John Dunn asks a fair enough question when he asks -
>Just out of curiosity, what is it, exactly, that makes stem mounted
shifters
>"ridiculous"?? Stop guffawing, you veteran experts. I really want to know.
Part one - some of us who were riding in the early to mid 70s tended to equate stem shifters and brake "safety" extension levers with cheap bikes. They also wound up coming on moderate/decent quality machines as time passed. They were perceived by those of us who knew better as the lazy person's choice. You braked from the top center and never reached very far to shift. Stem shifters were perceived by some as yielding floppier, sloppier shifting than downtube levers, too - added cable length and all that. Like the safety levers, they were viewed as something for less than serious cyclists - you could buy a bike that looked sort of like a racing machine, but sit on it and ride like it was a 3-speed utility bike, but without their common sense features.
Part two, and more important - stem shifters were in a very good position to do damage in the event of a crash. If one's bike stopped abruptly, but one continued forward, those of us of the male persuasion risked becoming sudden sopranos on those suddenly spear-like, punji-stick-ish stem shifters. They could be a liability, or so the reasoning went where I grew up. They were matched by the generally poor braking one got with the safety levers.
Part three - they contributed greatly to the general disdain some of us held (and still hold, btw) for the Consumer Product Safety Commission. That august body felt quite comfortable in contemplating banning quick release wheels and requiring Campagnolo redesign the Nuovo Record fd cage, while simultaneously allowing the sale of bikes with castrati shifters and bad brake levers. I am among those who began a long career of sneering at well-meaning but clueless do-gooder types as a result of the CPSC's often questionable rulings.
Of course, we were ALL innocent of knowing that the day would come when long, floppy gear cables connected to complicated shifting mechanisms would be considered the norm, and everyone had to have dual-pivot brakes because their bars were so low they couldn't reach the drops without hurting themselves ... but I digress.
Russ Fitzgerald
Greenwood SC
rfitzger@emeraldis.com