Originally Posted by moxfyre
Are you gonna use those bar-end shifters or keep the downtube stuff? Personally I'm not too keen on downtube friction shifting, but love bar-end friction shifting.
The previous owner told me that the downtube levers are indexed (?) – I haven’t tried them yet.
I’m not sure which way to go. I’ve never used either set up.
Complicating this decision is the unique chainring setup. The 48/44 rings are in “half step” . This may mean more left-right-left shifting which would favor the BarCons. The rolling hills around here may have an effect on this as well.
One thing that I don’t like about the BarCons is how the cables were originally routed on the handlebars. Looks like it would get in the way of hand positions. Although, I’ve seen picks of alternated routing that looks better.
I figure that the downtube levers are on now so I’ll try them for awhile then (maybe) swap them over to the BarCons. At that time I'd go with a larger handlebar - this one is very narrow for me.