Do brifters shift triples well?
 

After shifting with Shimano bar-ends for more than three decades, I'm going to give brifters a try. I know brifters will shift the rear derailer well, but I use a triple in the front (42-37-24) and I recall reading at some point that indexed brifters were tricky with triples. Any truth to that?

If brifters aren't great, I can try a Gevenalle lever, which has a bar-end/downtube shift lever mounted on the brake lever, or just leave the current bar-end in service. Comments welcome. Thanks.

I had a triple on one of my bikes for years. 2006 vintage Shimano 105 shifters with an Ultegra FD. No issues at all. It might not have been as slick shifting as a modern double FD, but I never had issues with accuracy.

You can call them Ergo's or STI's depending on brand.

If you call them brifters, I'm going to assume you always smell like BO and sunscreen, all of your clothing is faded dayglo, and you've got nosehairs that are at least half an inch beyond the end of your nostrils.

Do you want that?

And yes, if you set them up right they work just fine.

My Tiagra 4500 triple 'brifters' work fine when I need them to work, but I am on the middle right probably 95 percent of the time. Four point nine % I'm using the big ring, and 0.1% on the granny ring.

The only people who care whether you call them brifters or STIs or whatever are too busy saying incorrect things on BF to ever ride their bikes.

I've had no issues with the 105 9-spd triple on my Roubaix. Took me a while to get the adjustment right when I replaced the cables, but has been trouble free since. Probably 3500 miles since then at least.

Yes, with OEM drive-train components "brifters" shift just fine on Shimano triples despite what the pedantic refer to them as in a exercise of linguistic irrelevance.
Getting a 6703 or 5703 Shimano road triple Fr Der low enough on a 42-37-24 set-up may be problematic as the cage profile was designed for 52 or 50/39/30.
Using your current Fr Der? The only way to tell is to try it.

-Bandera

This, from a guy with "farts" in his handle. :foo:

I have no idea what the cool guys call them. I picked up "brifters" from Sheldon.

Merci!

When I hear percentages like that, I try to remember that numbers like that are made up on the spot, 87.5% of the time.

I've been using claris brifters with a triple (44-32-22) and it works very well. I like bar ends a little more for triple cranks because there's a lot to be said for friction when dealing with 3 chain rings, thouugh.

I'm happy with my 5500 triple brifters.

I even have a larger tooth range than is suggested.

My current front derailer is 29 years old, a Shimano Deore. It was on the bike when I bought it. The original chainrings were 48-38-24, and it has always shifted perfectly, even when I went to a 46, and then a 42 outer ring. It looks like it is too high on the seat tube, but it shifts perfectly.

Like you, I am on the middle ring most of the time. Triples are a great setup for a rider (me) who needs a very low bailout gear.

Hey, is "brifters" a bad word? What instead?

If Sheldon Brown used it then it is properly part of the cycling lexicon except apparently for the Period Correct Grammar Police, an utterly irrelevant coterie of snobs and dilettantes much given to perusing old catalog pages instead of putting C&V bicycles into riding condition and/or actually riding them.

-Bandera

I have Shimano Sora brifters (circa 2015 with the red position indicator) and a triple crank. The bike started life with a 50-39-30 road crank and all worked fine. I changed the crank to a Deore 42-32-24, moved the FD down a bit, did not adjust the cable, and it still works just as well.

fyi - most (all?) FD brifters have the ability to slightly 'trim' the position of the FD in the middle and large chain ring positions- if you need to do so - feels like a ratcheting mechanism.

as long as you have the correct pull & ratio FD, the brifter will work. I've went from triggers flat bar to drops using brifters. Had to change the FD for the triple crank.

No, but it’s not the shifter’s fault.

They work great on my tandem.

My Ultegra 6603 52/39/30 has probably 20K miles of great performance on 2 different frames.
I replace inner cables every 3K or so and outers every couple years.

I'd agree well set up, they're fine, I've just personally seen no need to replace my bar end levers..

[except for parking the bikes , in favor of IG hubs]




Recently offered is a 3 gear crankset with internal gears , advantage, like IGH shift at any speed or stopped

Will shift faster than a derailleur which must be spinning ... 28t + 2 OD gears, a '40', & '50't ...

I have ST-2303 STI on my 2012 Jamis triple 50-39-30. No problems at all.

Tiagra STIs for the last 7 years. No problem shifting.

I call them brifters sometimes.
On our road tandem, I upgraded from Claris 3x8 BRIFTERS to 105 3x10 BRIFTERS. They have to be tweaked a bit more than 2x BRIFTERS but once in place, they work great.

They have for about 20,000 miles on one bike and about 12,000 miles on another. The key is to pick the proper front derailer. Don't choose one of the fancy expensive Shimano ones. Choose one of the lower end Shimano derailers. They can handle a wider range of gears on the cassette and they work better. The expensive ones are just too clever for their own good.

Interesting point. My bike has Sora FD, and it works well.