I'd just go for STI personally. Rode with downtube shifters for a long time and they work well, but the ease of use of STI shifters is hard to beat. I never loved shifting from bar ends personally.
You can find older SRAM 10 speed stuff pretty cheap, and it's all compatible with their mountain derailleurs which is nice if you want to run a bigger cassette. Another couple options would be Gevenalle, or (if you can find them) Suntour command butterfly shifters. Never used either personally but they seem like cool alternatives to more conventional shift set-ups On Thursday, August 25, 2022 at 10:34:29 AM UTC-5 eric...@gmail.com wrote: > Ben — Reading your post two things came to mind. Joe, Jay and Steve > mentioned them. Try running longer cables and consider stem shifters. There > are lots of the Suntour stem mount shifters on eBay for less than $20. I > haven't run them before but I do own some, I think they're pretty cool. > > Do you think you can acclimate to downtube levers? Or is that a > dealbreaker, no-go sort of option? > > On Thursday, August 25, 2022 at 6:56:51 AM UTC-4 Steven Sweedler wrote: > >> Ben, after decades of using bar ends I switched to stem shifters and >> haven’t gone back. I really like the short housing run instead of the very >> long housing run under the bar tape. Using older Suntour friction shifters. >> Steve >> >> On Wed, Aug 24, 2022 at 9:48 PM Ben Adrian <bunny...@gmail.com> wrote: >> >>> Hey all! Just looking for some gear chat. >>> >>> I have a Rambouillet with drop bars. I'm finally getting everything >>> comfortable, but I've been around the block with my shifters. >>> >>> My bike came with 8 speed bar end shifters. However, when I did my first >>> configuration I mounted them on the downtube. They worked great. It was >>> kind of a bummer to reach down, but I went with it because I loved the >>> simplicity and getting the cables off the handlebars. >>> >>> After a while I decided to put them back in the bar ends. I had >>> previously used bar ends for a long time, so it felt like home. However, I >>> have a front Mark's rack with a basket and the derailleur cables were >>> always getting in the way of the front stuff. >>> >>> So I just ran the cables fully under the bar tape and that install works >>> great to get stuff out of the way, but now my shifting performance is >>> pretty bad from the twisty cable runs; much worse than any other >>> configurations. >>> >>> So, nothing is really broken, but I know it can be better. Wondering if >>> I should try again with a new take on the "not under tape" routing. Or try >>> downtube again? Or just go nuts and look for a used STI system? >>> >>> Let's chat! >>> Ben >>> >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to rbw-owners-bun...@googlegroups.com. >>> To view this discussion on the web visit >>> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/64c7133b-7f75-46e5-acd1-622ce097778bn%40googlegroups.com >>> >>> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/64c7133b-7f75-46e5-acd1-622ce097778bn%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> >>> . >>> >> -- >> Steven Sweedler >> Plymouth, New Hampshire >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/6c9e5ac2-8751-4c19-81c4-162a4c7c380en%40googlegroups.com.
