20 bikes including mountain and road. 30 bikes if I include my wife and kids bikes. But over all those shifters (and upgrades:rolleyes:), I've only ever had one fail. The point is that shifters seldom fail.

My commute bike sees regular winter service and has never had any issues.


I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who would rather suffer through crappy shifting then learn how to adjust their bikes...especially if you are going to go riding around on your own carrying your own stuff and being somewhat self-reliant. "Better to light a candle than curse the darkness";)

Someone brought up the point that brifter cables interfere with the mounting of a handlebar bag. This would seem obvious, are there any solutions?

+1 on all points.

As for STI and bar bags... mentioned by rothenfield1

Noodle or Avid Rollamajig work or like my setup.... 42 bar and Orlieb Medium play well together. Limiting the size the bar bag can be the easiest solution. I can't imagine having or needing more room than the size I use.

I'm currently suffering from a broken front dérailleur. When I finally make it to a bike shop in Kunming, my bar end shifters allow me to use whatever front dérailleur I find. If I had put brifters on my tourer, I'd only be able to use Shimano or SRAM road triple derailleurs. For this reason I would never put brifters on a touring bike.

Cyccommute has never broken any of his 30 sets of brifters because he replaces them so often. :D

I use the KISS idea, and thus use barcons. Many told me to use brifters when I was building my expedition grade touring bike by Arvon, but I kept to the barcons. In outback Australia (Boroloola, NT) I met Anthony http://www.ozbybike.com/ who showed me his barcons. Apparently, he had destroyed his brifters while going north on the Cape York penninsula and had to ride in only 1 gear. On his return he had his bike in the same shop that mine was in and the owner showed Anthony my barcons. Anthony got a set, and used those for the rest of the trip including the stretch between Kalgoorlie, WA and Alice Springs, NT - the REAL outback.

I rest my case. YMMV.

STI and I've never looked back.

Honestly, this is a reasonable post. I can see that being a value that Barcons/DTs have over Brifters. But it assumes a remoteness I've never encountered yet and don't plan on encountering in the near future. So I choose what works best, rather than what I would want if it all fell apart somewhere in the Yukon Territory.

That said, as I posted in the OPs original thread and someone else alluded to here, if I do go to such a place I'll gladly throw a pair of DuraAce DT shifters in the bag -- they can't weigh 100 grams -- and install as needed if a brifter gets screwed up. That way I get to use the easier/quicker/more familiar system indefinitely, and if it fails I have a backup.

In case it matters, my plan for the tourer I'm building up over the next few months is to use these:

http://thelazyrandonneur.blogspot.co...ipshifter.html

to deal with the fact that the Nexus-8 has a twist shifter.

Yes, there is such as thing as shifting too often. Also, friction shifting should not be something to be afraid of or used as a "last resort." I very much prefer friction shifting to indexing. Its really not that hard it just takes a little longer to learn than indexing. By a little longer I mean about two or three riding days. Thats it. Then its just as natural and easy as anything else. Rather than saying people who use index shifting are lazy or stupid for not wanting to learn to maintain their obviously superior index systems, why don't people take a little time to learn how to friction shift properly?

From Rivindel: "Modern shifters are built right into the brake levers, and are sold on their convenience. Folks who like them often say, "Now I shift so much more often!" Well, people sitting on couches and holding remote controls change channels more often, too. Often-ness isn't the goal. Convenience can take over, it can be distracting, and it can make you lazy. Absolutely, you should shift as often as you like and whenever it feels right, but there is satisfaction in grunting just a little to crest a hill, and there's refreshment to be found in pedaling both slower and faster than the textbook optimal range of 95 to 100 rpms. For a lonely rider on a homely road, there's a case to be made for grunting five-percent harder or spinning four-percent faster to get past the harder or easier part. It's a more natural way to ride. Today's interest in single-speed riding is a backlash against more gears and ever-increasing pressure to shift at the slightest provocation. These riders find it liberating to not even have the option to shift. If you need a role model, there's Lon Haldeman. Lon has won RAAM a few times and continues to ride 15,000 miles or so a year by himself and with his PacTour groups, and rides a derailleurless bike with a single chainring and three cogs in back. He rides it everywhere, over all terrain. And there are thousands of others out there who, like Lon, have figured out that constant shifting isn't all it's cracked up to be. Bar-end shifters are plenty convenient, but just not too."

i'd love to try bar end shifters but i refuse to give up my bar-end mirror. I've toured with both STIs and (currently) downtube shifters, and love both for different reasons.

