These are the best shifters you'll ever set a hand on. There's nothing like them, and if you think your old SunTour barcons are the bee's knees, bless you, but you're living in dreamland.

Their magic is the Power Ratchet inside, which we tell you all about on page 59. The shifting is smooth, light, simple, fast, and precise. Indexing, in comparison, seems raucous and archaic. They work with any derailleur, and freewheel, cassette, chain, etc., so you have the peace of mind that comes from knowing you'll never be midway between gears and powerless to do anything about it.

FLASH! SRAM's 9sp mountain rear derailers don't seem to work with this shifter. The movement of the derailer changes dramatically from the 8th to the 9th position. Why'd they do that? Anyway--just don't use these with that derailer. OK, now back to the description:

There's a short learning curve, but don't let that scare you. Everybody learns fast with these.

The downtubers come just the shifters, because you don't need all the other monkey business. You'll still need cables and a little piece of housing, though. You may have them, your LBS definitely does, and we definitely do, too.

Here is an instructional video showing you how to mount them to the down-tube boss.Click here to watch.