No? Well, I'm too cheap to buy one. I'm even too cheap to buy a new brifter, but maybe you all can help me fix the one I have.

My Ultegra levers have seen their share of abuse in their 8 years, but they've never given me a problem until recently. When I resumed bike commuting last month after a few months off, I found that the rear shift lever would occasionally fail to engage the ratchet on downshifts. It got progressively worse until, grinding up hills at 30 rpm frantically flicking the lever and hoping it would engage, I decided I should do something. I took the brifter off the bars and sloshed it around in mineral spirits for fifteen minutes or so (releasing an astonishing amount of gunk), shot a hair dryer at it for 5 minutes to volatilize any remaining mineral spirits and moisture, sprayed some Pedro's chain lube wherever it seemed like it might do some good, and worked it back and forth for a while to let the lube work in.

Worked like a charm. For a while. Couple weeks later now, and I'm back to the 30 rpm hills.

My bike is always outside, and it rarely gets above freezing these days, so I wonder if moisture (from humidity, road spray, whatever) might be the problem, but that's just a hunch.

I know these things are notoriously hard to service, but if you have any tricks - or critiques of my efforts so far - please share.

Thanks.

Campy brifters are rebuildable.

Your shifters have lasted for eight years on a heavily used commuter bike that is stored outside all year including winters? There is being frugal and there is being cheap. You're being cheap. Even if you could get them to work again, something else is likely to fail. Buy some new shifters.

- Mark

You could always upgrade to downtube friction shifters.

Have to agree with Mark. Your brifters have served you well. Time for some new ones. Or return to friction, as spider-man says. Barcons might be a good solution for you.

+1 on the barcons

+2

Barcons are great on commuters. And they're cheap too.

- Mark

I've been leaning toward barcons. I've gotten a bit spoiled not having to move my hands to shift, but the reliability tradeoff might be worth it. Although, as you've also pointed out, 8 years isn't bad, reliability-wise.

Campy's servicability is a definite plus, but I assume this would entail a new RD, cassette, hub (and wheel rebuild)...

+3 on the barcons.

After reading many, many posts about how brifters fail I equipped my own commuter/time trial machine with barcons. My Shimano 600 brifters were in the same shape, I also went through the same steps to revive them, they showed a flatline.

Cheaper than brifters yes. But cheap... not really.

Depends on what you are after. 8/9sp Shimano shifters with friction and index mode should run $50 or less used (why buy new, they are reliable!) and you can get old school Suntour barcons for $30.

I have yet to find a decent set of Shimano brifters (not counting Sora) for under $100. Am I doing something wrong? I went with Suntours on mine, though I do like the look of the Rivendell Silver shifters.

You could throw a Jtek Shiftmate in there. That way you would only need the brifters and the shiftmate.

For how cheap you profess to be, friction would be a great option. You could probably buy 10 friction shifters for one set of brifters.

Thanks for the input, e-Bay barcons on the way. I'll keep the Campy/Shiftmate combo in mind for the future. I have a Travel Agent for my front V-brake; it makes sense that someone would have come up with something similar to correct for shifter indexing.

Cheers

I don't think you can really start comparing like that. I mean if you're going to talk used vs new stuff, the new stuff is going to be more expensive.

I'm not quite sure you can limit this to non-sora just to prove a non-existent point. I mean yeah barcons are cheaper than sti's, but they aren't a gigantically cheaper deal. You're paying $50+ for what essentially is downtube shifters with a fancy mount.

That is a really cool set-up. I've never seen it done like that before. I have used bar-cons on long tours and cursed having to move my hands even several inches back. Your set-up seems to have solved that.
+1

You lose a hand position for that convenience.