Leisesturm

I made a drop-bar upgrade of our flat-bar road tandem last year. To save $$$ I went to downtube shifters over brifters. Since I was saving hundreds I went all out on the shifters. Dura-Ace 3 X 9. Very nice, but the front shifter is not indexed. There aren't even ratchets, worse its spring loaded so the shifts are smooth as glass in both directions. Worse because it makes finding the middle ring very hard especially upshifting! I once heard in passing about a device that allowed a person to shift between the middle and outer ring as if shifting a double but when the granny was needed you did something... I don't really know what... but then you would be able to drop into the granny. As far as I know it worked with the existing shifters, you didn't have to buy new shift levers. Is this ringing any bells with anyone? Is there a DIY hack for something like this if no commercial solution is available?? TIA.

H

Airburst

Is it this? If so, it only works with brifters, and as it works as part of the housing, and most bikes with DT shifters don't have any housing on the cable for the front derailleur, it's not much help for you.

In all honesty, friction shifting for triple cranksets is kind of useful, as it allows you to trim the front derailleur cage. How long have you been using the DT shifters?

fietsbob

the fact its friction makes it a better shifter for a FD.. you are the operator, so the cage should not scrape the chain after the shift,
if you pay attention

Maybe redo the final drive?
longer chain put the triple on the front Crank so you can see it .. underneath you. tandems in the 50s were set up like that.

I liked high normal FD but they failed in the Sales count.
you pulled the cable to shift down , rather than let the return spring do it.


Technique , read the terrain ahead of you
I drop into the low gear early on near the base of hill , and upshift in back .. double shift ,
then as hill gets steeper the RD manages the down shifts better.

FBinNY 

Part of the problem with friction shifting on a tandem is that you're far from the derailleurs and insulated by the stoker's pedals (cranks). That virtually eliminates the ability to shift and trim by sound and feel which friction shifting depends on. I gather you're using index for the RD. Consider giving FD control to the stoker, at lest as a short term experiment.

Otherwise you might use a separate clamp behind the downtube lever to improvise a bump stop for downshifting to the middle, and arrange it so some extra force moves the lever past for the granny.

fietsbob

delegate the FD shift to the Stoker? they can see and hear it better , back there..




Campagnolo in the Way Back era, Had a Detent for the RD, it had a button to let the RD shift off the high gear cog

onto a dropout mounted chain holder , to try to make mid race wheel changes go faster..

HillRider

The device you are describing (Airburst has the link) was made to allow Shimano STI brifters for double chainring cranks to shift a triple crank and was sold before Shimano made any triple compatible brifters. It was a two position lever attached to the brifter where the shift cable exited. In one position you could shift between the large and middle chainrings only. In the other position you could shift between the middle and granny chainrings only. It is not useful or needed with downtube or other friction front shifters.

As noted, shifting a triple with friction shifters is a skill but not that difficult to learn.