On the topic of STI durability, last season i toured, commuted and raced cyclocross on the same bike (surly cc) with Shimano Tiagra STI levers. I crashed 10-12 times, at least 3 of which were hard, and didn't break anything FWIW

I have road bikes with STI, bar-end and down-tube shifters. I tried bar-ends for the first time last year when I bought a new touring frame for my commuter bike. I didn't want to spend what it would cost for STIs, but wanted something more convenient than DT shifters, so opted for bar-ends. I am glad that I gave them a try. They took a little getting used to, but now I really like the bar-end shifters and plan to put them on any new bikes -- or if my STIs quit working at some point.

In addition to the relatively low cost, bar-ends are more durable and reliable than STIs. When Shimano STIs break, they generally cannot be repaired or it's not worth the effort. In my experience, STIs also can quit working with very little advance warning. In contrast, in the unlikely event that your bar-ends quit working, you should be able to get them repaired at any bike shop or fix them yourself if you are mechanically inclined. Shimano bar-ends also can be used in either friction or index mode.

I'd like to know why Shimano makes their bar end shifters with a single side support compared to the older Suntour where the lever is inbetween two solid mounting tangs. Dropped my LHT one day and the shifter mount that goes into the bar was bent. I've got the same 20yr old Suntour that's floated between a few bikes and it's now mounted on the right bar of a CrossCheck with the front shifter on the down tube. Can't argue that brifters make for faster shifts which is great for racing but come on, this is touring. I just don't see a pack of tourers flying around a criterium course and click shifting to beat the guy with the gray panniers sprinting for the prime.

Shifting too often?:wtf: Is there a limited supply of shifts and if we shift too often we'll use them up? Will an international cartel develop around the limited number of shifts left and drive up the price? Should we limit our shifts to only 1 per hour or 1 per day or 1 per week? :rolleyes:

If you don't want to shift...or you feel that you are superior because you ride around the world in a single gear...that's fine for you. We have gears on our bikes to reduce the effort required to climb hills or to increase our speed when we what to put more effort into riding. It's the rider's choice. If I shift my gears 10 times a minute it hurts nothing and costs nothing. Shifts are limited only by the rider desires.

As for friction, I've been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt. I don't need to go back nor will I. If you want to deal with the clatter and clunk of friction shifting, feel free. But if you have a bike that isn't working properly, i.e. you can't get it to shift right, fix it! Changing over to friction mode is the bicycle equivalent of turning up the radio:rolleyes: Lots of people poopoo index...and STI, in particular...as being too futzy to fix on the road. It takes a minimum of effort and time to make the bike work properly. Rather than "take a little time to learn how to friction shift properly" which even you say takes two or 3 riding days to figure out, why not just take 30 seconds and make the shifters work properly. If I recall 30 seconds is a lot less than 3 days:rolleyes:

There seems to be quite a bit of paranoia on this topic. I bought a Lone Peak H-100 handlebar bag and installed it on my STI-equipped touring bike without the slightest problem. My cables were a bit long and I just pushed them out of the way. My handlebar was a 42cm 3T Ergosum Pro, FWIW. Suspect that the replacement 40cm bar will work just as well, but have to admit that I haven't tried to reinstall the bag yet.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I guess it's more virtuous, somehow, to use only landlines to make telephone calls. Sure, it's less convenient, but you can manage and there's a certain satisfaction in finally finding a callbox that hasn't been vandalised. Worth the effort.

BS from start to finish. I have a fixed-gear bike. It has absolutely nothing to do with a "backlash" against geared bikes, and certainly nothing to do with some entirely imaginary "pressure to shift at the slightest provocation." Who makes this stuff up? The present fixie craze is in part a fashion thing, in part a renewed recognition of the cheapness, practicality and low-maintenance qualities of those bikes, and in part a desire for a different sort of experience and a different sort of workout.

As for Lon Haldeman, fine cyclist and great man, I'm sure. But his preference for three cogs does not make him a role model for technophobes everywhere.

People are free to make their choice. But to suggest that STI shifters are undesirable because they make you shift too often is absurd. They don't come with a self-hypnosis "you must shift every minute whether you need to or not" feature. They just work when you want them to. Oh, and I can friction-shift too; it just isn't as efficient.

Bullsh*t! If you want to shift, then shift. If you don't want to shift, then don't. If you're using shifters so crappy that they're going to fall apart because you executed a few extra shifts on a ride, then upgrade!

How do you really feel?:innocent::D:thumb:

Neat solution! I was going to do something similar as my brifter cables would not allow a handlebar bag to be mounted. I was going to use a second stem and a short piece of handlebar to mount the front bag.

However, I discovered this, below. The rack mounts to the brake bosses and to the fork crown. I then attached my handlebar bag to that. It is a little lower, than mounting it on the handlebar, BUT an advantage is that the weight being lower doesn't affect steering as much.

http://www.axiomgear.com/img/prod/fr...-1-preview.jpg

Whoa there now guys, take it easy.

