We have just spent two weeks cycling in Solvang, Pebble Beach, and Geyserville/Sonoma area on our tandem. The second day of our vacation the 6703 left/front shifter quit working. This was my second time to experience this and the shifter was pretty new, less than a year and no more than 1000 miles. It gave it up just like the first time, sticky shifting for a few times, the just nothing. So that's my SECOND shifter to quit. The first time we were stuck in the TX hill country, 10 miles out of town, in the big ring. So I cut the cable to put it in the granny and get home. This time we were about 5 miles south of Solvang and stuck in low gear, so we pedaled on in. Neither shifter EVER shifted with the crispness and quickness of the 9 speed Ultegra I had on our old Burley.

I repurposed my bar end shifter, usually used for the third brake on the rear rim, and used it for the front D/R the rest of our trip.

I like it. It's smooth, I never have to look down or ask the stoker which ring I'm in, and it's simple.

We're headed through Moab for a one day ride on Tuesday and then on to CenTX. I'm seriously, really, thinking of changing the front permanently, maybe with set of Rivendell shifters and forget the STI. I ran bar ends on one or another bike for 20 years.