Upgrading shifters on a 14 speed bike

portland_bill

My bike has got bloody awful shifters on.

They're the ones that sit in the middle of the bars that you push backwards or forwards to change gears and when you're still not too confident riding in the drops anyway, the last thing you need to worry about is pushing and pulling levers which are attached to the bars making you wobble even more.

I was wanting to upgrade them to some flightdeck controls, but I've just realised that since my bike is a double up front and a 7-speed cassette, I'm struggling to find anything that will match.

Can anyone advise or am I looking at having to change the whole groupset if I want to upgrade?

schweiz

Assuming that you have a cassette and not a screw-on freewheel then I think you should be able to get away with some STI's and a cassette although you may need a rear derailleur.

Although the indexing is in the STIs and the derailleur just moves based on the amount of cable pulled through, most derailleurs claim to be 8/9/10 speed. Maybe 7 speed derailleurs have a shorter overall range of movement? What is your rear derailleur?

Monty Dog

The technical term for what you have is downtube shifters.
New 7 speed combination brake / shift levers (STI) are no longer produced so you would need to look to the used/ ebay market to get some e.g. Shimano RSX. If going for new parts, then 9/10 speed is the choice.
Given the age of your bike, it may be freewheel or cassette - it doesn't make much difference if you want to continue to run 7 gears but may be an issue if you want to upgrade i.e you may need to change the rear hub / wheel too.
If your rear derailleur is Shimano it will probably work with a 7 speed STI shifter

schweiz

Monty Dog wrote:

The technical term for what you have is downtube shifters.

I though he was talking about bar end shifters or 'mountain bike' style thumb shifters on the top of drop handlebars.

Anyway, to the OP, to clarify my first post, I was implying that if you change to STIs, it will be probably mean switching to 8, 9 or 10 speed (for the reasons given by Monty Dog) hence the new cassette.

keef66

One further possibility is that he has the downtube type levers but mounted near the centre of the bars. Seen those on some vintage randonneur type bikes.

Whatever; I'd be looking at some 9 speed STI's off ebay and squeeze a 9 speed wheel / cassette in there

rolf_f

The two sensible options unless you enjoy fiddling around with bike bits are sell the bike and buy a second hand bike that is already fitted with STIs or learn to do what generations of cyclists have done before you and just learn how to ride the bike - it isn't hard! STI and downtube type shifters (wherever they are actually placed) are two different solutions to a single problem and both have significant advantages and disadvantages over each other so changing is just a complicated and expensive way of breaking even!

Personally, I think changing is about as pointless as converting cars from left to right hand drive!

Monty Dog

I agree that if thinking about new parts, you're getting into the realm of uneconomic upgrade - you'd be etter served by buying another bike which suits your need - spending hundreds on upgrading a £100 bike won't add much to its value.

craker

My old Raleigh has got downtube friction shifters - simple and reliable and they never need adjusting.

portland_bill

Fair enough, I was just trying to find out if it was a simple job, but it clearly isn't so I'll make do for now and look forward to getting a nicer bike with better kit when work get around to authorising my cycle2work bike.

Thanks for the advice!

John.T

7sp cassette is the biggest you can fit on a 7sp freehub so a new wheel / hub would be needed.
Quite agree with getting a new bike as the pitfalls in upgrading such an old one are just not worth it.