Originally Posted by
Tundra_Man
Probably not that hard, but you're most likely not going to survive building only brifters. It's really hard to roll out an entire product line of innovative products.
IMO it should be possible to make a go of it doing only brifters,
IF you can offer the indexing spares to convert them to be compatible with anything. If that's the basic premise, I reckon it has legs. Hell, if they were Ergo style, you could offer friction brifters.
But then there's the armies of lawyers...
How about this: an open-source effort to develop a brifter using as many as possible of the most readily available spares (that aren't overpriced) as a collection of components on Thingiverse, to be printed out by Makerbots. Maybe you can start with a given DT lever and a brake lever, and print out a lever body that takes Ergo hoods and works like an Ergo using the guts of a Shimano DT shifter.
Originally Posted by
bluefoxicy
I avoid anything Italian; that whole country is fail.
I'd say the Campy freehub is testament to that... Ergos were Sachs' baby, amirite?