Cycling UK Forum

Are there any problems in pairing up down tube friction shifters with rear and front (triple) mechs and if so what is the best method(s) of dealing with them in a simple and cost effective way?

I await your sound advice.

Cyril

some friction shifters have insufficient diameter to pull enough cable to work with some modern systems. Shimano 7,8,9, and (most )10s road are within the compass of most but campag 10s and shimano 11s (also shimano 4700 10s) need more cable and these will work with some levers only. SRAM systems need even more cable pull than that and will be something of a struggle with any friction levers I think.

cheers

I would say no problem at all. On one bike ( 9 speed campag) I disconnected the Campag ergos, (left them insitu and used them as brakes only) and fitted old campag (prob 6/7 speed) friction downtube levers, worked perfectly. Then went on to use friction bar end shifters. New bike(10 speed shimano) I removed the Shimano 10 sp brifters, and fitted friction bars cons. This of course worked perfectly with the Shimano MTB rear and front mech. Ten I replaced the cranks, and front and rear mechs with Campag, and still work perfectly. I even removed the 2.3mm spacer in the shimano cassette, and replaced it with a campag 2.6mm one so I can run a 9 speed chain, and t still works perfectly.

I have three bikes, all in general everyday use (well, not all three are used every day, but you know what I mean).

All three have triple chainsets.

One bike has a 6-speed block and has the dear old well respected Simplex levers from the 1980s.

Another bike has currently a 5-speed block, but alternates with a six speed block and has Shimano levers - these can be 'clicked' for index if the sprocket spacing is compatible.

Another bike has an 8-speed cassette and has the Dia-Compe levers currently available from Spa, and I judge that they will certainly handle a 9-speed cassette. I changed that bike from the Simplex levers because they seemed on their limit with the 8-speed cassette - they handled it but the lever did move a long way around!

No problem with any of them. If you look on the Spa web-site at the moment you'll see Shimano Dura-Ace 9-speed and 10-speed levers - does this mean that sanity is returning and the cost and compatibility problems associated with STI/ergo levers have at last been realised? In any case, I don't think that you'll have a problem.

There's no issue with the front changers - the rears are two Shimanos and one Campag.

Have a look on the Spa web-site. Let us know what you end up with.

I use Dia Comp downtube shifters on an old Campag Chorus rear mech. Fine on a 7 sp freewheel, ok too on an 8 sp cassette. I only run a double 52-42 up front though.

However you do need to get the feel for them, heavy efforts uphill can still lead to a slip into a higher gear unless the friction is turned up a bit too high for best feel. I also find that I have difficulty with the 2nd largest sprocket, changes slip off this one or are never quite right, happens on both a 13-26 and 13 to 23 cassette. Wish the springs in the Campag shifters hadn't disintergrated and I would still be using those on indexing.

Also wish we had a modern equivalent of those wonderfully light feeling dual spring Simplex levers, they had the balance right between feel and friction and never remember them slipping uphill.