MichaelW

What possible advantage does this style have over literally every other common style from the past 4 decades?

2 decades. They became common on club bikes in 1992/93
Before that everybody used DT except for some tourists and CX racers who used bar-ends BE.
Stem-mounted shifter is horrible and dangerous
DT is quick, direct, reliable and simple and you don't need to shift your body to reach down.
On tour, I carry a backup DT shifter.

DT is quicker than BE and has a more direct cable run.

Why would anyone want to play the violin when a guitar has frets?

Stucky

And lets not forget: The DTs don't need to loopingt curves and slack in their cables, to allow for the turning of the handlebars, as stem shifters' bar-ends and brifters do.

Just a straight, solid connection, with only 1 bend!

One day, people will look back at the present day, with the brifters, with their internally-routed cables, and all the bends and extra friction; mechanical complexity and weight, and say "What were they thinking?!".

Kai Winters

Yep, a silly troll out to cause a tempest in a tea pot and apparently fairly successful considering we are on page four.

Started with a five speed "freewheel" and friction shifters...easy peasy...but more is better hehehe.

BobbyG

My '97 MTB has crossfire shifters (I think) up by the hand grips. With a 3x7 drivetrain I'm always hunting among gears. My '84 road bike has 2x6 gears on the downtubes and I tend to not fidget with the gears so much, in part, because of the position shift and reaching needed to shift. On the other hand, I don;t really think about it, and for me any break from one seating /hand position is a plus.

Stucky

Excellent point! With brifters, I tend to stay "locked-in" to one position for a very long time, since I don't have to move. Come to think of it, I NEVER remember my hands going numb back when I rode cheap ill-fitting DT bikes....

OldsCOOL

I like vintage racers with a twist of moderno.....

fn1889m

I put 10 speed DA down tube shifters on a lugged frame bike, with compact gearing. Built the bike I used to ride as a kid.

I don't race, just ride for fun and exercise. You need to think a little ahead, with DT shifters. But they work well. Simple, direct, few moving parts. Kind of like driving a manual transmission. More fun. Its just muscle memory. if you can ride a bike, you can get comfortable with DT shifters.

mcmoose

My early ten-speeds had down-tube shifters; one had bar end. My 12- and 14-speed bikes had stem shifters. Perhaps it's because I never had a high-end bike in those days, but I greatly appreciate the smooth performance of the modern brifter. That said, I do miss having a tactile cue of what ring/gear I'm on/in. Perhaps I'm still on the learning curve, but I still tend to sneak a peek at the gear-index window (which disappear once you get to 105-level equipment).

Darth Lefty 

There is a roughly Tiagra level 8-speed, SL-R400. There is a Tourney level 6 & 7 speed SL-SY20 with braze-on, band, or stem mounts which I've seen on Denali type bikes and juvenile 650A road bikes.

Campagnolo have indexed bar-end shifters in their TT line and they are reputedly derived from the old Synchro shifters so with a set of each you can build yourself whatever you need from the pieces.

Darth Lefty 

FWIW I've been using Schwinn Twin-Stik Shifters for about the last six months and they're ok.

Jax Rhapsody

My first roadbike had DTs on it, I thought it would be difficult, then at one point I had to shift the bike, I was like; wtf was my cincern even about. My genesis has stem shifters, which just does not look right at all, better(lighter, better) than the gripshifts on the Denali(Denali pro or Denali Yukon actually had brifters), but on a modern frame, looks like crap, and really in general looks like cheap almost after-thought crap. I put mtb brifters on my friends Denali.

I had a roadbike, briefly with brifters on it, it was stolen, and I recovered it for the owner, I like them, but after I laid down my genesis, and damaged the right brake lever, I decided they aren't for me, not a part I can replace on a whim. That, and some of them have exposed shift cables, I have expectations appearance wise for bikes, dependant on what they are; a mtb I am fine with the loops of cables in the cockpit, not so much on a road bike. They would look awesome on my bike, but risk of crash and price stopped that dream. I mean as long as they've been around, they should not cost so much.

I like DTs,they are just perfect for me, I want a custom bolt on braket for my genesis to mount downtubes.I think with bmx style front brake routing, DTs, and a chainstay brake, would be a real clean look, even with the one rear brake loop.

