Originally Posted by
jefnvk
And when you crash a bike with DT shifters and trash the mounting boss? Now you're talking about taking the bike to a frame builder to cut out and braze in a new one, or leaving a mangled hunk of metal on and adding a clamp on mount. I can guarantee that either is much more difficult (and in most cases, much more costly) or ugly than buying a new lever to pop on.
And before you say that doesn't happen, I have a frame downstairs that I piked up for nothing because someone did exactly that to the front shifter mount, that I intend to build into a 1x city setup some day.
Ok, that is a scenario unique to having a lever mounted on the downtube. But I have also seen where cabling routed from the bars snagged on a stem bolt or even a reflector bracket and damaged the housing entry into the frame, not to mention the housing itself.
And I've seen where a riveted-on cable stop broke free. ...Also seen many cases where an auxiliary inline cable adjuster tended to detension the cable adjustment with regularity.
I've seen many a DT lever that took a hit and became bent, but with no damage to the frame.
I had a following rider rear-end my bike last year, and end up with a jammed (left) STI lever due to the lever seemingly having moved beyond it's range. He finished the ride in the small ring iir after loosening the pinch bolt at the derailer.
The current breed of STI lever are indeed very nice ergonomically, very refined.
Yet I still as often choose one of my older bikes to do a ride on when gearing limitations won't get in the way (they rarely do).
I genuinely feel that it is a luxury to ride
any decent road bike from the past 40 or 50 years.