Touring - Tiagra vs barcon shifters

I am in the process of ordering a new Rocky Mountain Sherpa 30 and my local shop is willing to swap out the Tiagra shifters for some bar end shifters.
Am I being silly for not wanting the Tiagra shifters? I have always liked the barcon shifters ever since I used SunTour barcons back in the 80's. I just like the functionality of the barcon vs the complexity of the Tiagra. The bike will end up being cheaper also.

I am in the process of ordering a new Rocky Mountain Sherpa 30 and my local shop is willing to swap out the Tiagra shifters for some bar end shifters.
Am I being silly for not wanting the Tiagra shifters? I have always liked the barcon shifters ever since I used SunTour barcons back in the 80's. I just like the functionality of the barcon vs the complexity of the Tiagra. The bike will end up being cheaper also.

Have you ridden a bike with STI shifters? If not at least take an STI bike for a spin before you decide. The Tiagra shifters are very tough. They aren't nearly as delicate nor prone to breakage as some will have you believe. I've used them on my touring bike for several years now without problem. I've even crashed some of them (they hit the ground and scrubbed off the ends) and they still function.

It's nice to have the shifters right where you have your hands all the time. Tap a lever and the bike shifts. Push another lever and you shift again. Pull up to a stop at the bottom of a hill in the wrong gear and you can shift while you brake.

Have you ridden a bike with STI shifters? If not at least take an STI bike for a spin before you decide. The Tiagra shifters are very tough. They aren't nearly as delicate nor prone to breakage as some will have you believe. I've used them on my touring bike for several years now without problem. I've even crashed some of them (they hit the ground and scrubbed off the ends) and they still function.

It's nice to have the shifters right where you have your hands all the time. Tap a lever and the bike shifts. Push another lever and you shift again. Pull up to a stop at the bottom of a hill in the wrong gear and you can shift while you brake.

I rode a friends older road bike with shifters similar to these and they felt cheap. The front deraileur wasn't to keen on shifting either. I do not know what model they were but I think they were Shimano 105.
But no, I have not ridden a Tiagra equipped bike.

Shimano 105 are higher up the range than Tiagra. My guess would be that your friend's gears were out of adjustment. I've used bar-ends, down-tube and now STI's. The STI's are by far the most convenient and by all accounts are rugged enough for most needs.

I'm a bar end guy, so I say bar ends. Those Tiagra brifters are plenty tough, however. They'll work just fine. Ride it before you choose.

I have ridden both...and still do. I have had barcons on one bike or another since the mid 70's. I finally got my first set of brifters about 5 years ago (Sora's). It will boil down to what you feel comfortable with. The dependability of the brifters has been increasing. However I think the barcon's are simpler to maintain and are less likely to cause problems over the long run. To me another advantage to the barcons is the ability to go friction and use whatever you need wheel wise in the back. It has only happened to me once, but it got me home on a medium length tour when I trashed a 7 speed wheel and the replacement was a 6 speed:rolleyes:

Aaron:)

Tiagra is meh, slightly mushy in my opinion. You might like it, but I prefer a little snap.

Brifters (brakes + shifters) are nice for some things. However, bar-end shifters have two small advantages:

- It's usually harder to fit a handlebar bag on a bike with brifters.
- If you're on tour, and having an issue with the indexing, the ability to switch to friction shifting can be a huge help.

I second that. I used Tiagra shifters on my touring bike and road bike, and since they were so similar in feel to my friend's Ultegra, I didn't bother upgrading when I could (why when it's a lot more money and honestly I couldn't detect a difference? Tiagras being heavier by a small amount just isn't an issue for me).

I still have the Tiagras on my road bike, but have switched them off my touring bike as I went to trekking bars. I haven't gone on a tour this year, so I've kept the Tiagras along with the cables so I can easily swap them back if I can't get along with the trekking bars. My Tiagras have functioned excellently and never had a problem in thousands of miles.

But it's a case of what you like best; personally I'd go with the Tiagras for sheer convenience unless you're really set on barcons or expect to be in a country where you'd be stranded (in which case, I'd be tempted to take some dt shifters for emergency use).

I rode a friends older road bike with shifters similar to these and they felt cheap. The front deraileur wasn't to keen on shifting either. I do not know what model they were but I think they were Shimano 105.
But no, I have not ridden a Tiagra equipped bike.

Try a new bike that is properly tuned. Shifting on any shifter is dependent on adjustment and upkeep. I've never had a problem with the front derailer unless the cable is out of adjustment but that happens will all derailers.

