Campag flat bar set up

[Jonathan M]

Thinking of putting flat bars on my do anything road bike, but looking at the genuine Campag stuff, there are 2 problems that are making me think twice:

• The bike currently has Xenon which isn't compatible with the rest of the campag world, soI'd end up forking out on most of a groupset to get this to work

• The genuine Campag flat bar set shifters are very expensive

So my thoughts start to wander, and I wondered about using either thumbies (some hope of getting them) or bar end shifters, both on a friction setting, probably from shimano, and if I use the bar end shifters fitting them to the end of some old but perfectly shaped Onza CWA bar ends that I have stashed away somewhere in the shed.


Am I barking up the wrong tree, or could this be an option?

 

[PpPete]

Thumbshifters come up on fleabay occasionally - but never seen Campag ones.

Friction downtube shifters will be your lowest cost option.

Bar end shifters need tube diameter greater than that of typical bar ends (just read that sentence again and it sounds ridiculous - but it's true)
I'm not familiar with that Onza model of bar ends - so you may just be OK

Bullhorn bar would be ok with bar end shifters - but you might not get the brake levers to fit past the bend...

 

[Will1985]

The bike currently has Xenon which isn't compatible with the rest of the campag world, soI'd end up forking out on most of a groupset to get this to work

Rubbish - all the 9s and 10s groupsets post -02 are interchangeable.

 

[Jonathan M]

Rubbish - all the 9s and 10s groupsets post -02 are interchangeable.

In its first year or so Xenon wasn't compatible with the higher groups, a problem since rectified. But the group was purchased when Xenon was in its first year on sale, so at the least it would mean adding a new rear & probably front mech. Everything else is compatible, so maybe my statement of buying a new gruppo is wrong, but when you consider that the campag flatbar set up is in the region of £150 for veloce, a new rear mech would be adding at least £40,plus the cassette (my Xenon is 9 speed) and possibly thate fornt mech too.


My thoughts about thumbies (although I never used decent quality ones) were that they have a friction option don't they? If friction then they wouldn't need to be Campag either.

Agree down tube shifters would be an option, but as this bike is the one I use around town I'd like the ability to shift with hands on the bars.

I have thought about some downtube shifters with the Paul thumbie conversion, but I'm a little undertain if they are still available.


Think the Paul part is still available, but for the $$ for parts I'm not sure that the cost would be much better than biting the bullet and buying campag flat bar kit.

http://www.paulcomp.com/mtthumbie.html

 

[Will1985]

Xenon was introduced in 2003, after Campag had standardised pull ratios and parallelogram geometry to make the whole range interchangeable. I think you're misreading that Xenon contained a "different indexing mechanism" to the rest of the 9s range. This was the more basic ESCAPE mechanism which also featured in the 2007/8 v2 Ergos of Mirage/Veloce/Centaur

 

[MartinC]

Yes, I'm pretty sure your mechs would work with the flatbar controls. They're only Euro 130 here too http://www.bike24.net/1.php?pgc=171...2=0;mid=0;ID=a8212750f4b8309827e7d5c8de755bcb