We all have differant experiences and opinions (if they disagree with mine then, of course, they are wrong). :D

I can't agree with brifters "making you shift too much". True, that the...finesse or methodology of shifting will be differant between BEs and brifters but I do not find a difference in the need to shift more or less when using one or the other.

Brifters have come a long way since their introduction BUT they do require knowledge on how to adjust and properly install a cable :o I ruined a brifter once, many years ago, when I did not properly set the brifter to the "high" gear setting. When I installed the cable, and start to shift, I ruined the guts of 'er. A $200 lesson.

Brifters would, IMHO, would be more for "performance" riding than doodling along on a touring bike.
Brifters are great for:
- standing & shifting (can't do that with BEs or DTs, at least I never could, always had to sit)
- braking and shifting
- ability to brake and/or shift from 2 differant bar positions, hoods and drops without moving your hands

BEs are more robust, less prone to give troubles, do not have a "life" like brifters do. Could we consider brifters a "disposal" item I wonder? BEs would be better if you are not so mechanically inclined. Not having sympathy for someone who cannot fix such a thing is...debatable but would depend on the exact problem occuring. Not having any knowledge of how to fix a flat, there is no excuse for a touring cyclist.

I have brifters on my touring bike and wouldn't go back to BEs, unless I was riding the middle of Africa, THERE I would use BEs....or maybe a single speed....:twitchy:*

*Not that there is anything wrong with a fixie or SS, I love you guys all to death. I'm lazy and like gears.

All I was trying to get at is that friction shifting is not inferior to indexing. Maybe from a purely performance stand point but some people, like myself, prefer friction to indexing. To make a generalized statement like, "anyone riding a bike with BEs and in friction mode is just lazy or does not know how to adjust their detailer" is a bit silly. For my style or riding and my priorities friction shifting and bar ends are the way to go. Remember that indexing has only been around since 1985. Oh whatever did those poor fools do before then an manage to ride bicycles?

Absolutely, you can certainly do what you want. I was a friction user as well, before indexing.

Will I go back to friction?
No.

Do I disagree with those that like friction over indexing?
Well...yes.

Would I whisper about your oddity? Call you silly? Stupid? Try and convince you to switch? etc.
If you like it....use it, ain't no concern to me. I would ask why you like it better, just for my own edgamacation.

In the number of years that I used BEs I never switched to friction, that I recall. I would just stop and adjust the barrell adjuster and be on my way.

The OP just wanted to know what would be peoples opinions on both. People have opinions and gave 'em. So the OP can take from that any priorities that match his/hers and ignore the rest.

-------

Even if someone was totally off base, I see no reason to slam that person for your own (not you zeppinger) power trip or ego.

Friendly teasing, of course, is differant. ;)

:roflmao2:

THAT was funny! and not far off the mark either!

But when someone is tired, wet, cold, grumpy, etc. and the shifting starts to go because the brifter is gunked up, or the cables stretched, or the RD is sticking for whatever reason, or the limit screw is somehow out of adjustment, then switching to friction, rather than having to stop in the wind, rain and cold and fuss with the indexing is a bonus.

Yes, very experienced people can fix the shifting on the fly, using the barrel adjuster on the downtube.

The point everyone makes about barend shifters is that they are more robust and they have the ability to go to friction mode if you index shifting isn't working. My point is that they aren't more robust...the failure rate of all shifters is extremely low...and if you need to bail out to friction mode because you index shifting is a little off, you should learn how to fix the problem. Fixing index shifting is so simple as to be trivial. If the problem is cable related, you usually have plenty of warning...balky shifting or excess noise...so there's no real excuse not to fix it.

I love DT shifters for touring. It's easily the simplest system. No worries about gunky cable housing, no worries about damaging them in a crash, they're cheap, they're easy to install, they can index and friction shift, etc.

Brifters are fine too. I wouldn't hesitate to use them if SRAM made a 9-speed version.

I would have to disagree there my friend. I feel BEs would stand up better to the elements and last longer than brifters. I've only had 1 set of brifters fail..so far, but not bar ends.

That I would agree with, but I think that it is more common to see busted or worn out brifters but not bar ends. Although, maybe because brifters are now more commonly found (?) so you see more of 'em. BEs or DTs have no moving parts to wear out like brifters.


Agreed. Many do not want to deal or worry about the "hassle" though. Like I said, that friend of mine, (who could at least fix a flat), wanted the security of just going to friction should she need to and adjust the indexing later when warm and comfortable. So we instaleld BEs on her touring bike.