Tag Archives: Ratcheting shifters

Stem Mounted Shifters

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Stem mounted shifters were often standard equipment on bike boom “10 speeds”.  Consequently, they picked up a reputation of being low-end components, even though the only difference between these shifters and others (downtube, bar-end, and handlebar-mount) was their placement on the bicycle.  During the 1970’s no one thought that bike boom 10 speeds were bad, per se.  In fact, Americans embraced these bicycles, which were a welcome alternative to the heavy, clunky, no gear bikes of their childhoods.  Stem shifters were not derided back then and even high-end bikes were sometimes equipped with stem-mounted shifters, including treasured Schwinn Paramounts of this era.

What would be the reason to use stem-mounted shifters instead of bar mount or bar end shifters, which also offer the option to shift without changing your posture on the bike?  As many cyclists know, downtube shifters can be tiring to use if you have to do a lot of gear changing.  That’s one reason why transportation cyclists prefer bar mount shifters, and touring cyclists love bar ends.  Bar ends work well with drop bars because they are positioned well on the lower drops, pointing straight back at the rider and offering easy access.

But stem mount shifters offer several advantages that bar ends and handlebar mount shifters don’t:  for riders using upright bars they free up the bar to allow for multiple hand positions, and even if you love bar end shifters (as I do), not all handlebar shapes are ideal for their mounting position at the end of each bar end, depending on the shape of the handlebar you are using. Bar end shifters can only be used with road diameter 23.8 bars, as opposed to 22.2 bars which are the standard width for upright bars (although note that many upright bars are now offered in both widths).

And that’s where the lowly stem shifter comes in.  Recently I have been converting some of my drop bar bikes to upright style bars.  Since I’d like to be able to keep as much “real estate” on the new upright bar as possible, for multiple hand positions, I thought about using stem shifters.  I went to my parts bin to see what was there, and that’s when it dawned on my why these shifters are not necessarily desirable.  First of all, the levers on some of these examples are HUGE.

This SunTour model towers over its counterparts of this era.  And, SunTour offered such a clunky-looking mount to the stem, with a lot of unnecessary material.  That made me think about using an alternative system to get the shifters up onto the stem.

Before taking to the internet for research I experimented with using V-O’s thumbies mounted on the stem.  While maybe not such a crazy idea if using a single chain ring up front, the two shifters mounted on the stem may look pretty whacky, depending on your perspective.  But the main problem with this idea is the positioning of the cable stops which point straight down.

With new ideas welcome, I researched the current stem mount shifters available in the markeplace.  The above pictured Dia-Compe ENE stem mount shifter is an interesting innovation.  First of all, the shifters are designed to be at rest pointing forward, which means that when engaged they will not be pointing ominously toward one’s private parts.  And, the cable stop is fully adjustable, as shown on the above technical diagram.  That is a very nice feature.  However, it looks like these shifters may no longer be available, at least in the U.S.

Before heading that direction by purchasing a new component or shifter mount, I made several attempts to install vintage stem shifters on a current project.  One must firstly separate the characteristics of the shifter itself from the stem mounting issues.  These Shimano FingerTip shifters have always baffled me, but today I decided to put dismay at bay by setting these shifters up.  These ratcheting shifters have a manually operated stop (see photo above) which allows one to set up the shifters by pushing in the stop to keep the shifters in their upright position.  Once the stop is released, the counterbalance spring offsets the pull from the derailleurs, keeping everything in balance for easy shifting.  Shimano made a bar end version of this as well.  The cable stops on these shifters point straight ahead. It would be ideal if they pointed more downward.

After ruling those shifters out I ended up installing SunTour’s ratcheting shifters, which have a nicely angled cable stop and look okay from the front of the bike.  While I don’t care for SunTour’s over-engineered clamp style, the appearance is not terrible and I can live with it.  But, best of all, these are SunTour ratcheting shifters which were so well-engineered and offer easy and subtle gear changes.  As part of setting up this shifter mechanism, I disassembled the shifters, cleaned the parts with alcohol and lightly abraded the washers with emery cloth to improve the shiftiing quality.  Mission accomplished.

Stem mount shifter clamp – photo courtesy of Rivendell

Another option is to use a new stem mounted shifter clamp, allowing one to use any shifter of your choice.  This component from Rivendell looks interesting.  The cable stops are angled at about 45 degrees, and that might be just about right depending on the placement on the stem.  Meanwhile, I’m going to use my stem mounted ratcheting SunTour shifters and will follow up again with an evaluation of their performance.

Overhauling Shimano Deer Head Bar Mount Shifters

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Last winter I overhauled a number of vintage SunTour, Shimano and Simplex vintage ratcheting shifters (to keep the evil winter spirits at bay).  I was cleaning out my parts bin and wanted to separate the wheat from the chaff. Most of the shifters I overhauled were stem mounted, which were derided in days gone by, but are making a come-back now.  As part of that process I learned a few things about the “ratchets” used on these friction mechanisms.  Some ratchets and pawls are made from steel or alloy, and some from plastic.  During this process, I noted that the Shimano ratcheting shifters I overhauled were of much poorer quality than their Simplex and SunTour competitors. However, none of the shifters in my parts bin included Shimano M700 Deer Head shifters, first introduced in 1983.

Recently I purchased a set of these shifters for a new project, but noted that they were very dry and caked in dirt and debris.  So, I decided to tear them down and give them an overhaul (keeping the evil winter spirits at bay again).  These shifters are very different from Shimano’s later mountain bike offerings:  they are stylistically interesting and the bodies and clamps are alloy and not steel or plastic.

Whenever I overhaul any component I get my camera out and photograph each step so that I won’t forget how the parts were assembled.  These shifters have 3 washers sitting beneath the tension bolt.  Underneath the cover was another washer.

After that a C-shaped lockring needs to be removed, and I used a small straight blade screw driver to accomplish this.  Once done, the lever body can be removed from the base.  Flipping the lever body upside down revealed the ratchet grooves which engage against the pawl.  There is a spring which fits into the lever body.

I use small diameter pipe cleaners to clean the narrow crevices such as this with alcohol as a lubricant.

The spring had evidence of prior lubrication, now dry, so after cleaning I added a small bit of grease to the spring.  The ratcheting pawl on this shifter was a tiny alloy piece perched atop an equally tiny spring (2nd photo from last).  And, the overhaul revealed that these shifter bases are the same for right and left hand.  A small plug blocks the 2 way cable routing so that each shifter base can be set up properly on the right and left and side of the handlebar (last photo above), depending on the direction of the spring.  There are also several washers in the base of the shifter, which I cleaned and re-installed.

As with many Shimano shifters, it is necessary to remove the top plate in order to install the shifter cable.

After the overhaul was complete I made this video to reflect the operation of the shifter and related sound experience.  Now it’s time to think about how I will use these shifters on a future application.