I have an 80s steel dawes racer with downtube shifters, I love them more than my 105 shifters on my new carbon bike. So easy to use and fine tune, plus it stops me changing gear everytime the terrain goes up or down by 0.001%
For true downtube friction shifters, only the rachet type seem to be the longest lasting, Suntour power shifter or Simplex Retrofriction seem to be good, the other makes seem to wear and don't hold in place over 50+ years.
Indexed downtube shifters are modern, different and slightly more complex.
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