Originally Posted by Brian Ratliff

If you want, I can argue that downtube is actually safer, since it is very fast to jump across the cassette with a flick of the wrist (not multiple flicks like it takes with brifters); I can very quickly make the shift from, say, the 14 cog down to the 23 to get set for the light, and then pay attention to the braking needs at hand. It's not like you can really do any serious braking with a brifter while you are shifting anyway.