b-man i mean this this in the best possible way - you are an absolute kook. dude you have spent untold hours with some jb weld and a dremel tool hacking up not one but two perfectly good bikes to save 100 grams. moreover, you seem to be the rather quaint but still disturbing delusion that somebody else might actually want to do the same thing !! you are a freak, and i am very glad you are out there - the world needs more guys like you, brother.

Profile makes an STI adapter that is a splitting mechanism that allows two types of shifting, ie. a aero bar shifter as well as a STI. I was thinking of doing this with my TCR road bike but the Profile adapter requires a downtube boss which isn't on the TCR frame. Don't think I'll try to modify it like you did though!

Bunnyman:

Doesn't this qualify as a "Frankenbike"?

Burns

I don't know if they make them in different diameters, BUT why not just buy a downtube clamp for the shifters? Other than being not quite as attractive, it'd save a lot of time. Check out Loose Screws, formerly the Third Hand, to see if they've got them.

I used one on my Schwinn World Sport in 1989 to make it look more like a racing bike since I was only 14. How a bike looked was, and still is, of utmost importance!! I also took off the safety brake levers and replaced them with aero hoods to do the same thing.

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Brandon Marsh - Website | @BrandonMarshTX | RokaSports | 1stEndurance | ATC Bikeshop |

You could call it a Frankenbike, except that I am not combining two materials that would make a battery. But this was merely an exercise for me, as I am building some absolute strange stuff in my garage.

 "dude you have spent untold hours with some jb weld and a dremel tool hacking up not one but two perfectly good bikes to save 100 grams".

The time: .5 hours cutting the old boss and grinding the place for the new one. It took all of five minutes to apply the boss. I did compress it once and lost the boss (when installing the shifter); however, that only took a few minutes to apply it again.

The "perfectly good bikes": The old steel bike was just that- old. It had no good life left to it, and has been the base of other projects. I also did not want to call Nova Cycle Supply just for one down tube boss. My Raleigh is dispensable. It has served me well for what it is, but it will be rendered unsaleable by the virtue of me having ridden many, many miles on it and then to be raced in things like crits, etc.

Also, the Raleigh could end up being repainted once again and the down tube boss removed and nobody would even know it if it were to be properly puttied after removal. I took maybe .5mm or less metal from the spot.

I am just old school on the STI thing- I have only liked it for the right hand shift, not for the left shift. I find the extra weight a bit superfluous for just shifting the chainrings. It burns me that only a very few companies give people the choice for whether or not they wish to use downtube shifters.

You never know if someone may want to do this; I do not recommend this for the faint of heart or the mechanically inexperienced. I am a bit fearless this way. I have chopped up my ITM Dual F1 bars to get my Campy Record non-Ergo levers to route correctly, as well.

I would prefer being called eccentric rather than a kook, thank you very much :^)

Wow! Sounds like alot of work. You could have just put in a small hole and snapped in a riv-nut, and used a bolt on style shifter boss like Pinarello and Cannondale does, if you are concerned about the hole, no worries, the braze-ons create a much larger area of weakness from heat, and if they are riveted like the Colnago's are, well then they too needed a rivet to attach the cable stop. These shifter bosses are about $5 and the rivnut is probably another $1 or 2. I'm pretty certain no one would take it upon themselves to go to such lengths. Trek's OCLV frames still use shifter bosses. So do Steel Colnago's, 2002 Felt Road frames, and it is an option on Merlin and Seven Bicycles, not the standard equipment the once were, but still around if it affect's your next buying decision.

If they'd just bring back Road Grip Shifters, then you could have all of your weight savings on the bar. CX-DT for all!

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https://www.kickstarter.com/...bike-for-the-new-era

You 'da bunny! I mean, You 'da man!

You must be related to my father-in-law. He will spend untold dollars and hours doing a project "his way" regardless of the outcome or the myriad of simpler alternatives. One of these days both of you are going to come up with something patentable.