I broke the frame of my nice road bike, pushing it too hard in the local hills I guess. To keep riding, I fixed up another old bike I had munched the freehub on. I wanted to spend as little as possible so I could afford another good bike sooner. That's where the down-tube shifters came in. Unfortunately these don't come with the band that clamps onto the down tube of a bike that doesn't have the braze-ons, and the old band I had on the bike was not compatible. The LBS found one in a junk box for me.
One problem solved. The next problem was that the instructions said these shifters 'cannot be used with any rear derailleur other than the Dura-Ace.' I had gotten a big cassette because of the steep (10-20% grade) roads we ride, and I don't think there's a DA rear derailleur that can handle a 34T cog. I tried it anyway with the Deore LX. It works perfectly! If you race, down tube shifters will be a bit of a disadvantage.
Otherwise, if you're on a tight budget or just want to keep things simple, these shifters fit the ticket. I broke the frame of my nice road bike, pushing it too hard in the local hills I guess. To keep riding, I fixed up another old bike I had munched the freehub on.
I am in the process of building up a Cannondale CAAD4 Saeco team frame using Dura Ace 7700. I have found a Dura Ace 7700 rear derailleur short. Mission impossible 3 watch online.
I wanted to spend as little as possible so I could afford another good bike sooner. That's where the down-tube shifters came in. Unfortunately these don't come with the band that clamps onto the down tube of a bike that doesn't have the braze-ons, and the old band I had on the bike was not compatible.
The LBS found one in a junk box for me. One problem solved. The next problem was that the instructions said these shifters 'cannot be used with any rear derailleur other than the Dura-Ace.' I had gotten a big cassette because of the steep (10-20% grade) roads we ride, and I don't think there's a DA rear derailleur that can handle a 34T cog. I tried it anyway with the Deore LX. It works perfectly!
If you race, down tube shifters will be a bit of a disadvantage. Otherwise, if you're on a tight budget or just want to keep things simple, these shifters fit the ticket.
A 10th sprocket might have been the headline feature of Shimano’s new top-line groupset, but the Japanese company did far more than shift up a gear when it launched Dura-Ace 7800 in 2004. Dura-Ace had been the name for Shimano’s pro-level components since 1973, but until 1999 there had never been a Dura-Ace victory. Perhaps for this reason, the 25th anniversary Shimano Dura-Ace 7700 groupset of 1998 was an elegant but slightly muted affair compared to the blingfest of Campagnolo’s 50th anniversary groupset in 1983. However, after blasted to cycling’s greatest prize on Shimano Dura-Ace 7700 in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002, Shimano was emboldened. No longer in Campagnolo’s shadow, the new 10-speed Dura-Ace, debuted by US Postal in 2003 a year before the public got their hands on it, was bigger, brasher and more confident, perfectly reflecting in its mirror-polished surfaces, the pumped-up power of the Armstrong era. Style and substance. Armstrong riding Shimano Dura Ace 7800 to ‘victory’ in the 2003 Tour de France.
Photo: Graham Watson The chainset was 7800’s centrepiece. Shimano’s new Hollowtech II outboard-bearing bottom bracket system meant crank bolts were redundant. A hollow oversized axle was welded to the right-hand crank, while the left hand crank fitted onto the other, splined end, tightening with pinch bolts. Freed from the constraints of sticking a bolt through the middle of the spider, Shimano went to town with the styling. The 7800 chainset with its aero chainring was a work of art, a sculpture in forged aluminium that looked like a tensed metal muscle. And it had a muscular performance too — lighter and considerably stiffer than the Octalink system of Dura-Ace 7700, which had been criticised for increasing the diameter of the axle at the expense of the bearings, which were still inboard.
Pre-carbon benchmark Shimano by the early 2000s already had a reputation for producing the best-braking calipers, though this could have been down to pad compound rather than caliper design. Whatever it was, the feel of the 7800 brakes was a revelation. Shimano had worked the illusion of servo assistance into braking as well as gear changing. Shimano’s 7700 pedals were — and still are — a favourite with track riders, but for the road they simply didn’t release reliably enough.