I have this Colnago Super that is a one-owner, not-molested bike bought new as a frame in 1980. The original owner said it came with these "plastic" shifters (see photo), so he used them and proceeded to sorta lose the Campagnolo NR/SR shifters that went with the rest of the group he bought a year later when he built the bike. I'm wondering if anyone here has seen these and/or has experience with them. I took this out for a good shakedown ride (110 miles on a charity ride) and found them to be a bit of a pain in having probably too fine a radius of rotation (ie, a very slight movement of the lever shifts the gear...tiny sweet spot for each gear and some seemingly non-existent) along with an inability to keep tension (after a few miles, I was used to tightening the bolt on the right as I was approaching a rise in the road). I would suppose the shifting quality will improve with some more tweaking (might opt for a modern, slightly narrower chain to allow the FD to be a bit less picky & maybe improve shifting in the rear?...and I suppose to allow me to run a 7 sp freewheel if I want to...). Anyway, I figured I'd share the pics and see if anyone else has these or has experience with these. I have several NR groups on vintage bikes (actually this is SR/NR) and others are quite fine shifting, but this bike never felt great shifting over the whole ride. That said, it carried me at about 18-1/2 mph and other than a few chain floats & auto-shifts it was a pure pleasure to ride & got lots of compliments from riders of plastic bike!


Shifters by cgranju, on Flickr


Colnago Super by cgranju, on Flickr