stardognine

I just scored these today, dirt cheap, at that same collective where I scored my Stumpjumper recently. 😎 I love the “motorcycle” levers & hoods. Notice how those hoods say Exage on the back though? This kinda confirms the overlap of Exage & LX. I might have read about it, but seeing makes it easier to “get” the quality of these things. 😎

mrv 

Got the exact 7 speed set on my bastardized Bianchi. The brake levers seem kinda floppy. Maybe that’s to keep them loose for all the crashing I do.

thook

wow.....had no clue integrated thumbies were ever made! cool score!

Darth Lefty 

I had integrated thumbies on my high-school-and-college-MTB in the nineties. They were GS level, I think

clubman 

Nice. There were a few others, Mtn Exage and County Exage to name 2. Suntour had at least one model as well.

stardognine

LOL. 😁 These ones are still nice & snappy, like a mousetrap. Are you sure a nut isn’t just loose or something? Maybe washers missing? 🤔

canklecat

Yup, the Exage 500 CX and Deore LX rear derailleurs were nearly identical. I have both, no significant differences. Cosmetically different faceplates. Even the model numbers were nearly the same.

The Exage 500 CX group on my early 1990s Univega Via Carisma included "integrated" brake levers and indexed thumb shifters. Both the front and rear derailleurs were indexed, no friction mode available. The thumb shifters were modules that bolted onto a mounting plate that extended from the brake lever housing. The setup located the shifters under the handlebar, which felt more natural to me.

It was a great setup while it worked. Not sure why it didn't catch on, and appeared to have been fitted to only a few bikes for one or two years. Photos of this group are scarce. I need to photograph my own and upload 'em.

The brakes can be used without the shifters -- fortunately, because both shifters finally quit a few years ago. Flushing with WD-40, etc., didn't help. The shifters can't be used without the brake set, unless the owner fabricated a handlebar clamp from scratch, which probably wouldn't be difficult for a metal shop, or perhaps a 3D printer.

Currently I'm using the brakes, despite the gawky looking empty mounting plate, sans shifting modules, because they work well. I switched from flat (well, slightly arced) handlebar to albatross swept bars and bar-end shifters a couple of years ago. Great setup for converting a MTB-lite/gravel-ish bike to an all around city/path bike.

T-Mar

Shimano integrated the shifter mount and brake levers to save weight. It effectively eliminated the mass associated with the two handlebar clamps for the the shift levers. The drawback was that both the angle of the shift levers and their lateral positioning relative to the brake levers were fixed. The concept was introduced on the Exage ATB groups circa 1988-1989 but Shimano quickly followed with Rapidfire in 1990, which they quickly trickled down the ATB hierarchy, so the brakes levers with integrated thumbshifter mounts were relatively short lived.

Shimano's CX series was a short lived (4 years) attempt to design groups specifically for the hybrid market. It was introduced in 1992 with the 200CX and 500CX groups which were replaced by 500CX and 700CX for 1993-1995. As noted, they were heavily based on existing ATB groups. My recollection is that the 500CX levers were Rapidfire and almost identical to Exage 500LX units. If the shifter levers are located under the bar, that sounds like Rapiidfire and not thumb shifters.

plonz 

The Mountain LX shifter with Exage brake lever came as original equipment on my ‘89 GT Karakoram.

Never cared much for the levers. The plastic mount for the right shifter snapped in one of the many spectacular tumbles I took with that bike. I was able to rig a newer Deore thumb shifter which looks fine and works great to this day.

canklecat

Right you are, I'd forgotten I'd posted about this back in 2016. It's the ST-M050.

I need to plug in my NAS file server, which has my photos and other info for this bike. My backup copies on photobucket and Google appear to be gone or the links were changed.


I may have a larger copy of this on my NAS file server.





This is my own bike from around 2017. I don't have a closeup available at the moment.

Someone else's photo, same model but a mixte version with original handlebar, etc.

Someone else's photo, same model but a mixte version with original handlebar, etc.

tashi

I had a hybrid with 700 CX, it was very nice stuff. Felt like the "performance" level stuff I was used to from mountain and road bikes as opposed to sloppy and clunky like the cheaper groups, shifters in particular at that time.

I killed virtually all of it in Ottawa, but it did well.