JOHN J

hello everyone.

thanks for all the help so far.

Well im still in debate on what shifter to use on my road bike / commuter conversion.

I stopped at a bike shop in vermont (battenkill sports)and was talking to a gent there, Bill Kilday, BILL is a serious commuter /all weather rider and though he rides campy ergo in the winter he said his favorite shifter was Suntour Barcons even though they are not indexed. he did tell me his dislike for the new shimano indexed barends and said he prefered the older barcons.

so heres what ive been playing with (down tube shifters are comming off for sure)

1) ive played with using kelleys, Ill skip them right now as they just dont jive with me at the moment.even though rivendell gives a big thumbs up.

2) I found some suntour command shifters as one of you reccomended and though they are a similar set up as kelleys they look like a better fit though I dont know much about them as far as how well they function.

3) pick up a set of older suntour barcons

4) purchase New shimano sis barends for 8speed (my cluster is 7 speed)

decisions decisions but im close to picking.

many thanks

"John"

nick burns

As much as I love bar-cons, I suggest trying the commands- if the price is right that is. I had a set on a bike a few years ago & they were great. You can shift from almost any hand position. Kind of strange looking, but they function very well.

UCSDbikeAnarchy

I have suntour barcons on my old Centurion, and I love them to death.I am able to get good friction shifts and always felt like i still had a good hold of the bike. NOS sets go for a pretty penny on ebay, but you see them come up cheap/used fairly often. I have never seen or used the command shifters. I doubt that the shimano shifters would be as cheap or as reliable as a good set of barcons.

zonatandem

Suntour barend shifters are great. Put 58,000 miles on a a pair on our tandem.
Have used the Command shifters, but was not as impressed as with barcons.
Shim. barends readily available, and have used a set for about 4,000 miles and work as well as Suntours, but perhaps a bit more $$.

bhchdh 

You can always run the Shimanos in the friction mode if you don't like indexed.

khuon

The Command-Shifters are actually based off the Suntour XC Pro MTB thumbshifters. They use the same mechanism just with a different lever design.

ahpook

newbie question: what is the advantage of barend shifters over STI? i can see why the
downtube position is less preferable, since there's a fair amount of hand travel to get there,
but it seems like the barends also require some movement. i test-rode a Trek 520 at the shop last weekend and, though i could use them ok, i didn't see a great win -- but I grant the
possibility that's merely my ignorance talking.

bostontrevor

Barcons are cheaper and more durable than STI. They'll work with any derailleur so long as they can pull enough cable. They're comprehensible. STI is a black box that a person simply must trust to work. That can be an affront to a person's sensibilities given that the rest of the bicycle is pretty obvious.

Quickbeam

FWIW: I've been using Shimano SIS 8spd bar-end shifters for about three years now on my commuter bike and haven't had a single problem with them. They work great in fact. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anyone. I haven't tried the Suntour non-indexed bar-ends but I've only heard good things about them.

scrantr

I took the SIS bar end shifters off mine and went back to downtube shifting.
Double shifts were killing me, back and forth with each hand. I can shift the
rear and shift or trim the front with one hand easily now.