Velognome 

No advantage over barends, unless you've got a realy short cockpit and you'd be prone to bumping them

Over Brifters? Well there's not much to break unlike the Brifter and they cost a fraction of the price, so ++ for the thumbies. But for fast multiple shifts I think the Brifters got one over on the thumbshifter.

Ergonomically? I think the thumb shifter ( at least mounted on the bar top) is easier to use with heavy gloves or mittens since I can just bump it witht he back of my hand.

cooperryder

What models of the thumbshifters did you get to work on road bars with a large enough clamp size?

I've used the cheap ones ($15.00) from Velo Orange before but several vintage models I tried the clamp was too small.

RaleighSport

Mine are just some old friction/sis 7's off a random mtb that passed through at some point.

frantik

bump... post more pictures of your set ups folks.. thinking of buying the Falcon cheapie thumb shifters from Velo Orange to mount on the tops of a drop bar.. at $11 it is by far the cheapest shifter option for a drop bar conversion.

RaleighSport

It works pretty well, but if you can find a way to stack them a bit further out from the bar, that'd be for the best.

frantik

what do you mean further out from the bar? you mean so they aren't mounted directly above the bar? I actually like that better, though I'm not sure how much real estate they might take up

RaleighSport

I mean you want space between the hood and the shifter bodies! My setup is great.. but is highly unusual for results.

jr59

Like REALLY?

When was the last time you were on this bike and lost a sprint because you couldn't dump all the gears with one shift?

It's your bike so ride it the way you want, but that is pretty lame in my way of thinking!

How much does it weigh? Where are we? the 41?

RaleighSport

LIKE REALLY! And why wouldn't you want to be able to do a full dump? And that bike currently is hovering around 20lbs.. funny you should ask. FYI I don't race, so I've never lost due to a full dump not working right.. then again it hasn't not worked right yet. BTW I can't help but feel your projecting too much of whatever it is your feeling about this thread.. do you have any actual input?

scozim 

RaleighSport - I'd be interested in a few more photos from different angles of your set up. It's intriguing.

jr59

Yea I do. It looks like you are trying to cobble something together for no reason at all. Bar ends work, brifters work, You have created a problem and when asked about why not brifters? You said you wanted to dump all the gears at 1 time. Why would you want this, if you don't race?

I don't remember the exact quote, but the founder of Campy said once that the parts must be beautiful. Or something to that effect.
What you have created/cobbled has no advantage, and IMO is VERY far from beautiful.

But as I said before It's your bike so ride it the way you want!

Hows that for input!

jeirvine 

Why? Because it's there.

RaleighSport

Useless actually. Let me know when you've tried thumb shifters on drop bars and we can discuss the pro's and cons.. till then.. well you're just spouting an uninformed opinion. I'm really wondering why you posted in this thread at all, I've already done this and am quite happy with it and Frantik just wants more peoples input who've tried this... I don't come to your threads and declare your questions stupid so please move along.

RaleighSport

jr59

You asked for my input. I gave it to you.

Because you disagree you find it useless?
What did you think I was going to say? It's great????

You need not EVER worry about me trying something as floolish and UGLY as this, EVER!

But there again, I ride my bikes the way I like them, and you can ride yours the way you like them.
Just don't expect people to fall in love with useless and ugly work!
When asked about why, you give a useless reason. When called on it. You cry!

Get over it! Go ride your shifters the way you want! I'll just laygh!

frantik

oh.. i was thinking of putting them in the tops, not by the shifters.. maybe i bumped the wrong thread, i see u put them on the "the drops" of the dropbars

frantik

yep no drama needed


i wish there was a way to clamp down the shifters without adding a bump where the bolt would be.. seems to be one disadvantage of this set up :\

RaleighSport

I think you are far more engaged emotionally in this than I.
1: Ability to shift at the hoods for a fraction of the price of brifters.
2: Complete cassette dumps which other then retro shift and the afore mentioned I believe campy ergo's in this same thread are not done.
3: Allows for placement of shifters ANYWHERE on the bars.
4: Makes bike "snobs" cringe.

Edit: I must apologize if I'm come across as offensive to you which obviously I have but I cannot control how you interpret the words I type.

due ruote 

RaleighSport, I'm not trying to be rude, but what in the name of all that's holy do you have on there for bar tape?

I was about to try this recently with some dirtdrop bars but ultimately decided to rob another bike of its barends. While considering it, I saw some pics of bikes that had the thumbies mounted on the flats, but under the bar. I thought it was kind of cool, then I realized I'd have to switch the front and rear shifters to have the housing angle the right way. Anyone here have a bike set up this way?

RaleighSport

Not taken as rude at all! That bar tape is long gone, and was actually cloth+cheapy foam. And I'd love to see those setups too.. this is becoming the odd thumby thread

due ruote 

Here's another option. No no no it's not my bike.

due ruote 

I thought I had seen a setup with the shifter body horizontal below the bar, but perhaps it was actually like this one. That would make more sense for the cable routing.

frantik

^^ I wonder how they got the 22.2 clamps on the road bar...

No. That is not an option.

RaleighSport

Wow now that one is crazy!

Arrowana

Just spread it apart, pretty easy.

Just to have more pics here, this is a set-up I used for awhile. Worked pretty great, I suppose it's like using stem shifters, except it feels natural to reach for them. Shifters are Shimano SL-MT36, they come on cheap bikes (These actually came off a Huffy) but are one of my favorites.


I was lucky enough to get my hands on a set of Suntour Command shifters, so I suppose I don't really need to try any set-ups here, but I might be tempted to try anyways if I get another bike with derailleurs that I want to keep.