Grip Shifters on Road bars
 

I saw this at Wall mart -Has anyone tried this.

It looks like a practicle, economical alternative to upgrade to STI on the Bars instead of the stem or DT on older 5,6&7speed Freewheel bikes. I have used Bar ends & kelly Take-offs in place of DT & Stems. Grip shifters are available in 6& 7 speed where as the other types are getting Rare. 6 & 7 speed Freewheels are also common

That bike uses a special 2 piece bar that separates at the stem. I have an old Raliegh Gran Prix that has the same set up. Without it you can't get the shifters past the bend in a the bar.

Ahhh- I was wondering about that.

you could mount them on the drops, but I'd rather just have bar ends if that were the case. In fact, I'd rather have anything other than grip shifters, but that's not the point :)

I don't know, I'm starting to long for indexed shifters. I'm constantly overshifting 2 or 3 gears at a time. I'd take twist shifters at this point.

stem/downtube indexed lever shifters not indexed enough for you? I just went from stem tension levers to stem indexed levers and my god, it's a lot easier.

actually, you can. i did this 10 years ago on a 7 spd shorty gripshift, but i dont think they have changed much at all since then. full width shifter would not work so well.

you have to pull the rubber grips off the rest of assembly, then cut the underlying sleeve with a sharp knife until it has enough give to get around bends. can't remember if i had to cut across full width or not.

cut at a 45 degree angle so grip wont hang up on the cut edge, ie spiral like cut. also this cut should be made on bottom side (side opposite side your palms rest on. this helps ensure smooth, no hang up / catch on edge operation)

then slide grips over bar and reassembly on flats section. rode these gips for years afterwards without any problem.

Another easy approach for mounting grip shifters on a road bike is to mount grip shifters on a set of aerobars.

I bought a Specialized Allez back around 1992 and at the time, I wasn't fond of DT or bar-con shifters but STI was still expensive and only offerred on higher end groups. I had the bike shop replace the RX100 DT shifters for 7-speed SRAM GripShifters that were mounted at the end of the drops. The cabling was tucked away nice and neat under the bartape. It worked really well. Incidently, GripShifts started out first being produced for roadbike usage. And a little later(1990), they made a short-lived road-specific GripShift DB (dropbar) unit too.

The biggest problem with mounting a GripShift to roadbars is matching the diameters as they're generally designed for 25.4mm MTB bars. That said, with the advent of oversized bars in both the MTB and roadbike world, things are tending to equal out and newer GripShifts may fit better. Sheldon Brown has some useful tips for getting a GripShift unit around a curved handlerbar. His instructions are in reference to a Scott ATB bar but may also be applicable to dropbars.

How about Paul Thumbies

Funny, i had the prementioned "cut" shifters mounted on a scott atb bar - the lightweight version. I saved that bar as i figured no one would ever make a bar lighter. The other day i weighed a performance branded carbon riser bar - 670mm long, 159 grams

re. sheldon's pic - thats basically what i did and attempted to describe above.

That bar setup is not "special", it's bodged, and will, I'm sure, break quickly.

You can post over in Bicycle Mechanics and ask Sheldon Brown if it ever did break. He's a newbie with bikes ;), but very friendly about answering questions.

Exactly why is this thread in Alt Bike Culture?

Because i made a mistake and posted in the wrong forum.
I like reading stuff here and just forgot where I was.
Sorry for the mistake. I promise to be more careful next time

P.S. the answers were great and appreciated. I'm trying one on a kids roadbike. Thanks all.

I can move this to the Bicycle Mechanics forum if you want. Just say the word.

I wasn't dissing whatever Sheldon did, I was dissing the way it's been done on the Denali. ie by cutting the bars in half.

Harris has some older grip shifters for drop bars. They are 7 speed w/ triple option. I had used these for a while and liked them on a touring setup I had (but I thought mine were 8 speed). Can't find any pictures. I'll dig them out of my junk drawer and snap a picture if anyone is interested.

Oops, sorry about that Sammyboy. I wasn't sure what you were replying too.

I agree, the bars cut in half is not a set up I would put much trust in. It could be done securely, but I still wouldn't want to try it.

http://www.cyclingrevealed.com/cyclo...uc06_107_1.JPG

Here is an image from the Cyclocross GrandPrix in Gloucester Mass. on October 6th ... here Haitian Nuna Ancellotti is being passed by Ryan Trebon ... if you look closely you will notice Ancellotti's bike uses said grip shifts on drop bars ...CRAZY... all the pit mechanics were buzzing about the bikes that the Hatian Nat'l team showed up with ... this one and a CADD 3 cannondale ROAD bike to race in the Pro Men's class against the likes of Trebon, Todd Wells (Nat'l Champ) and other top riders ... Nuna also was riding in sneakers on an old pair of look clipless pedals. You have to give them some credit, for showing up and racing despit being lapped in every race.

I might trust it, but not on a bike from Wal Mart, lol. I saw one with a bent QR lever a week or two ago. That gives me NO confidence any manufacturer they deal with could pull this off, and it be safe. Maybe, just MAYBE, I might trust it if it was some sort of sleeve type deal that gets clamped. At that point I might trust the bar, but not the stem. I already have one wal mart "Schwinn" that the stem bottomed out on, before the bar would stop spinning in it. That is scary as hell to me. That's what is acceptable to be sold to the public, can it get any worse?,,,,BD