Mixing bar end and down tube shifters
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Mixing bar end and down tube shifters
Anyone mix bar end and down tube shifters on the same bike? I'm thinking rear derail. on the right bar end, and front derail. on the drop tube. This allows for a bar end mirror on the left side. Any thoughts? I hardly shift the front, so don't think it will be a big deal.
Thanks!
Thanks!
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Clark W. Griswold
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You could do that but I don't know why you would it will look odd. Lance had a downtube for the front shifter but he was also using heavy STI levers and was trying to lose a little weight from his bike since back then you actually had to work a little to get under the UCI minimum.
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I don't see any reason this wouldn't be viable. I prefer DT to bar end myself, but if you like bar end this would allow you to keep the mirror.
BTW, the Italian Road Bike Mirror is by far the best bar end mirror I've tried.
BTW, the Italian Road Bike Mirror is by far the best bar end mirror I've tried.
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I do this exact thing on my 520. FD shifts on the downtube, RD shifts on the barend. Barend mirror on the left side. I love the setup, and the FD shifts like a dream on the downtube. Doesn't look odd at all....go for it!
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While not a Bar end, it is a flat bar with a DT for the front
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In the early days of STI, some racers used a DT shifter on the front to save weight and retain total control of FD cage trim. Hampsten was one, there was another guy but he turned out to be a fraud
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It is hard to be a fraud when most of the rest of the peloton is also doing it. Yeah he was a jerk about it but I am going to give it to him, if everyone else is doping and he still "won" he had to have been better than everyone else even if they were all scumbag dopers. However I won't strong arm this thread into a different direction.
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Don’t forget the late Marco Pantani. At one point he used a DT shifter for the front. When I was at the ‘95 Giro, riding to the stage finish at the Bianchi factory, he came spinning by in the opposite direction. He was sitting out the race due to injury.
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Let me see if I have this right: buy both a set of DT shifters AND BE shifters, and use only the RH units of each type, so a LS BE mirror can be used? Is that not a bridge too far when the mirror can easily be mounted to a helmet?
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The barrel of a true 3x DT or BE shifter will be thicker than a 2x so that in the same 170* of total throw it will pull enough cable to get the FD across all three rings. A 3x shifter can also shift 2x but a 2x may only shift 2x. Obviously there are exceptions.
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I don't think I've ever heard of a "triple-specific" front friction shifter. Some shifters back in the day literally didn't even have left-right variants, like the popular SunTour LD-1400 ratchets. Friction shifters nowadays generally spec as "2x/3x" or don't specify anything.
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I don't think I've ever heard of a "triple-specific" front friction shifter. Some shifters back in the day literally didn't even have left-right variants, like the popular SunTour LD-1400 ratchets. Friction shifters nowadays generally spec as "2x/3x" or don't specify anything.
#17
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to continue the thread drift, I have a 2x Shimano 600 front downtube shifter on my cross bike, and it does pull enough cable to shift a triple. in fact I have it mounted into the original bar-end shifter mount, on the handlebar end, and I prefer it to the original shifter.
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It is hard to be a fraud when most of the rest of the peloton is also doing it. Yeah he was a jerk about it but I am going to give it to him, if everyone else is doping and he still "won" he had to have been better than everyone else even if they were all scumbag dopers. However I won't strong arm this thread into a different direction.
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Mirror choices are like chain lube choices. Don't go there.
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#21
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Triples weren't invented in the 1980s, they've literally been around since the 19th century. Mass-production front derailleurs generally didn't have modern triple-specific cage shaping before the 1980s, but that's true of double front derailleurs as well: before then, people just used the same front shifters and derailleurs for 2x and 3x drivetrains, and it worked fine.
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I always love seeing setups I know I'd hate working for someone else, it's part of the charm of talking about bicycles.
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I already have all these parts in my spare parts box, so I'm not really buying anything new.