Best shifters to get
 

I have this bike here: http://compare.ebay.com/like/2508936...=sbar&_lwgsi=y

It has the down tube shifters, and I had a pretty nasty accident in May because I had to take my hand off the handlebars to shift. I'd like to know what would be the best (or at least safest) shifters to get for this bike. I'd like to have trigger shifters but if there's something better for my bike I can live without them. I spend most of my time on the bottom bars.

The most convenient shifters for a dropbar bike are "brifters" (combined brake levers and shifters) that Shimano calls STI and Campy calls Ergo. The downside is that they are by far the most expensive and are all indexed so you woiuld need a bunch of other expensive components to go with them.

Next for convenience are barend shifters which are much less expensive and, since most offer a friction setting, can be used with nearly any set of components.

Best, but probably won't work with your older bike: http://www.racersportif.com/images/p...DA7900_STI.jpg

Much cheaper: http://www.yayteam.org/albums/a19/small_DSC_0038.JPG

Bar enders are cheaper and more reliable. I do mostly touring bikes and conventional wisdom says bar enders are best for that type of riding (far less likely to fail and leave you stranded in the middle of nowhere). BUT I love the brifters (top picture), prefer shimano ultegra, and will never use anything else. My accommodation to reliability: on super long unsupported tours I carry a single bar ender that I can rig onto the down tube boss as a total last resort.

That reminds me of another topic I may start: what do you carry on super long unsupported tours? (chainring bolts, SPD cleat bolts, etc)

I just bring a spare inner-tube, multi-tool, food if it's an all day thing, and a phone. I'm only 17 so the farthest I go is about 30mi from home, I plan on biking about 100mi away to see one of my friends when I'm 18 though. So it would be good to figure out what I need to know for my long-distance rides in the future. I'm planning on spending most of my Christmas money to fix up my bike or I might just save for a new one. I don't plan on ever spending more than $500 on a bike (Only payed $80 for my bike! Just needed to replace the rotten tires) since I'm working a part-time job and have to save for college.

barends.
they are the cheapest method of getting the shifters on the bars.

these will friction shift as well as index.
There's also a cheaper, but not by much, 8sp version at the same store.
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/M...?ModelID=13648

The 9sp stuff is slightly more future proof.

If you spend a lot of time in the drops, as you say, maybe it's just a matter of getting used to the down tube shifters you have. There's nothing really wrong with them and bar end aren't that much better.

I am very fond of a pair of Silver (Rivendell) friction shifters I bought this year. I use them as down tube, but you can also get pods for them and use them as bar end.

The beauty of friction shifting is that it works with a wider variety of drivetrain components.

Keep what you have and save for college.

People over the age of ~35 rode for years with down-tube shifters. You need to be 100% comfortable riding with one hand then you can use them. This is not a far fetched scenario - take you bike to a quiet street or bike path (not a busy one) and practice removing one hand from your bars and bringing it down to touch the shifter. Try to ride around with your hand sitting on the shifter, but no shifting so you can maintain 100% concentration on the riding. Do other things with your hands as well whenever you get the opportunity - signalling (or gesturing) in traffic, reaching for your water bottle... get your riding friends around and see who can pick up water bottles and keys laying on the ground without dismounting. I currently use bar end shifters and brifters on my drop-bar bikes, but I am confident that I could switch back to downtube shifters in a second.

Also remember that you don't need to look at the shifters while you are using them. Keep looking at the road and pedaling and try to feel with your feet when you have gotten to a new gear, then listen with your ears to make sure there is no excess noise coming from the drivetrain caused by the gears not being properly misaligned. It's not brain science, but it takes practice to gain the confidence.

I only say this because it will be tough to find a set of bar end shifters for less than $50 and that can be money better spent on movies and junk food. You may be able to find an old bike with bar end shifters at a garage sale or something for cheaper, but while you hunt around for a deal, get used to what you have. It's not the best design, but it was the most common system available for ~70 years.

Oh! If you are looking through garage sales and the like, you are probably more likely to find stem mounted shifters. They were quite common on a lot of less expensive bikes for years, but are not well liked by many cyclists. You are much more likely to find a $15 garage sale bike with stem shifters than with bar ends..

But there's nothing like cruising on the open road with your hands comfortably on the hoods shifting easily (flick of the fingers) back into that perfect cadence no matter what slope you encounter. Heaven.

Suntour Bar-con shifters. You have to get them used off ebay or Craigslist (or look in the C&V For Sale area) because they no longer make them, but they are the best friction shifters. I recently converted my old Raleigh Super Course from downtube shifters to bar-cons.

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e3...e/DSCI1687.jpg

http://i42.photobucket.com/albums/e3...n/PB130013.jpg

Incorrect. Lots of people did *not* ride *because* of downtube shifters. People didn't start riding derailleur-equipped bikes en masse until stem shifters became popular. I personally rode with stem shifters. When I got a better bike in the 80s with DT shifters, I never felt comfortable with them and eventually gave up and decided bar-end shifters are the way to go.

Integrated brake shifter levers are, in my opinion, totally awesome, but it'd be financially silly to upgrade your bike to them, as they're rather expensive in the first place and would require an almost complete drivetrain upgrade. The way to get this style drivetrain is really to buy a bike that comes stock with them, unless you want a high end steel frame, in which case upgrading makes some sense.

You can probably learn to shift OK with downtubes. Practice makes perfect.

Most people (myself included) like bar ends a lot better than downtubes, and if you're already riding in the drops a lot they're really convenient. Spending up to $60 is probably a semi-reasonable decision, and it's a relatively easy upgrade. You'll also probably need new shift housing and cable. Don't worry about what they index to, just get whatever you can get cheap. Shimano bar ends can be set to friction to use most any drivetrain, and the cheapest commonly available are their 8 speed ultegra, or you can probably find used Suntour shifters.

Absolutely correct but financially impossible for the OP.

Some of us converted our stem-shifter-equipped bikes (such as my '76 Schwinn LeTour) to DT shifters. SunTour Power Shifters were the bomb.
One great advantage of DT shifters: Shortest possible length of cable from shifter to derailleur.

Dont take me wrong not willing to offend you just making a point... for that P _ S bike the best and cheapest stuff u can get is the velo orange friction shifters. The bike is so old than even the cheappy sora stuff will work even poorly as it is right now. In a matter of fact if you want to spend 500 bucks in a set of campagnolo 11 shifters you will need to change almost everything else, the same if you want to go dura ace or even 105. And pretty much only with buying the shifter u will be spending more than what the whole bike worth.

I had 900 to trash in something like adding brifters to this bike I would go, buy a new one bike and give that one to the salvation army.

OK. Realistically. If I had that bike... I'd probably strip it down and convert it to a single speed ...and give it away to a neighbor kid.

Single speeds are beautiful, by the way.

And I don't recommend buying brifters on ebay. I keep all my old brifters that work well. I'd only want to get rid of ones that have problems. And I've only had problems with those I've bought on ebay.

use your old dt shifters
http://kellybike.com/2nd_xtra_takeoff.html
and
Thumb shifters might also be an option


I use barcons aka barends I am tall and on a race geometry I cant afford to move my hands down to the down tube

I think there's the rub. I'm also tall, and as much as I like the idea of downtube shifters in theory, in practice they always seem kind of awkward. I had a bike with indexed DT shifters and it was alright once I got the early SIS working. Friction DT shifters are not that good though, at least for tall riders.

not only that, the UK stores, wiggle, ribble, pbk and crc will sell them new for cheaper.

Seems like the most reasonable brifter conversion for that bike would be 7-speed brifters and a 7-speed freewheel. Perhaps some RSX ones. With any luck, existing rear derailer will work.

But, dang, looks like even those brifters go for about $100 on eBay. I got some gummed up ones and the bike they were on for $60 on CL. First flushing ritual has 'em working pretty well, but the right one could use one more WD40 blast.

I'd probably just roll out on the bike as-is until a $50-ish solution presented itself. Hit the CL, eBay, LBSs with good used parts bins, etc.

OP actually has stem shifters, even less of a difference from there to barends.

Schwinn Sprint? Stem shifters, or sell it and move up to something better. Barcons are great, around here a good set of barcons exceed the value of a Schwinn Sprint.

On the used bike market around here, $250 to $300 will buy you a really nice bike. Just depends on your budget. As far as a Sprint, personally, I would rather have a vintage higher end mtb, with slick tires and trigger shifters. Here they go cheap ($125 will buy you a really good one, shop hard, and you will find a nice one for around $50), make great college bikes, can take a beating, etc.

Stem shifters? I should have looked more carefully.

On that bike I would probably just be more careful about when I shifted.

I understand why you would be concerned about taking your hand off the bars to shift, but I suspect the difference between stem and bar-end shifting isn't going to be that much of a time difference. Like wrk101, I don't think I would spend $75 on bar-ends for a $100 bike.... just to gain an extra split second on shift time (if that...)