Novakane 

Hopefully less tilting at windmills here than my last question...
I am converting my Miyata 1000LT from drop to butterfly bars - I thought twist shifting could be a nice setup.
Simple enough I thought, new brake levers and new 3x7 shifters and good to go... so I bought these Shimano RevoShift and they are a huge disappointment:



I was able to get them adjusted to range and the right side does properly index shift for 7 speed... But they're hard to turn and do not feel very sturdy.
The left side is very hard to crank out to the largest cog and the rubber grip seems to pop right off from the effort, hence I've put a grip-retaining ring beside it to keep it on.
Not sure if I got knock offs or this is just not a great product from Shimano.
It also occurs to me that perhaps the Deore DX derailleurs have spring that are simply too beefy for these and are out spec but I'm not sure how to check that or if it's actually the issue.

Are there any good twist shifters for 3x7 that can handle a sturdy set of derailleurs like these?
Or should I go with decent quality compact trigger shifters (non-integrated with brakes) that would work for this purpose? (There are a lot of these out there, how do I know which are good?)

This is the basic setup I had in mind, but it only works if the shifters are reliable:

dedhed

There's a reason you usually see these on low end bikes...

stevel610 

I have the sram version on 2 bikes that came with butterfly bars. They work well. Eventually (10-12 years) the rubber grips have softened and need to be replaced though they still shift reliably.

I bought Altus trigger shifters to replace 1 set.

hokiefyd 

There are several model lines within the Revoshift portfolio, and the quality and feel changes dramatically as you move up the chain, as it usually does with derailleurs, brakes, etc.

Yours look like the SL-RS35, which are the basic black model with clear plastic over the gear indicators. There is at least one step below this (SL-RS25) that doesn't even have the clear plastic over the gear indicators. Both of these don't have a great feel. The shifting is notchy and not very satisfying.

If you move up to the SL-RS41 or SL-RS45, you'll find a silver finish externally, but also a much nicer shifting mechanism within. I've owned all sorts of Revoshift models, and I like the RS41s and RS45s. There are slight differences cosmetically between the RS41 and RS45, but they're the same internally. They reportedly use a planetary gear system inside to underdrive the rotation, meaning you twist it a little more than you pull cable, which reduces effort. These are available in 7-speed and 8-speed versions and I think you'd really like these vs. the RS35.

hokiefyd 

Here's an 8-speed pair for 22 bucks: https://www.universalcycles.com/shop...s.php?id=57956

It looks like Amazon has both 7- and 8-speed versions...though authenticity is not guaranteed there.

t2p

would an old set of Grip Shift shifters be a better option ?

I was never a fan of Grip Shift shifters - preferred Rapidfire (etc) - but I have two old / mid-90's Gary Fisher bikes with 7 spd Grip Shift shifters and they work fairly well

one of the bikes sat for around 20 years untouched - and it shifts well with no cable replacements or lubrication / maintenance

one bike with a better set - SRT-500 or 600 (can't recall) - has a slightly better / positive click and the left (front) shifter has detents for trim - but the lower SRT-400 model shifts well also

at one point I considered replacement with Rapidfire - but after riding them I dropped that idea

daverup 

This type of setup was original on the 94 Schwinn Crosscuts. On those, Sram SRT300 3x7 gripshifts were paired with Shimano Alivio STX derailleurs.



These have held up for me, but haven't been heavily used. I really prefer Thumb shifters, like the Deore XT's. I probably would not replace the gripshifts with modern gripshifts if they failed.

Novakane 

Ideally I'd like to do this conversion with new parts rather than vintage/used. By "grip shifters" are you referring to the SRAM shifters?
I was just looking at the SRAM offerings for twist style shifters since some look to be compatible with the Deore DX (ie. 2:1 cable pull) but I have no experience with SRAM so I'm not sure of the quality?
I see there are plenty of these still being made new and possibly available nearby however.

Some research also shows that Deore thumb shifters are well regarded but it looks like those fetch a pretty penny for even scuffed up ones and I'm not sure if I'm ready to give up on the twist concept just yet.

Novakane 

It feels like some of my ideas for this project are turning into another dead end, kind of 0 for 2 for me this week lol

Looking through the options, I decided to wander down to a local shop whom stocks most of the parts I was considering in hopes of having a more direct conversation and perhaps an actual look at the the shifters in person.
They didn't have much nice to say about the modern sets of twist shifters and also suggested looking for the older "grip shifters" if I was hard-set on going that route.
Additionally they said that the modern SRAM MRX wasn't a very good fit for Shimano due to being a slightly different ratio and they also weren't very enthused with the quality.
They did mention that of the modern ones, the RS45 were probably the best option, much like hokiefyd suggested, but stopped short of actually recommending using them.

So, that all pretty much jives with what you kind folks are telling me as well and I can't imagine they'd be disparaging the twist shifters without good cause since they very easily could have just sold me a set there on the spot.
It seems like the best bet for twist shifting is to hunt down a deal on some NOS of the older SRAM grip shifts, so in the meantime to get the bike up and running this week I'll just have to suck it up that my initial vision for this conversion isn't going to be exactly like I had pictured it to be.

I ended up walking out with M315 trigger shifters that I am certain are real Shimano parts (unlike the ones pictured at the start of the thread, I'm not so sure about those not being knock offs since they didn't come in Shimano packaging)
These seem pretty solid and maybe are the better option in the long run it sounds like.

Thanks again for the valuable advice!