this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
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Bicycles
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Great bike, beautiful colour. I will always have a soft spot for the downtube shifters as my first "adult" bike had them and it's how I learned to shift. Sadly my current bike has modern brifters which work excellent but... not quite the same
Same, I went from twist shifters on my shitty Walmart bikes to a downtube shifters on my first real bike. I had a Nishiki with stem shifters that I thought I would like but I never got the feel for them, so I went back to downtube
I have downtube shifters on a similar bike, and I like them, but I also have a modern friction shifter on the handlebars of a different bike, and it is incredible. The bike is 1x10, and if can go from top gear to granny gear in a single rotation of the pedals. Since it uses a skinnier chain, there's less adjustment i have to do to keep it noiseless on a gear.
People who have only used indexed shifters are really missing out.
I think part of the reason they're so fun is because they're friction shifters (vs indexed). You get to FEEL the cable moving the derailleur instead of just a click.