Originally Posted by
ShannonM
There are many good reasons to like, and even to prefer, integrated brake/shift levers. "They allow me to shift while standing" is not a particularly good reason, because you pretty much shouldn't be doing that.
I've never even come close to having a problem shifting to larger cogs while standing, but I've always used close ratio cassettes. I'd also assert there's nothing wrong with dropping to smaller cogs while giving it the beans no matter what your cassette.