Stucky

Beautiful! (The pic. and the bike!)

OldsCOOL

Thank you

wphamilton

Do you have a source for Tiagra 8-speed d/t shifters? I've never been able to find them.

Darth Lefty 

I just looked on Amazon. I suppose it could all be a cruel hoax

Amazon.com : Shimano SL-R400 Double/Triple 8-Speed Braze-On Shifters : Bike Shifters And Parts : Sports & Outdoors

The copy actually says they're Sora. I though 4* was Tiagra and 3* was Sora. Who knows? Shimano has quite a few oddball parts that are not quite in groups.

https://productinfo.shimano.com/lineu...ies&speed=2x10

himespau 

I wish they hadn't taken the friction option away from the right shifters. When I wanted 8 speed, I ended up finding some older DA DT levers with the knowledge that I was going to have to use the alternate routing to get them to work with my shifters (ended up deciding to get 10S when I found them for not much more, so I never mounted the 8S shifters to see if the alternate routing actually worked).

wphamilton

I didn't even see those, maybe because I keep seeing the Sunrace that are $10-20 (but clamp-on) and just skipped by the $40 and up.

But now I also see the Tiagra labeled ones for $52 Shimano Tiagra SL-R400 Down Tube Shifters - Silver, 8 Speed so I guess they're not that hard to find after all.

Camilo

This is it: simple, easy to use riding in the drops (if that's what you're used to). The line back in the day was that downtube shifters, because the cables are shorter and straighter, work better than bar-end shifters. It's a matter of simple cable length and drag, but I also think it was a function of the cable housings not being as good back then as they are now? But bar end shifters worked well too- just not the tiny bit of performance advantage that downtube had back then.

Stem shifters, forget it. They aren't efficiently accessible have longer cable runs, so no advantage except maybe cheaper than bar ends - which is the only reason I can think of that they were marketed on crappy bikes back then. Maybe they thought that riders of crappy bikes would like them there because they didn't ride in the drops.

I liked bar end shifters too and didn't mind the tiny bit of lag in the shifting. I like downtube shifters and integrated brake/shifters too. But I "grew up" with downtube shifters in the 70s so there's some good memories and muscle memory involved.

ThermionicScott 

Neat find, Darth. I'd been wondering where some of those "non-series" specs were hiding.

I agree -- the micro-ratcheting "friction" option is so nice if things get out of whack or you want to challenge yourself a little over indexed mode. Probably keeps the price down to implement only one set of ratchets, though.

Since 7-speed and 8-speed spacing is so close, have any of you guys tried using 7-speed DT shifters (plus the low-limit stop) to shift 8-speed cassettes? I'd like to think you could go either way and open up some options, but haven't tried it myself.

Darth Lefty 

There's a long pdf document from the link that says "specifications" at the lower left corner of SHIMANO Dealer's Manual / User's Manual that has a lot of current and recent specs.

This page has the individual documents for things that are not grouped SHIMANO Dealer's Manual / User's Manual. This is the zone where you'll find things like cross cranks, tandem cranks, canti brakes, long reach brakes, etc, and any oddballs.

OldsCOOL

I have a strong bond with downtube shifters. Bought my first 10sp in '73, a Motobecane Mirage. I knew enogh about the racing culture enough to know that the turkey levers, dork disc and stem shifters were not racing equipe. For 5.00 I grabbed clamp on downtube shifters and went to work. Even with the clumsy Allvit derailleur I could shift it with a quick flip and no need to trim. Every bike since then has had DT shifters. For me, they are not oldschool, they are distinctive.

loky1179

The other advantage of downtube friction shifters is one handed shifting. I'd always use my right hand to pull back my front derailleur lever.

Makes things simpler still.

fietsbob

There was even a fitting of both levers on top of the downtube, to make that even easier..

loky1179

And more aero!

cale

The reason shifters were located on the downtube is to help improve shifting performance. Early cables stretched more than their successors. Cable housings were compressible so their use was limited. The attachment point on the downtube let designers keep cable lengths relatively short and combined with short casings. Riders would have to reach for these "out of sight" controls but most adapted. Casings were frequently part of the dérailleur purchase.

Modern shifters are not constrained by these limitations.