Originally Posted by
sd5782
I love the Suntour shifters. I’ve tried them stem mounted but was not really happy no matter where I mounted them. I believe the problem for me is that they are mounted too far rearward from the axis of the stem. I believe that is the reason for the easy use of the great Schwinn Twin Stik levers as they are mounted forward of the stem axis. I think the forward mounting allows the hand to subconsciously bump into the handlebar stem and automatically find the levers. IIRC, I believe I once looked at the Suntours to see if they could be reversed to be positioned in front of the axis vs behind. I run them on down tubes now after trying stem mounts at several different heights. YMMV of course and with Suntour ratchets, you can’t go wrong.
Good point about the positioning of the lever axis being perhaps better in front of the stem quill, especially when a longer stem is used!
Suntour, for their part, actually offered some of their stem levers with a choice of different "pivot box" housings
that mounted either in front of or behind the stem quill.
Recalling one such example, one of their earlier ratcheting stem lever assemblies having the larger, alloy levers, and usually also having short, thicker rubber covers on their tips, like these (though here, I converted them to an old 333 DT band clamp).
Another view of the same levers, mounted to a behind-the-quill version of the pivot/clamp housing, and which was a poor choice for the longer stem length:
