This was also posted in the Commuter section, apologies if you´ve had to look at it twice.

Morning all,

It looks like my commuter build will use a conventional 3x7 drivetrain.

As I have Tektro V-brake shifters I am trying to improvise a shifting setup to get the shifters as near to the brake hoods as possible.

My riding style means I spend 99% of the time on the hoods or the tops. Bar end shifters are lovely things but are of no use to me, and I´ve tried.

Paul´s Thumbies and Kelly Take-Offs cost an absolute fortune here in Germany.

Likewise the excellent Retroshift brake levers

I realise I could go with standard STIs and travel agents but the travel agents alone are €20 each

This is Version 1.0 of my proposed setup, and I´d welcome any thoughts, ideas, criticisms (good and bad!) of where I´m at so far.

It´s a cut-down old MTB bar mounted in front of the tops with two old Cinelli Spinaci mounts that had been gathering dust.

Pros:
shifters nearish to the bars
room for a light in the middle, and other stuff too later if required
all stuff I had in the parts bin, so cost = €0
pleasantly ghetto in appearance

Cons:
shifters could be a bit nearer the hoods
weight
hand position on the tops is a bit compromised

I may end up hacking into the Spinacis themselves to get the thumb shufters nearer the bars, but want to avoid destroying stuff randomly if possible.

So, have a look, tell me what you think:

I wonder, would mounting the shifters somewhere on the drops, with the levers facing upwards put them close enough to use comfortably without getting in the way? You could keep the extra position on the tops and still ride comfortably on the hoods. The clamp is probably too small for the drop bars though right?

I got along fine with friction Bar ends myself.. , but you can load upon accessories .

putting a GPS on loses the Ghetto cred..

Clamp size is too small for drop bar diameter.

Version 2.0 is in the offing, I´m trying to get them down and into the shifter hood a bit more.

The location I´m hoping for is pretty much that of the Kelly Take Off. This uses the Spinaci bar, cut up to a 90 deg bend:

if you want to avoid crowding your tops hand postion, could always consider a second stem to mount stuff from

also, there's plenty of old drop bars with a 22mm diameter to open up possible mounting options for those thumb shifters
lookup Suntour Command Shifters for an idea....




seeing as how you don't use the drops anyway, get bullhorns
then your primary hand position also allows strong grasp of brake levers (whearas with dropbars, most leverage is from the drops)

and if you're getting bullhorns; may as well just get a mtb flatbar with ski bend bar ends on it, same position as bullhorn, only now with 22mm bars for your thumb shifters and plenty of adjustability

It's a work in progress, isn't it? Try out one of those arrangements for yourself and, if you decide you don't like it, try something else. There's only one person in the entire world that bike has to make happy.

Honestly, to me that seems like a lot of trouble just so you don't have to acclimate yourself to using bar ends.

Thanks all for the input.

Ride it and see. By all means report back. I have a similar project in mind.

Since post is from Germany,Read/seen there are builders there offering a split 7/8 tube drop bar,
in accommodation of the mounting requirements of Rohloff shifters, mounted top center.

R'off lists some if the frame builders they ship to.. on their site.

Gets you a thumb shifter mount option..as well..

I tried playing around with something like this a while back on an old touring frame I wanted to put Vbrakes on. I ended up paying for a good set of economical Canti's (Tektro Oryx) and going with ST-3300 Sora brifters I got on sale for $60/set when a couple of vendors still had 3 x 7 brifter sets. You might still find the right hand brifter today for 7 spd, but left hand 3 spd is going to be hard to source. You may have to get really ghetto and get different models with different colours and hood shapes. :-) I have a 2 x 7spd old 1988 Bianchi Limited. It's got an ST-2200 right (black lever) and ST-3300 7spd right (silver lever). It shifts great with the old RD6400 and I got the front working with the FD6400 too. But yeah, it's a hodge-podge of parts.

I used to have a set of Spinacis, but I can't remember if they were skinnier than the bars... if not (or if it's close enough to use the Spinaci clamp), IMO you should cut the drops off some old bars and use those with bar-ends. With a bit of head-scratching, you should be able to create an extra Spinaci-style aero position too. From which you can shift. Sounds like win...