I've been doing some changes on a few of my mtb's the last few days, and one of the things I did was swap a bike out to v-brakes which meant new levers.. this was an integrated rapid fire setup so I saved myself some hassle and ordered an integrated v-brake version same gearing. What I had left over how ever was two rapid fire exage 3x7 lever systems, and a few projects are coming up in the que that are probably 2x7, so I got to thinking perhaps I could save myself some serious cash by reusing these instead of brifters.. well here's what it looks like (Don't mind the messy shop).





I have not yet mounted the bullhorns on a bike to test it in a ride, but I have been trying simulations with hand posturing/weight and the setup and it actually seems fairly comfortable and intuitive.. anyone tried this? I've seen rapid fires on the flats plenty of times, but never like this.

I like it, mount em up and take em for a ride.

I have a couple of those rapid fire sets in my partsbin, I'm awaiting a test ride report as well. Looks messy at first glance. Might note be as noticeable with bartape to help blend it in. But the ride report....


Which bike is it going to go on ?

Very interested to see the final result...

I've done it several times, with flat bars. Works pretty well.

Cool idea RaleighSport, thanks for sharing! You're the first person I've seen run 'em on bullhorn bars out on the ends. I've seen plenty of people reusing their old pods on bikes with the "townie" set up using moustache/noodle handlebars.



I'm anticipating your follow up report, I have a couple sets of LX pods in the spare bins and a few builds on the horizon.

Thanks again!

I'm curious to see the cables after its mounted.

Update: Mondayish, I will pull my respaced 73 Super Course from storage and test this configuration out... I might possibly install this on a centurion turbo but I can't see it for aesthetic reasons. In response, it does look sloppy to me as well, but it should clean up nicely when the housings are installed and trimmed properly to a bike.

Non-fixie, when you say on flat-bars you mean as traditionally installed?

3SS: Where ze F is your picture threads of your gorgeous bikes?

Paramount: ASAP Same for you Velo:

Dirty shop pic..

I threw them on my 3x7 road bike, the indexing is spot on, and the brake power seems to be wonderful.. the only problem encountered so far, is the depress levers are slightly annoying to access, I imagine a rubber pad or something to extend them a bit will cure that. I'm planning to try this out on a real ride tomorrow instead of on the trainer, will have more to report then.

Embrey: this is to give you an idea of how the cabling looks, it's definitely odd.

Waiting for the final - Looks good so far...

I've converted a few 2x7 and 2x8 Shimano equiped bikes to flat bars and Acera brifters. This is mrs non-fixie's favorite ride, which - until yesterday - had a 2x7 Shimano 105 drivetrain and the aforementioned Acera's. It now has a 105 triple up front for taking on the hills in Tuscany later this year. In this case I changed the derailleurs to Deore to handle the chain slack and the triple shifting better though. The Acera's are pretty cheap, but work well so far.

Semi-update: Test rode it on the driveway a little bit ago, the shifting seems crisper and more accurate than it did on the trainer, the braking is excellent. My earlier complaint about the depress lever is pretty unfounded, in order for it to be an issue you would have to have extremely large hands and sausage fingers both. It would seem though that I set the angle wrong for the levers, they both point slightly in towards the stem, was not noticeable until I actually rode, will be correcting that before I take it for a real ride in a couple hours.

They look like the Exage STI levers on my Project 3, and they work pretty good. It looks like a long reach to the brake levers though.

It's about the same as reaching brifter levers from the hoods, getting used to no drops with the levers in that position is interesting to say the least.

30 mile ride, complaints: none. Was extremely intuitive shifting and great, the brake lever reach was a non issue and I actually had better reach than I had previously expected (possibly due to realligning levers pre-ride). I think I am actually going to leave this cockpit as is, that's how well it worked and that bike formerly had brifters. Questions class?

Pics with bartape!

I'm wondering if you flip them around so the cables go backwards, would it work? Might look cleaner.

The problem with that is then the pods wouldn't be at your finger tips, and I assume would be facing awkwardly for shifting as well.

Tubular dood! lol

Totally tubular dood, like gnarly style.

Update: Another 20 on this cockpit again today, still great, I'd say I use the trim features less actually on this setup than I did with the brifters previously installed.

Does that array get FM?

It should! I see you posting a bunch, work finally dying down some?