Brake & Shift Levers both-in-one; cheap bikes

[crummy_verses]

Hello All,

A newbie to cycling, I'm considering a Dawes introductory bike for $295 (sounds like a good deal for a new bike). It has a seemingly nice feature: shifter and brake lever are in one unit, so you can shift and/or brake without moving you hand position. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It sounds like it could be an added complication thus requiring more frequent maintenance.

Any advice or comments on either Dawes or the shifter/brake feature would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Keith in St. Louis

 

[gruppo]

Can't help you with Dawes, but the combined shift/brake levers are used on the some of the best bikes in the world. I wouldn't want anything else on a bike.

 

[rek]

Hello All,

A newbie to cycling, I'm considering a Dawes introductory bike for $295 (sounds like a good deal for a new bike). It has a seemingly nice feature: shifter and brake lever are in one unit, so you can shift and/or brake without moving you hand position. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? It sounds like it could be an added complication thus requiring more frequent maintenance.

Any advice or comments on either Dawes or the shifter/brake feature would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Keith in St. Louis

Is this a road-style bike with the curved drop handlebars? If so, yes, the integrated shifters are one of the more significant modern innovations in road cycling.

This is a road-style integrated lever (click)

For flat-handlebar bikes, the positions of the brake and shifter levers will end up the same (brake lever parallel to the grip, and the two shifter paddles slightly above and below), even if they aren't just one unit.

This is an integrated lever (click)

This is them separate: brake (click) and shifter (click)

When you position the two separate levers next to each other, the ergonomics of the brake and shifter functions are the same as the integrated type.

The flat-bar integrated levers aren't much of a worry, they work just as nicely as the non-integrated type. However if something breaks in them (which is quite rare) you'll need to replace the entire brake/shifter lever as a single unit.

It also limits your brake upgrade options somewhat, as some brakes come with their own special lever (but the sort of brakes that would be hobbled like this would probably cost more than the whole bike anyway )