Originally Posted by
jim p
I was talking to a bike shop owner that was in his 50's. I asked him about brifters and I was surprised at what he said. It was his opinion that the main advantage of the brifter was for racing while in team events. He said that some of the teams had riders that were out to take down other teams top riders by intentionally breaking and causing crashes.
a) He's wrong about the racing "advantage", it makes no sense because last I checked, "brifters" and down tube shift bikes have their brake levers in virtually the same spot. He's wrong about hand position, you can stick the non shift hand anywhere on the bar with "brifters", same as on a downtube bike. He's a wrong about taking a hand off the bar to have to shift being "better", ride around all day one handed and you'll understand this.
b) Advantages: being able to leave both hands on the bars, being able to shift and brake simultaneously, quicker shifts, not having pointy objects on your downtube, not having cables flying out there on most systems.
c) Disadvantages: None. Well maybe weight if you take lightest vs. lightest but we're talking about a really small amount.
d) I can shift from both the hoods and the drops on any of the current systems. Thanks to spring loaded levers, I can also use multiple hand positions in the drops. With SRAM I go up or down from the same lever.
e) Of all the current major systems, only on certain mechanical Shimano groups might you accidentally brake. Every other group has the shifting separated from the brake lever.