ziroonderel

Hello. I have a Motobecane Super Mirage I bought in 1984. I have been riding it ever since. No accidents. It's always been big for me, but I've never felt uncomfortable on it. It still has the original paint and parts. I'm not as comfortable as I used to be with the shifters on the down tube and I'm thinking about having them moved. I am not a mechanic. It has friction shifting with a ten speed rear derailleur which still works pretty well but is far from smooth. My question is: should I change the whole drive train or just move the shift levers. Any suggestions about a good, new drive train? How about brakes. I think I might upgrade the brakes, too.

old's'cool

If you're not a mechanic and want these mods done to your bike, I suspect it will get very expensive quickly at bike shop hourly rates. The parts will add up too. Your Super Mirage sounds like a nice, well preserved old bike; if you want newer functionality you can probably find something reasonably priced by patiently watching Craigs List. You might also want to start a thread in this forum or another as appropriate to evaluate exactly what kind of bike you're looking for.

old's'cool

If you want to limit your mods to moving the shift levers to the stem, you can probably get the parts very reasonably by posting in the ISO/trade thread. Making the switch isn't rocket science; if you're not up to that yourself, you can probably get assistance at a local bike co-op, if there is one in your area.

due ruote 

What kind of derailleurs does it have now? Unless you've abused the bike (it doesn't sound like you have) you can probably get by with a new freewheel and chain, moving the shifters if you want to do that, and new brake shoes. I'd try that before installing new brakes, unless there's something wrong with the ones you have. For the shifters you might think about some Suntour barcons (bar-end shifters) - like my avatar. They're pretty foolproof, work well and are easy to reach while keeping your hands on the bars. It might help if you could post a few pictures of your bike. At any rate, we enjoy bike pictures around here.

Alan Edwards

Go to www.sheldonbrown.com and Sheldon will tell you how to do more then you ever imagined.

OldsCOOL

If you are still looking for stem shifters I'd like to trade you. This morning I bought a Super Mirage (10sp) and really dont care for stem shifters. Would you like to trade straight up, your downtube shifters for my stem shifters?

AZORCH

I probably have a set of stem shifters you just have if you want to take a crack at swapping them out for the DT shift levers. The only issue with going to stem shifters though will be that you'll also need some sort of cable stops.