The Thin Man 

Kiwi, your cable stops look great! I had a look at the concave stops when I swung by Universal but opted to try mine out since I have vowed to build the bike up with parts I already have. If I go for a full on repaint, I will have the frame altered and more standard stays applied by a local frame builder.

Dzzecola, as for what to do with the stops, the only ideas I've got were what Kiwi suggested are adding a bell. Or maybe alter a smartphone mount to accept a screw that works for the boss? Add a retractable zip line so you can talk and ride Then again, that's probably illegal (not to mention bad cycling etiquette, dangerous, etc.) but it's an idea!

olek

I had same problem recently with stops on now-mine ?1984? Ross Signature 290s that I am converting to bar-ends. Ended up dremeling the hell out of those new stops

Good news is that aluminum is not that difficult to remove, and end result looks good if well done. Bad news is that there is quite a bit of material to remove and there are plenty of chances to screw-up.

In addition to cutting obvious slot for the 'key-shaped' part of the boss, I had to make stop 'deeper' by about 1.5mm in order to put it flush against the frame.

First stop turned up to be just OK, since I cut the slot for 'key' under wrong angle, and ended up widening it, creating a gap. Second stop looks perfect.

Now, I wish I had proper 4.5mm bolts... for now I am using those HUGE and ugly bolts from original downtube shifters. Looks funny but I do not have a heart to re-tap the bosses to 5mm. Maybe, later, one day.

brz

Thank heavens for this thread. I just recently discovered I had these awful bosses on my
80's Miele Beta. Thinking at first I would just have to source some proper stops and then
realizing there are none. Okay, here comes this thread and my dremel tool. For me the
dremel was a given but what I'm not hearing from others who have done this mod is that
you need to widen and deepen the hole in the stop. I used a 1/2" bit to do this and now
with the notch cut out with the Dremel it fits beautifully. A grinding wheel on the Dremel
gives you good control and nice straight sides to the notch. Beware though the stop does
get very hot while grinding it. Also, clamp the stop tightly in a vice or vise-grips while
drilling it. The bit will tend to get caught and spin the stop out of you hands. I haven't
been able to find a screw yet (haven't really looked that hard) but for now I'm using the
flat headed ones that came with my down tube shifters. Doesn't look bad so I may just
keep using them. Here a few shots to look at. Keep in mind this was my first attempt
and it was all done hand held (not easy). The gaps in the notch are not noticeable but
I may end up filling them with something if it bothers me (it might).

The Thin Man 

I'm glad to hear this thread helped, brz. There are some other threads on bikeforums that have roughly the same content, with little twists and other small nuggets of advice that this one doesn't.

Nice work on the alterations. Now, if you can re-tap the bosses to 5mm, you can lose the shifter screw posts and put some cleaner bolts in. I think another member did this on one of the other threads. However, if they don't bother you, don't bother re-taping.

Thanks for sharing your solutions.

Bianchigirll 

I agree great job! I should send you set of stops just in case I want to upgrade my Batavus one day.

brz

That would be fine but to do the job right you'd need the bike to check
the fit as the mod is progressing. I found with my bosses they were not
exactly the same, one side was thicker/deeper than the other.

The Thin Man 

My apologies for bringing up a thread over a year old, but since I started it, I feel I can get away with it.
Over the last year I have updated my post I mentioned on the previous page regarding the write-up I did on altering the cable stops for the Shimano specific shifters bosses. Since that time, a reader of my blog offered up one solution, then, just recently, I went forward with tapping the shifter bosses to accept 5mm bolts.

I felt it was important to update this thread alerting readers to the other solutions that have developed since the original posting on this topic. Obviously there is more than one way to get around the frustrating B-Stop Blues and I am certain there are still more. If you have a different technique that worked for you, feel free to PM me as I would be happy to update the page (linked below) to help future owners of B-Stop shifter bosses who would like different options other than using the one-dimensional Shimano Deore downtube shifter levers.

The post for the different methods of alteration is located here: The Kodiak saga continues | The Simplicity of Vintage Cycles

The Golden Boy 

That is awesome- I don't have a bike with these braze ons- but if I did, I would hope THIS is the first result.

Thank you.

jmeb

Super helpful. Trying to decide if I want to tap my threads on a Miyata 912 so that I can run a SA shifter from the downtube boss on my silly build coming up.