Tiagra is meh, slightly mushy in my opinion. You might like it, but I prefer a little snap.

Brifters (brakes + shifters) are nice for some things. However, bar-end shifters have two small advantages:

- It's usually harder to fit a handlebar bag on a bike with brifters.
- If you're on tour, and having an issue with the indexing, the ability to switch to friction shifting can be a huge help.

Fitting a handlebar bag isn't an issue

http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r181/cyccommute/IMG_0826.jpg

As for being able to switch to friction, it really isn't much of an issue. I haven't needed friction shifting on a bike in well over 15 years even on mountain bikes. It might be nice to have but it really is a rare occurrence to need friction shifting, in my experience.

Fitting a handlebar bag isn't an issue
Err... Didn't you have to put on a special part to the cable, to have it bend like that...? IMO putting a special part on does qualify as "harder" than just slapping on the bag. ;)




As for being able to switch to friction, it really isn't much of an issue. I haven't needed friction shifting on a bike in well over 15 years even on mountain bikes. It might be nice to have but it really is a rare occurrence to need friction shifting, in my experience.
Funny, 'cause I needed it just last weekend. :D Indexing wasn't working properly on my road bike with downtube shifters. I didn't have time to take it to the shop, so I rode a century on friction instead.

Again, these are pretty minor points. But in general, when it comes specifically to touring bikes I'd rather have barcons than brifters.

Ok, here's my .02 about brifters after having them fail. Don't use Shimano STI. They're not rebuildable, you can't get parts for them, you're basically screwed. The best that an STI shifter will be is the day it is put on the bike and properly adjusted. It goes down hill from there. If you absolutely MUST have brifters and a bag, go with campy ergo, Centaur's are nice quality, and they'll work with the shimano cassette using a jtek shiftmate. ("http://www.jtekengineering.com/shiftmate.htm) Campy is rebuildable and not very hard to take apart. There's usually a spring that fails and that could ride in your spare parts. From what I've read they'll fail around 15-20k miles. I personally will never buy an STI shifter again. The one I had fail was a DA 9spd, and when I went looking for repair parts that's when I found I was screwed. As for barcons I use them on my recumbent, and I just leave them in friction mode.

My first (and only so far) touring bike came with STI shifters, and I guess I didn't know any better, so I just stuck with them. They were the older model of Tiagra shifters that has just been replaced in the last year with a new and "improved" model. The old Tiagras performed fantastically for me. I never had any troubles or complaints over five years and 10,000 miles.

When the shifters on my regular road bike wore out earlier this year, I decided to replace them with the brand new version of the Tiagra shifters, as they were relatively cheap, and I'd had such good luck with the older version on my touring bike. The new tiagra shifters broke on my road bike in less than a month and under 500 miles. I had the bike shop request a warranty repair from shimano, and the part has been back ordered for 3 months! I complained to my LBS so much that they finally swapped the broken shifter out with a shifter from one of their floor model bikes.

I am in the process of overhauling my touring bike right now, and I need to replace the old, worn out Tiagra STIs. My original plan had been to just buy the new Tiagra shifters, but after seeing them break so quickly and easily on my other bike, I've decided to go with bar end shifters.

I would recommend that you do the same if you have a set of the newer Tiagra shifters. If they're the older models I would stick with them, as they were bulletproof in my experience.

The older Tiagras were pretty tough. I had a set that lasted me thousands of miles under difficult touring conditions. But I trashed a set of the newly redesigned tiagras in less than five hundred miles under normal training ride conditions.

Err... Didn't you have to put on a special part to the cable, to have it bend like that...? IMO putting a special part on does qualify as "harder" than just slapping on the bag. ;)

Yes, I put a noodle on it but I have put a handlebar bag on a bike with STI without them. You just bend the cables out of the way.





Funny, 'cause I needed it just last weekend. :D Indexing wasn't working properly on my road bike with downtube shifters. I didn't have time to take it to the shop, so I rode a century on friction instead.

I do all my own work. If the bike isn't shifting properly, I fix it. I can do it out on the road if I have to. However, shifter failure is very rare. I've owned 28 personal bikes and probably 18 more that belonged to family members. I've only ever had one fail. It's not something I obsess on, really.



Again, these are pretty minor points. But in general, when it comes specifically to touring bikes I'd rather have barcons than brifters.

Personal preference. I don't mind barcons but I find them inconvenient. I'm always bumping the ones on my tandem when I stop or when I lean the bike up against something or when I'm unloading the bike and not realizing it. Then there's lots of clattering and clunking...especially on a tandem:o...until the bike finds where the gear is supposed to be. That just doesn't happen with STI.

Hmmmm.
Seems to be 50/50 on this one.
If I recieve the bike with STI, I guess I could always add barcons when they crap out.
It would make a nice winter project but then it will cost extra instead of a reduction.
Hmmmm.

Hmmmm.
Seems to be 50/50 on this one.
If I recieve the bike with STI, I guess I could always add barcons when they crap out.
It would make a nice winter project but then it will cost extra instead of a reduction.
Hmmmm.

The touring community here is 90/10 old school everything, so if you judge this decision on that, then STI wins hand's down.

Err... Didn't you have to put on a special part to the cable, to have it bend like that...? IMO putting a special part on does qualify as "harder" than just slapping on the bag. ;)
I had no trouble putting a large handlbar bag on my bike with Tiagra brifters. The cables just push out of the way.

I think that the brifters are functionally so much better that it is a no brainer to use them. They are not all that likely to fail and if they do you can always rig up a temporary if limited solution.

An Observation
I have read a ton of online journals and talked to a lot of tourists while on our transamerica. In all of this I have not heard a single mention of a failed brifter. There were lots of stories about tire trouble or broken spokes on the rear wheel. There was a mention here or there of a bent fork, crunched front wheel, or of chain problems. I think all the worry about brifters has more to do with rationalizing a resistance to this new technology than to do with a real problem.

If They Do Fail
Given the reliability of brifters the following is mostly kind of moot, but, in the unlikely event of a mechanical failure.... only one of them is going to fail so you will still have the ability to shift either the front or the back. You can always get the non-funtional one to be in the middle of the range and limp along until you can get a replacement.

If all else fails you can press a clamp on downtube shifter into service. If you are that worried you can carry one.

I wouldn't be even slightly concerned unless I was touring in third world countries (in that case I might or might not carry a clamp on downtube shifter as a spare). In the US you can always get a part shipped to you general delivery at a post office in a town down the road a bit.

I think I can sum this up pretty nicely:

1. barcons are probably going to be more reliable than STIs
2. STIs are probably going to last at least 10,000 miles (now admittedly I have the older model Tiagras, so maybe from reading the posts the newer models aren't as good).
3. Barcons, with respect to STIs, require more hand position changing to change gears.
4. STIs are better for placing your hands on the drops and hoods and being able to change gears and brake at the same time.

So the question you have to ask yourself: is the convenience of where you put your hands with access to braking and shifting worth sacrificing some measure of reliability?

For me it was simple; I love being able to have the freedom of changing gears and braking at the same time without changing hand positions as often. That of course, is not to say barcons are better or worse than STIs, just merely personal preference. As I said, if I expect to be in some extremely remote location, I might go towards barcons (but the more I think about it, the more I think I'd stick with STIs and just take some DT shifters for emergency use anyway).

Reviving an inactive thread. ;)

Bar-end shifters was about the only downside I saw to the LHT complete. But I ordered one anyway. Anyone who doesn't like their brifters and wants to trade, just let me know. :)

One issue I don't see addressed here is a second set of brake levers that use the cable housing to pull the brakes. I have them on my touring bike and they allow me to brake from two different hand positions. I find being able to brake from two different hand positions to be much more comfortable over a long ride/tour.

This takes away a handlebar bag, but this isn't a problem for me as I put one on the top of my front rack. I don't know if these can be used with STIs, but I have barends.

Ray

I'll soon be getting a Jamis Aurora for my all-purpose bike. To be honest, I won't be using it for all that much touring...mostly city commuting and 30-50 mile scenic rides.

For me, having barcons (what does barcon actually mean?..bar connector?) are horrendous in the city. Having to reach down to the drops every single time I shift (and I shift OFTEN) is a royal pain in the arse. Being able to shift while on the hoods is super convenient...almost as convenient as the GripsShifters I now have on my Coda. And as for mounting a front bag, the Jamis comes with cheater/interupter brakes right in the middle of the top of the bar. If anything, I'd have to jerry-rig something to mount a map holder. I'll have to forego the front bag, methinks.

Btw, the Jamis has the new Tiagra. I hope they're at least semi-reliable.

One issue I don't see addressed here is a second set of brake levers that use the cable housing to pull the brakes. I have them on my touring bike and they allow me to brake from two different hand positions. I find being able to brake from two different hand positions to be much more comfortable over a long ride/tour.

This takes away a handlebar bag, but this isn't a problem for me as I put one on the top of my front rack. I don't know if these can be used with STIs, but I have barends.

