dedhed

I use this on my commuter. It will go far enough out to see beyond my pannier.
Fastflash DLX Universal - Mirrors - Mirrors - Products - Axiom Performance Gear

dr_lha

Those are the last generation ones (5700), although you can still get them, they're becoming rare.

OK, so I still have no idea which ones people are actually supposed to avoid then?

cyccommute 

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I'm going by what Shimano has listed on their website. Since they aren't listing the "next" generation, I consider that you can still find 105 now if you look hard enough.

Read my first post. If you want easy set up and less rubbing across a wider range of rear gears, anything, Tiagra and below for road and Deore and below for mountain are the best choices. I've never tried to set up Durace but I have set up Ultegra and XTR and both aver very finicky. XTR is downright difficult to set up so that it works well.

Given the choice on mountain front derailers, I'd choose Sram over Shimano any day. The Sram is a much better mechanism. I wish Sram would make a triple road derailer.

grampa.sjb

You can dismiss this as an old grouch's complaint, but . . . I picked up a Litespeed Classic ti back in 2002 with a 3x9 Ultegra group. Live it! Sadly this year the right brifter finally died beyond resurrection! I put the Sora 3x9 brifters on, and have been very disappointed - they are clunky, shift heavily, and are just annoying. All this in comparison to the Ultegra of 13 years ago. In fact, I'm so disgusted with them, I'm removing them and going to Microshift barends - yeah, I know. But I know they work fine - they're on my touring bike, and they shift cleanly. I'm not a racer, and have found I don't really need to shift and brake at the same time. I'd rather have something that works well even if it's old tech than newer tech which works poorly. YMMV.

digitalmc

Update! And All Is Wonderful!

So for the record the SORA brifters worked great with the 9 speed Deore Derailleur as well as the Altus 3 speed front derailleur. Now this was likely in part because the Altus has bottom pull cable routing... I'm assuming from previous post.

Also oddly enough the linear brakes worked great! Now after talking to the mech at the bike shop it had to do with the fact that these brakes had shorter arms and were built for use with road levers. Over my head but here is a picture for reference:



So this isn't universal compatibility with linear pull... this was a favorable exception.

And not that it's necessary, but here is the final picture of the bike! Shifts awesome! Ignore the hacked front rack...

dr_lha

Can't tell from the photo, but those brakes may be Mini-V brakes, which would work with Sora brifters fine, where regular V-brakes will not.

Slash5

Cool - very surprised the front derailleur works.

digitalmc

Exactly... that is what it was. You hit the nail on the head.

SlowJoeCrow

Alternatively you could try a Gevenalle/Retroshift setup which effectively mounts a bar end shifter on the brake lever. They make versions with a long pull to suit V-brakes without using converter pulleys and their front shifter friction shifts so it doesn't matter whether your front mech is MTB or Road. With shifters CXV Shifters for Road Derailleurs & Long Pull Brakes - Gevenalle or EUR/AUDAX Friction Only Shifters - Gevenalle to bring your own shifters.
Also from what I have read, if you do decide to get a road front derailleur to use STI shifters, you are better off using a road compact double model rather than a triple model because Shimano road triple derailleur cages are specifically shaped for a 30-39-50 crank and don't work well with smaller touring or trekking cranks.

Charlie Whiskey

I've a similar project being planned. Just curious, what is your chainline in the front? My bike is 50mm with a 26-36-48 chainset shifted by an Altus top pull FD. I'm not sure the sora FD will work since it's 45mm.

digitalmc

I'm not 100% what my chainline is, but my crankset is Shimano Deore, 48/36/26T w/ chainguard.

Full bike specs here: Print Bike Page - Touring

If you could tell me a quick way to find it I will try to help you out. I'm slightly above novice, way below expert lol.

Charlie Whiskey

I referred to the distance from the centre of your seat tube to the middle chainring.

Bike Gremlin

Toss the cassette, get 8 speed cassette, 8 speed Shimano Claris STIs and enjoy. I recently switched from 3x10 105 to 2x8 Claris and love it. Cheaper, shifts crispier.

digitalmc

Sorry for the late reply. I measured myself and it looks to be roughly 51mm. This was from center of tube to middle chain ring. I put the measuring tape against the middle chain ring. Not sure if this is standard... I couldn't find anywhere to get an exact number so maybe call Fuji if you need specifics.

Charlie Whiskey

Oh cheers that's perfect. My bike is 50mm too. Just want to confirm this is the FD you tried?

https://www.amazon.com/Shimano-Altus-.../dp/B00CBNGHUQ

digitalmc

I think that's the same one. All appears good. I've attached a few pictures of mine for reference:



Also just so you can see the measurements I made, I'm posting pictures for your reference. I did 2 measurements, one where my tap measure went OVER the sprocket and I pulled back to set the distance, and one where my tape was pressed against the sprocket. You can see these in the pictures.

Standalone 

I tried a SORA 3x8 with a mountain 3x8 setup on my 26" folder. It did not really work -- the FD pull on MTB's and Road triples are different, as is the distance of the chainrings from the centerline of the bike. The wider chain stays prevented successful installation of a narrower bottom bracket. So I have bar ends on drops and commute in east coast urban craziness with no real problems. It's a little more energy to reach down from the hoods and throw the shifter, but not a big deal for commute level distances.

clasher

The ird Alpina front derailleur is another option for compact road triples. I have one with ultegra shifters and it's been solid.

Charlie Whiskey

Thanks for the photos. Looking at my bike further it has the top pull version unlike yours and I'm not sure whether that affects anything.

Everything that I've read says this combination should not worked but you've proven otherwise - have you been riding it much lately? Any downside you've discovered?

I've never been able to figure out whether that works with 50mm chainline crankset - any experience?

rmfnla

This is why my usual response to "Will this work?" questions is "Give it a try and let us know"...

zjrog

I run a set of Sora 9 speed Brifters on my drop bar 29er, using a SRAM X5 FD, and Shimano SLX RD, and pulling on Avid BB5 disks. Setup works quite well most of the time, just took a lot of mental adjustments in the dirt. I also some cyclocross brake levers on the top of the drop bar...

anil_kumar

Great topic!
I woke up this morning with an idea to make exactly the same modification. Ten minutes of googling and here I am

digitalmc

Awesome! Glad someone else could glean something from this discussion. 6 months later everything is still smooth as silk.

anil_kumar

Glad to hear that!
My plan is to turm my Fuji into a road bike while I'm not touring. I'm considering to have an extra pair of narrower wheels as well.

Retro Grouch 

Travel Agents work fine and are reliable. I used to do a lot of work on tandems so I've had quite a bit of experience with travel Agents. My only hesitation is the first time that you set one up can be a bit of a trip. My advice is to do your rear brake first. That way, if you screw it up, you can shorten the kinked cable and use it for the front brake.