel in the shift levers with a 3 mm allen key. Growtac recommend riding with a tool at the ready on your first rides as the shifters bed in.

Graphic from Growtac website

Reach - The levers come with two little plastic shims that allow you to adjust the brake lever reach to varying degrees. The shift paddle reach is adjusted from just in front of the shifter, below the pivot.

Inserts to adjust reach. Note the different heights.

Location of reach adjustment inserts

Shift paddle reach adjuster

Materials
The brake/shifter body appears to be made from some kind of plastic with a similar surface appearance to a Campagnolo Ekar shifter.

Setting them up
The set-up is quite a bit more involved than most shifter set-ups, and you would have to say the process seems more aimed at the person who likes to do his own wrenching, or your local bike shop. There is a little plastic cable sleeve that has to be installed, and a small plastic guide you have to be careful not to dislodge, to help keep the action smooth. If you need to install a different spool for a different rear derailleur you will need to pull back the hood rubbers and get in there with a screwdriver to swap out the spool. You will need to pull back the hoods anyway to route the cable. The brake cable sits in a small alloy cup that needs to be installed when you install the cable. It fits into the moulded brake lever. I missed this and had to re-route my front brake cable again. So if you are not a home mechanic your local bike shop might be a better course of action. The instructions were all in Japanese on my set but were very extensive and easily decipherable using Google Translate.

Cable installation is slightly tricky compared to most shift levers. Note the short plastic liner.

How do they shift?
This is the most interesting part. You just assume that because there is no indexing that it's going to be a clunky gadunkadunka kind of experience but it couldn't be further from the truth. As my sceptical Di2 died in the wool buddy said in our chat group after a very short ride "Not what I expected, sits between mechanically indexed and di2 for the majority of the shifts for smoothness and a lot quieter than mechanical". 

It appears to me that the nature of chains and sprockets is that a chain will naturally find the teeth and just hook up, not getting stuck in between gears as you might imagine. You don't feather the shifts either as you might on an old downtube shifter set-up. You change gear positively and dump as many gears as you like. I find indexed gears very noisy now by comparison.

To date I have done a couple of months commuting, weekend trail rides and three Cyclo Cross races on them and have found them to be great. Hopefully I get a chance to do some bikepacking on them soon, or at least some longer rides to see if I have any issues. So far my longest rides are around the 3 hour mark on local MTB trails. Watch this space.

See below the official video from the Growtac Youtube channel.

Some videos I've done myself (below).

Link to Growtac's website >>>

Image from Don Johnson -
https://workingtechnology.pic-time.com/ - Huttcross

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Sounds 2 sounds 2024

Day 1 of the Sounds to Sounds. It was a pretty dark looking trip out on the boat to the start at Ships Cove. Two boats packed full of boomers in bright orange Ground Effect Jackets. There were some very big rains that morning with thunder and lightning, during the Ships Cove Queen Charlotte Sound part. My first exposure to really heavy rain in a Bikepacking event. At least it was warm rain.

Ships Cove Jetty

There was some superb bush along that route. In particular the first leg to the Kenepuru saddle. I was very happy that we had the option of NOT riding the Queen Charlotte track proper. It annoys me that it's promoted as a family ride, it's not. It's a demanding saw-tooth profiIe and while I would have been happy to ride it if it was compulsory, like everyone else in our wave, I didn't. It would have been a wet slippery push for a lot of it.

The final single track into Anakiwa was lovely as always, and as I was approaching the Outward Bound Course HQ (which I attended in 1984) I saw an area labelled "Bike wash". Wow. A bike-wash in a Bikepacking event. I was very happy that I didn't have to wash down my muddy bike with sea water which I was planning on doing. A quick stop in Picton and on to Blenheim KFC for fries and burgers. I had ridden briefly with Mike Metz and Scott Pitkethley on the singletrack from Ships Cove but Scott's mad skills on his Canyon Gravel bike left me in the weeds, and Mike's off-road prowess is well known.