Ray
They work fine with a handlebar bag. You may have to angle the levers down more, but they should work on most bikes with drop bars and a handlebar bag.

I'll soon be getting a Jamis Aurora for my all-purpose bike. To be honest, I won't be using it for all that much touring...mostly city commuting and 30-50 mile scenic rides.

For me, having barcons (what does barcon actually mean?..bar connector?) are horrendous in the city. Having to reach down to the drops every single time I shift (and I shift OFTEN) is a royal pain in the arse. Being able to shift while on the hoods is super convenient...almost as convenient as the GripsShifters I now have on my Coda. And as for mounting a front bag, the Jamis comes with cheater/interupter brakes right in the middle of the top of the bar. If anything, I'd have to jerry-rig something to mount a map holder. I'll have to forego the front bag, methinks.

Btw, the Jamis has the new Tiagra. I hope they're at least semi-reliable.

Bar-end Control (BarCon) shifter. Until people *******ized it, they also used to be called brifters...barend shifters. Calling STI integrated shifter/brake levers brifters still sets my teeth on edge.:mad:

I have an 11" wide bag on 44cm handlebars that cause no STI shifting issues and no need to add the noodles.

There is a chart available on the Arkel site (http://www.arkel-od.com/ click on a handlebar bag and there is link) that talks about sizes and fitting. It runs a bit conservative.

and here I thought that "brifters" was short for brake shifters (STI).

So what does STI stand for?

Put me down for the camp of convenience of "brifters" but even then I have to admit I've had two sets of RSX brifters break down on me and neither were able to be fixed (and after a lot less than 10,000 miles). Once during a tour and that was a major PIA. I stay mostly in the states so no real big deal but if you intend on more remote areas, than go bar end shifters. JMHO

and here I thought that "brifters" was short for brake shifters (STI).

So what does STI stand for?

Shimano Total Integration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimano_Total_Integration) according to Wikipedia and yes, Shimano Total Integration (http://techdocs.shimano.com/media/techdocs/content/cycle/EV/bikecomponents/ST/EV-ST-R500-2308_v1_m56577569830609300.pdf) according to Shimano!

I think currently brifters are brake shifters, but Campy has them too, so brifter is not synonymous with STI.

Speedo

Bar-end Control (BarCon) shifter. Until people *******ized it, they also used to be called brifters...barend shifters. Calling STI integrated shifter/brake levers brifters still sets my teeth on edge.:mad:
Huh, you learn something new every day on bikeforums.net. I'll stick to calling them "integrated index shifting and brake lever mechanical device" to avoid irritating Stuart. :D Or maybe we can just call bar end shifters "barcon-ifters"? ("bar-ifters"? "bar-istas"?) :)

I would assume that 105 level STI might be a bit lighter than Tiagra level, but I'm wondering if they'd be any more robust in construction. I'm pretty sure that Ultegra is, but does Ultegra STI work with the typical 11-32 rear cassette?

Huh, you learn something new every day on bikeforums.net. I'll stick to calling them "integrated index shifting and brake lever mechanical device" to avoid irritating Stuart. :D Or maybe we can just call bar end shifters "barcon-ifters"? ("bar-ifters"? "bar-istas"?) :)

STI works just fine;)

I can only attest to the excellence of my Campagnolo 10-speed brake/shifters. They are smooth, quick and convenient.

Lots of good post here with most the key points covered on the +/- of both. I concur that the Shimano brifter feels cheap and there lack of rebuildability is a huge drawback for the touring application. I also agree that brifters are may more convenient and for a commuter setup I'd pick them for sure.

For touring, access to spares, repairability, and compatability have greater importance. I love my campy brifters, but would be very worried about spares while on tour in north america, short of being in an urban centre. 10sp Campy Veloce brifters can work with a a shimano chains, cassette and rings but the need a campy deraileur. So if I smash my veloce derailure in Smithers BC, I can't just toss on the 105 or tiagra deraileur from the local shop.

With barcons, you loose convenience but you can more easily run them with many combinations and take them from bike to bike. vbrakes? no problem. Friction in a pinch? Easy. Snap a brake lever but still want to shift? Done. Handlebar bag goes on w/o extra mods too. In friction mode, you have the most cassette options too should you have limited selection in the town where you break down.

Again, this is all specific to the touring application. I'll take brifters in the city any day...

Cooincidently, I'm also looking at the Sherpa w/barcon setup...including Sugino XD cranks (110 rings are widely available, as are square tape bb parts) and a 9 speed mtb cassette.