Road Cycling - gear shifter

Hi...
I have an old Raleigh...I don't know what type...
there is an old gear shifter which applied on handle stem...I wish to change it to the other types such as thumb shifter on MTB...is there any?
Where can I buy it (online)?

Cheers,
Cassava:confused:

Stem shifters indicate a Raleigh that probably wasn't top of the line but if you like it that's all that matters.

Doing what you want to do used to be alot easier. Since roadbikes have been STI or Ergo shifted for several years now it is much harder. There are still cheap thumbshifters being nade that would work. Btw they can be mounted any number of places on drop handlebars. The ideal would be the old SunTour barcons, which is the exact modification I made on a Motobecane sometime around 1978-79. However SunTour and friction shifters are now history. If you have a shop that's been around a long time they might have some old shifters if not look used. There's always some on eBay but the prices are somewhat high.

I have an old set of Shimano downtube shifters, the type that clamp around the downtube instead of bolt onto brazed on bosses. They'd work fine and don't look bad and would probably clean up pretty well. You can have them for the cost of shipping, the issue is getting them to you from the USA. My email is in my profile if interested, just put shifters in the subject box as I tend to delete alot of email from unknown senders w/o looking at it.

:beer:

Yes, yes, yes, you can change the derailures. I do it all the time. There are plenty available - though maybe used.

Neat that you have an old Raleigh in Indonesia. It makes me wonder what fantastic history that bike has. I wonder how it got to Indonesia.

Go to www.oldroads.com go to the discussions about lightweight bikes. Post a message asking if anybody has a down-tube shifter or a pair of bar-end shifters. Be sure to advise the diameter of the down tube to make sure you get a shifter that fits your bike.

You can use a bigger diameter shifter by shimming with rubber from an old inner-tube. However, it won't work well if you use a shifter with too small of a diameter - it won't fit the down-tube.