Bicycle Mechanics - STI Shifters

Hi everyone,

I am EXtremely new to roadbikes. In fact today I got my first one. Used. Its a Trek 2300 (1999) model. The person I bought it from had changed the shifters to the kind that are integrated with the brake levers. I believe these are called either Dual lever shifters or STI shifters.
Now here is the part that is going to make you laugh. I DON'T know how to shift with these things? How do you shift up and down? :lol:
I know its a really easy answer but I just couldn't figure it out and didn't want to mess with it and screw it up too much.

Thanks you for you help.

Tan

You say you are new to roadbiking but how new are you to cycling in general? Have you ever used MTBs or hybrid/comfort bikes with RapidFire shifters? If so then some of these operations are going to be similar. Assuming you have Tiagra or above level STI levers then the small lever is similar to the trigger (RapidFire+) or small button (RapidFire). Pushing it inboard activates it. For Sora shifters, there's a thumb-operated lever mounted on the inboard side of the hoods. The brake lever itself is also a shift lever and acts like the larger paddle of the RapidFires. Swinging the entire lever inboard will activate it. The right smaller lever (or thumb-shifter) will upshift the rear and the brake lever will downshift the rear. The left smaller lever will downshift the front chainring and brake lever will upshift the front chainring. I hope that clears things up. Try playing around with them on a flat quiet section of road or parking lot.

I tried what you said with the break lever ans sure enough that was it. Very neat. Thanks a million. I can use the bike now !! I am going to ride down to the beach in a bout 1/2 hour. Hopefully it will survive the ride.
Any idea how I can raise the handlebar? It has a hexagonal bolt in the middle(top) and two more nuts/bold to its side. It doesn't seem obvious which one I have to loosen to raise the handlebar. I know, another novice question :D
Thanks again.

T

Any idea how I can raise the handlebar? It has a hexagonal bolt in the middle(top) and two more nuts/bold to its side. It doesn't seem obvious which one I have to loosen to raise the handlebar. I know, another novice question

No problems with questions. Unfortunately, I wish I had an easy answer. You seem to have a threadless stem. This is a stem made for a threadless steerer. The bolt on top preloads the whole assembly and the bolts on the side are the fixing bolts that secure everything once it's all adjusted. There isn't a way to raise the height of the handlebar without replacing the stem. You might have one option though. Depending on the angle of the stem, you might be able to flip it over and it will create a higher rise. To do this, you will need to loosen the fixing bolts and the top bolt. Remove the top-cap and pull the stem off the steerer, flip it over and reverse the process. Be careful about tightening the top-bolt. Get things fairly hand tight at first and then snug down the fixing bolt so that the stem doesn't move. Then grab the front brake lever and try rocking the bike. You shouldn't see any shifting around of the headset. If it's moving back and forth, loosen the fixing bolts and then crank the top-bolt by 1/8th turn, tighten the fixing bolt and try the test again. Repeat as necessary until the headset is properly loaded. Make sure you don't overload it. If you pick up the bike, the front wheel should flop from side to side without binding.