Mountain Biking - XTR STI things?

I went up to the LBS that sells no bike under 2000 and found a repair bike that just had a nice shiny XTR rear derailleur put on. I saw the brake lever and no shifters.. pressed the lever down and it shifted. Pulled it up and it shifted the other way. SO COOL. What is this? Some failed design they used for a year? It was a hydraulic brake/shifter combination, where the brake lever actuated the shifting - like STIs on road bikes. What is this? Some failed design they used for a year?

Shimano and Campagnolo make brake lever/shifter combos where the brake lever can be moved to actuate shifting. I've never used one but it sure sounds like a gimic to me. They should still be in production, at least shimano's

http://velospec.ru/components/shimano/stm966 here it is. I didn't see the secondary release lever, but pulling the lever up works too. It was really neat. On this side says that its a 2003 product.

http://velospec.ru/i/db/shimano/c/stm966/stm966-full.jpg

Okay, so the second lever is removable. I found some on cambria bike, $99, off of the 400 msrp, i guess becaused of the age. So tempted.

Dual control.

http://www.goclipless.com/images/2007_shimano_xtr_dual_control_shifter.jpg

2007 model. Looks nice IMO.

http://www.profile-bito.nl/shop/images/shimano-xt-m760-dual-control-v-brake-sti.jpg
Deore XT

http://www.kingbarcelona.com/images/imagecache/240x180_xtr_2007_dualcontrol.jpg
Mech brakes.

It was really cool. though to shift by pulling up seems rather inconvenient.

^ I've ridden a bike with the XT shifters like the ones pictured above.

it was odd at first, wasn't used to it. Pulling the lever up isn't very convenient. but the return trigger works just fine.

My biggest issue is that I usually ride with 2 fingers on the lever, and everytime I'd hit a big bump or something, I risked shifting.

When you crash and when something breaks you get to buck up for an entire new unit. $$ How cool is your bling now?

They're still pretty cool, albeit unnecessary.

I found a very cheap set of XT dual control levers on eBay for $40 new, mainly to test if I could connect the hydraulic brake lever to a set of Magura rim brakes and have it work. Looks like it will once I bleed the system better...just an experiment (ack, fessing up to having dual control and Magura rim brakes...I'm really sticking my neck out there on this one). ;-)

- Doug

I've ran XT dual control the last couple years - I really like the shifting - I rarely pull up, I just tap the tops of my fingers on the bottom of the levers. I just recently changed back the rapid fire with the 2 way release. The problem with the DC is that the brake lever and shifting mechanism are all supported by the one pin in the perch. After time the rattling loosens up the pin to hole tolerance and the lever/shifter develops a ton of slop - starts making noise on rough trails and feels like crap.

Well that sounds annoying. On cambria bike I found some of the older XTR ones for 90 bucks. If I needed them, I would. But I just got new brakes and shifters anyways.