Originally Posted by Bolo Grubb
I have a 1984 Trek 720 that has Suntour Bar-cons and I do not like bar-cons. I would like to make them downtube shifters if that is possible.
Or do I just need to find some different downtube shifters?
Everything is friction and I do not care to change this bike to index. I would like to spend as little money as possible to make this change.
Thanks for any help
Sell the Barcons, and buy some clamp on downtube shifters!
You must be about the only guy in the world who would prefer downtube shifters to bar-end shifters
Barcons are about the most coveted model of friction shifters, and they often sell for $30-50 on eBay, whereas lots of folks with clamp-on downtube shifters will probably offer to give you them for free or a few bucks.
Originally Posted by HillRider
Ironically, there are adapters (Rivendell, among others, sells them) that allow the use of downtube shifters as bar-cons.
AFAIK, there are no adapters to go the other way.
A bar-end shifter is basically a down-tube shifter with an extra mounting bit added, so it's easy to go one way but not the other. Also, not many people want to go the other way. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it... if you like the stuff that everyone else wants to get rid of, you'll get the stuff you want cheap
