Originally Posted by outdoordrea
I'm a little unclear on this, so I'll just keep asking questions!
I currently have STI (brake shifters), but realize that if they break in the field, I won't be able to fix them. So my thought is to mount a thumb shifter to my handle bars and rewire the shifter cable if need be. As I see it, in order to get the Paul Componenets Thumbies to work, I would have to a) buy a pair of barcons, and b) buy a pair of Tumbies, and c) rewire the shifter cable. Does this about cover it? I'd prefer something not so pricey, if possible. Any other ideas? Thanks, Drea
You could just buy the bar end shifters and use those instead of your brifters, I suppose.
I just bought and installed a set of Shimano bar ends, and they might go into a revised top 5 for me. We'll see - I just took them for a quick spin. 8-speed indexing over a 7-speed freewheel even works passably well so far! The other thing I just did that I think WILL go on my list, even from just a quick spin, is double-wrapping my bars, first in Cinelli cork tape, then with cloth tape over that. I fell in love with the feel and durability of cloth tape right away, but hated the complete lack of padding. I love the padding of cork tape, but hate the feel and fragility (not to mention the look). Now I've got the best of both worlds, and it should be a winner!
I think that could probably list "friction option" as something important to many self-supported tourists, by the way. Obviously, things can break, and the more complicated they are, the more likely they are to do so. Friction doesn't care as much about a bent derailer hanger or the brand of your emergency replacement derailer, so at least having the ability to switch to friction mode has a lot of appeal to me, and apparently a lot of other folks, too.