Heading to the Awatere

The Awatere Valley was lovely until a bit of a cold snap blew through at about 7pm. I stopped to put on a few more clothes and eat one of my KFC burgers. I caught up to Scott and Mike at 9:20 pm at Upcot Station in the Awatere for a pre-paid farm dinner, breakfast and lunch. Very rustic shearing quarter rooms but all the stuff you needed with a loaded fridge, and a kettle to make multiple cups of tea.

Awatere Valley

199kms.  3,425 m climbing

Day 2. Into the Molesworth. Breakfast was at 5am the next morning. It was superb with bacon and eggs, sausages and typical farm fare, and almost all grown there. I didn't have any room for the pre-packed lunch they supplied as I was already well equipped.

There was snow all around the hills and my hands were so numb I could barely operate my shifters. Couldn't tell if it was the cold or the 2 litres of water in my camelbak vest cutting into my brachial plexus nerve.

The Molesworth and Awatere roads were in great condition. Jollies pass, not so much! When in Hanmer I saw a chat from Matt, from Aussie, he was in the cabin next to me the night before the start in Picton. He had to replace his brake pads in Blenheim, resin pads are not a great idea for bikepacking, especially if there is rain. I decided to check that mine were all good before I left Hanmer. They were. There was a nice tailwind as I left Hanmer and then some pretty creative meandering to avoid the nasty main road. Sometime in the early evening there was a rapid 10 degree temperature drop and I had to put on some more clothes. Scott and Mike were ahead of me and had stopped for the night but I kept going until I got to Amberley Holiday Park. Quite a bit short of my goal of Christchurch. I was super glad to discover a manned 24 hour gas station. I paid for a tent-site but given its proximity to the main road I did a sneaky sleep on the kitchen floor and snuck out at about 5 am the next morning and went back to the gas station for a coffee to go! Check out this crazy noise I heard while riding along. I had to stop and check it out. I reckon it's Wapiti.

248 kms. 2,819 m climbing

Day 3. Amberly to Geraldine. Going into Christchurch saw a slight but very cold southerly wind which was dealing to my hands again. I think I had 30 kms on the others at the start of the day, but you all end up sleeping in the same place by and large most days anyway, unless you are going hard-out. It wasn't the most exciting part of the course and I swear I was on my aero bars at least 50% of the time. A 60 minute break in Chch central for some hot food and I was on the road again. My 90 year old friend, Bruce Arnst came out to see me again later in the day, as he did in the Tour Te Waipounamu. He's still riding bikes himself. Climbing out of the Rakaia with no shoulder was probably the scariest part of the course as the cars and trucks gunned it up the steep incline, inches away. I managed to buy a patch of dirt to sleep on at the Holiday Park at 8 pm. A pretty early night but nice to have some amenities and catch up with some of the first wave riders.
260 kms. 1000 m climbing

Downtown Rangiora

Day 4. Geraldine to Ohau.
There was a good bit of climbing early on and I was caught by Susie Bates, who was doing parts of the S2S, off the grid, on the way to supporting her partner in the Prospector MTB stage race. She was great company as we grovelled up the grunty gravel climbs. The nasty headwinds we experienced going into Tekapo were something else. We met Scott at a cafe. He wasnt too happy with the windy conditions, but ever hopeful, I suggested that they might die down. I talked him into carrying on to at least Twizel and hopefully Ohau. We got some seriously crazy sidewinds as we rode alongside the canal but it settled down and we had a pretty good run into Twizel and Ohau on the fun trails of the Alps to Ocean Course. We treated ourselves to cabins and a beer at Ohau at 10 pm.
212 kms.

Day 5. Ohau to Alexandra.
Poor Scott, I put a hex on him at Ohau by suggesting that Lezyne screw on pumps and tubeless are a bad combo. He promptly tore off his valve stem as he aired up his front wheel which had been losing a bit of air each day. I carried on. Another typically cold morning which saw me taking quite a while to get up to speed. My shocks decided to stop working not far out of Ohau. The Omarama saddle was a bit of a walk for me but the 31 stream crossings on the other side were pretty uneventful. No surprises there. I started by riding them but eventually I decided to take it a bit easier and just walk most of them. I got to Gilchrests store at Oturehua just before closing for a resupply. It was fun to ride the Otago Rail trail, having some great memories of riding parts of it with my family in 2007. Somewhere along the Otago Rail trail Scott caught me, having had a few punctures through-out his day, and we rode into Alexandra around 8:30 pm. Time for a resupply and a cabin where I briefly caught up with friends Susie and Gaz who were doing the Prospector MTB race. I probably should have carried on but I didn't want to ride the scenic Dunstan trail in the dark and there were limited options for camping at the other end by the time I started looking for them. 188 km. 1,798 ms

Alexandra to Coal Hill
I set off at 5am. Scott started later and did the sensible thing and got a new tube at Clyde.... which he punctured. This theme was to continue. I surmised, glass or a thorn in his tire, masked by being tubeless and not masked by changing to a tube, which continued to puncture on it.

The Dunstan trail was fun. I'd ridden it before with my wife in the other direction. The Nevis climb was awesome at 1273 metres. An even steady climb the whole way. My 22/40 low ratio was perfect making it completely rideable.

It was a very cold wind while riding up it though and a very long long drag out into a head wind on the way out on the Nevis road. I stopped on the main road to try and book a cabin and got a text from my 83 year old dot-watching mum. You seem to be going the wrong way Jeff! My GPS line was the same colour as the state highway and I had turned the wrong way as I came off the hill near Garston. Doh. I stopped at Athol for a big pub meal and waited for Scott to see if he wanted to get a Cabin at Te Anau and share a shuttle back from Milford the next day. Shuttles are super expensive and only 1 of the listed companies was interested. Wrangling this stuff while riding with patchy cell coverage is a challenge. Finally I left Scott on the rail trail when he punctured yet again. Thank god, he was hammering just to keep warm and I couldn't match his pace. I think it was about 4 degrees. He bivvied in a bird shit spattered little A-frame on the Rail Trail. I took off again with no cares other than a need to keep eating and drinking in order to power my dynamo lights. I had plans to make it to Te Anau (I was dreaming as it turned out) but bivvied in a shelter at around 2:30 am near Coal mine hill. I had broken one of the rules of the event by not stopping for 6 hours, but I had to get to Milford Sounds in time to be picked up by my shuttle. 218 km, 2,896 ms climbing

Alexandra early morning

The Dunstan trail

The Nevis climb. Glad to have a very low gear.

The Nevis Road

Coal Hill to Milford sound.
The last day. I had organised a shuttle to pick me up from Milford Sounds so I just had to get there. It felt like the longest day of my life. It was taking so long to get to Te Anau with all the cute little riverside trails I had to traverse. Milford was so damn beautiful but I was counting down the kms and it was very slow progress. The wind was brutal with a predicted apocalyptic weather bomb in the forecast. I hardly took any photo's for fear of not making it in time. There were tunnel closures to think about too. I was nearly taken out by two morons in cars who had crashed the lights to the Homer tunnel and the massive 900 metre 16 km descent had my uncovered knees screaming with the cold from the wind chill. I should have stopped to put on leg warmers but I was in reptilian mode.

I had done 218 kms with 2,900 m climbing the day before, then rode another 190 kms into Milford. I think I needed a different approach. Maybe to finish at Milford and get a shuttle the next day when there are others there? But then again the sandflies might have devoured me by that time.

Its a really achievable course with potential for a spirited run or a very relaxed credit card pub/cabin crawl kind of ride. I finished in 6 days 11 hours and missed very little scenic stuff with the limited amount of night riding I did. Would trade again, a very cool and achievable course.

190 kms, 1600 ms climbing

Milford Sounds

https://sounds2sounds2024.maprogress.com/

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