Yep both of you are right, I used to have a Bianchi also, and normally that peice is there and it's for the derrailur cables and that, on some bianchi's like the boron steel on I had that part was on the head tube, depends on the bike, but normally they are on the downtube like this one is, all my road bikes have that there..But you're right it probably could be used for a shifter also, like Lance uses on his mountain climbing road bikes..


Benjamin