Converting to downtube shifters
 

I am interested in converting my front derailleur shifting from a "brifter" to a downtube shifter. Has anyone done this on a newer bike? or could offer some advice on how to go about doing this? I have a 2009 caad9 with sram rival. Don't yell at me too hard.

Some guy named Lance Armstrong did this for some of his little "races". :D

i'm running an older steel bike in that fashion now, but only because my left sti shifter broke. are you having some adjustment problem, sounds like you have a fairly new set-up ?

I built it up about a year ago, works perfectly fine. I used to ride a old steel panasonic with downtubes and I just sort of miss the feel of that.

does it have shifter bosses?

The hard part will be the actual attaching of the downtube shifter.
There used to be clamp on adapters for that, but they were made in the days when downtubes were 1 1/8" diameter and won't fit on the big fat tubes Cannondale uses, and there are no bosses on the frames anymore.
It will probably take some sort of hose clamp set-up to work.
Have you thought about using a bar-end shifter? It would be much easier on your set-up.
If you can get them, Kelly Take-offs were made to mount thumb shifters to drop bars. That would also be a better solution IMHO

probably not on a newer caad-9 (guessing here).

another option for a similar feel would be bar ends, which would be straight plug and play.

Yes it can be done (I believe you can get clamp-on shifter bosses if your frame doesn't have them). I'm just not sure why you would want to.

No, my options are pretty limited.

I think you are better off just buying an old frame that has them

I can't remember the product name, but there was one company making a brifter for friction shifting. It worked similar to campy (thumb down, finger swing up) but it was all friction (or maybe it had a 7 speed index mode, but I'm sure it did friction). It was butt ugly, and would feel different from your rival hood on the right hand.

There are all sorts of hideous ways to attach the shifter to your handlebars. Or, and this may seem crazy, you could adjust your front dérailleur properly and enjoy indexed shifting ;).

The clamp ons require a little thing brazed onto the downtube to keep them from sliding down. They don't just clamp onto anything. It's often a little heart shape on the underside about 1-2mm thick.

I'd just get a bar-end. They're sold in pairs but you might get lucky on eBay.

BTW, feel free to send me your Rival shifters when you are done converting them to 1970s technology.

I am missing something here why would someone want to replace a brifter with a down tube shifter? I see this as a step backward.

I'm not sure if you are just looking to relive the reaching down to your downtube to shift or not. But the Paul Thumbies and attach shift levers to it on your bars for something "different". Or as others have already stated, the bar-end shifters.

If soeone doesn't already make a fat-tube down-tube clamp-on shifter bosses, then that may be a custom thing you're looking at.

But yeah, I do like down-tube shifters for some reason also. I still have an old steel Trek that has them and ride it but mostly on my rollers.

what what what? why?

also the thing you could be possibly looking at if you made your own clamp for downtube shifter bosses is that you wouldn't want to clamp them down to tight on the downtube or you could dent the aluminum. the walls are not as thin as they used to be from cannondale but still with too much pressure you could risk denting the frame.

An absurd idea of course, but you could accomplish it like that guy above said: custom DT clamp. Not sure what the end goal is here but you won't save enough weight for it to matter and then you'll probably shift slower (debatable) and it'll look like hell.

I agree with this. Makes more sense than bolting something onto your frame.

Only IF you consider brifters to be a "technological advancement". Unfortunately, that's often hard to discern when money becomes the primary driver. Is a standard transmission inferior to an automatic? Is a microwaved (pre-cooked) hamburger superior to a grilled-in-front-of-you patty? Is there really a need for an atomic-powered toaster? YOU decide . . .

AHEM. My 1977 Raleigh Pro had clamp-on Campy DT shifters and it did NOT look like hell (nor shift poorly).

You could drill a couple of holes in the downtube and attach the shifter bosses the way Cannondale did originally. I even have the parts in the basement. I don't know the diameter of the CAAD9 downtube compared to the earlier versions, so the bolt may not be long enough. However, despite my many years of old-school riding & racing in the old days, I would not go back to downtube shifters.

Bar-ends (the old SunTour ones were the best and usually available on eBay), Kelly Take-Offs ( I use one for my FD but my situation is different than yours) are your best options. Failing those you could try the clamp on bosses. That was the standard years ago. Don't know about versions for new frames.

If you really want DT shifters, why not go all the way and pick up a decent (maybe old) steel frame?

As an aside, my old 1980 Raleigh "Super Record" (not named for the Campy gruppo - it was actually a cross between a Raleigh Record and a Raleigh Grand Prix) originally came with stem-shifters, and I converted it to down-tube shifters, using some NOS 1980 Suntour shifters off of e-Bay. They came with a clamp, and it worked fine without any bosses on the down-tube. (But of course tubing was standard steel-frame 1 1/8 inch diameter.)

The shorter cable lengths (and less of the cable being inside of a housing) improved the shifting feel (over the stem shifters) - I would think that DT shifters will also feel a bit better than bar-end shifters.