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Help me find Sunrace shifters for my road bike

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Old 09-18-18, 06:22 PM
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frogman
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Help me find Sunrace shifters for my road bike

I want to try Sunrace top mount friction shifters on my road bike. They all seem to be for mountain bike 22.2 bars. My road bike bar is 24mm.
Is there a different clamp arrangement or something ?
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Old 09-18-18, 10:08 PM
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So you are looking for thumb levers that can mount on a road bar? Are you specifically wedded to the SunRace model?
There are some designs with a band clamp that should work, but I don't know who makes them.
I'm curious what drew you to this style of shifter. They aren't very popular, altho I guess can make sense of you mostly ride on the bar tops.
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Old 09-19-18, 07:08 AM
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frogman
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My mountain bike has old Suntour friction shifters on top of the bars and they work great. Never a problem with them. One of my road bikes has brifters that have many miles on them and are having problems. I plan on getting new brifters to replace them but I thought it would be fun to see if I could friction shifters to play well. I read the thread in the general bicycle forum about "friction shifters are for lazy folks" and became inspired to give them a try.
It looks like they all mount to 22.2 mountain bike bars though so I may forget about it.
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Old 09-19-18, 09:38 AM
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Napa..?

Patronize your local bike shop (s), ?
it will be a different one than the one I used , there, in 1957.
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Old 09-19-18, 09:45 AM
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Originally Posted by frogman
I read the thread in the general bicycle forum about "friction shifters are for lazy folks" and became inspired to give them a try.
It looks like they all mount to 22.2 mountain bike bars though so I may forget about it.
Friction shifters are available for drop-bar bikes, it's just very uncommon for them to be thumbies like on your old mountain bike. Usually people use bar-end shifters (like these), or sometimes downtube shifters.

Last edited by HTupolev; 09-19-18 at 09:53 AM.
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Old 09-19-18, 10:01 AM
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Maybe use 31.8mm Paul Thumbies with a shim?
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Old 09-19-18, 11:26 AM
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Old Suntour thumb shifters are considered about the best out there. Find some with a metal strap or band that can be made to fit your bars. This is just an example...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Suntour-Index-Control-3x6-Indexed-Thumb-Shifters-Friction-MTB/273088138127?hash=item3f95524b8f:g:-NsAAOSwQ8Ralbu4

​​​​​​​
John
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Old 09-19-18, 12:41 PM
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Originally Posted by 70sSanO
Old Suntour thumb shifters are considered about the best out there. Find some with a metal strap or band that can be made to fit your bars. This is just an example...

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Sun...sAAOSwQ8Ralbu4

John

Thanks for the info John. This pair of Suntour shifters he says are for 3 x 6. I assume that means 3 cogs in the front and six in the rear. Do you think these will do 9 speed friction shifting ?

Last edited by frogman; 09-19-18 at 01:33 PM.
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Old 09-19-18, 12:58 PM
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A friction shifter has no "Speeds" it just pulls cable wound around it a certain distance..
circumference of the diameter-circle, related..

my sun tour bar end shifters on my touring bike
have a stroke pull long enough for slant pantograph Campag Euclid* and 6 speed freewheel

and a Campag (also from their discontinued mountain bike component offerings), triple chainset..

*(Like an 80s XT MTB RD)

older ones move further inward with less cable pull , like older Nuevo Record era ..70's
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Old 09-19-18, 01:53 PM
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How about this: SunRace | SLM10 ? They have steel clamp, meaning it can be bent to some extent. Not the prettiest, but they do the job.
I have the left SL-M10 on the flat bars of the hybrid (was frustrated with FD setup and switched to friction in the front). When I was sliding it onto the bars, it was quite loose before I tightened the clamp bolt. I think it is done intentionally in order to allow mounting on 24 mm handlebars.

Edit: The question has already been answered the same way in another thread of the OP: https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-m...r-sunrace.html.

Last edited by csport; 09-19-18 at 02:04 PM.
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Old 09-19-18, 01:57 PM
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Originally Posted by frogman
Thanks for the info John. This pair of Suntour shifters he says are for 3 x 6. I assume that means 3 cogs in the front and six in the rear. Do you think these will do 9 speed friction shifting ?
i'm not sure I would buy those specific shifters, personally I'd look for some a little nicer. As far as friction shifting, there is a selector ring that allows index (Suntour RD only) or friction. The front derailleur (3 chainrings) is not indexed so it stops where the limit screws are set.

I'm not sure on the lever travel for a 9 speed cassette, that is a good question. Maybe someone has run that setup with older Suntour thumbies.

​​​​​​​John
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