Supposed to be doing a build like this with the exact same frame soon. Your videos have been helpful. Thanks for sharing!

Great video,i ride the same 105SC 1056 rear derailleur and its super smooth,i use the 105SC dual pivots and brakes levers and they are super strong calipers with cars brake shoes,what seatpost clamp pin do you use on your Performance Vittesse?

Too bad on the tires, that build is clean though 👌🏽

Great bike, great music!

I read an article a while back that stated most blowouts are caused because a portion of the tube was caught between the tire and the rim during installation. Then while riding, the tube works its way to the outside of the tire at which point the pressure causes it to pop like a balloon. To avoid this, put about 5-10 lbs. of air into the tire, then work your way around the tire by pressing it inward away from the rim so you can see the tube is not caught between the tire and rim. Once you are assured the tube is completely inside the tire, inflate as usual. Ever since I started this practice, I have not had a blowout.

Completely understand the setup but you can get some excellent sti shifters by Sensah for groupsets from 8-11 gearrs on the back. Currently building up a Koga miyata frame with the 9x2speed shifters.

I'm with you on the vintage steel, they do last longer than most other materials will. And duty cycles wearing out carbon fiber make's it difficult to buy an old carbon fiber with confidence, that you won't crash from component failure when your frame delaminate's on a downhill at 45 mph. I do have steel, aluminum and composite bikes, but steel is just more supple, IMHO, and will last. A few of the steel's are from the 60's and are holding up just fine. Thanx for the video's... ✌️❤️😁

No carbon bike gonna ever looks as good as a vintage steel bike.

I like dt shifters but they are super sketchy on the downhills and you cant shift out of saddle, super reliable and precise. Be carefull of thicker necklaces, they can be a hazard during crqshes

It's just a means of changing gear. Not likely to make any huge difference unless you're racing. Suntour friction shifters on my vintage carbon bike.

A lot of waffle.Why didn't you just change the quill stem for a shorter one?

700x38c are the same diamter as 650bx47mm. The only advantage is slightly lower rolling resistance - but just slightly. if you go to 700x40 or 45 the resistance is virtually identical. As mentioned, the comfort is best with the 650b tires.

Awesome videos,sorry about your exploding tyre,i won't ride Michelin again after my Lithion 2 tyres developed a hump and tread detachment,i have Chinese 28mm tyres now and they are excellent and better then Michelin.

Brother From Another Mother 💪💪 I do exactly the same. 👍👍 Down Tube Shifters & Rim Brakes for the win 🤙🤙

Great show! I'm of the opinion, if you don't ride a steel downtube shifter bike you're missing out. I own 2, both ridden weekly. Golden era of cycling.

I’m a ‘B’ level group rider and have been riding a down tube shifter bike for more than a decade. Zero issues. But then again B rides are more chill.

Hey mate, toss in a 10 speed cassette in friction mode 11-23. Works a treat with Suntour gpx

I've done several group rides, both road and gravel, with downtube shifters. But average was at most ca. 19mph, and maybe up to 20-21 on faster parts while riding in a bunch. The only issues I've had was when I tried to shift to quickly (and haven't adjusted the FD perfectly) and pushed off the chain to the outside, but I can just shift the chain back on to the oiter chainring 😅. But for steep hills, the downtube shifters sometimes felt like an advantage, because it's so much faster to shift down and up again by several gears.

BOTH of my vintage road bikes have downtube shifters! My 1986 Marukin M-420 has clamp-on Suntour shifters with a Cyclone front derailleur and a Cyclone 7000 rear derailleur; it originally came with ARx on both the front and rear, but I wanted the Cyclone groupset instead. Also, because I live in a hilly area, I had to swap out the original Sakae 52/42 crankset; I tried finding a chainring that would fit, but no luck. Hence, I now have a Sun Race 50/34 crank, which makes the bike usable. Oh, and the Marukin has an Ishiwata 025 CroMo frame. My Cannondale ST500, also from 1986, has downtube shifters too. However, unlike the Marukin, its downtube shifters are brazed on; i.e. they're hard mounted to the downtube. 1986 was the year Cannondale used the Shimano 600 groupset on the bike. It came with a 50/44/28 crank with Biopace rings. I had the middle ring swapped out; luckily, my LBS had a 34 tooth Biopace ring laying around, so it was a quick and easy change. Now has a 50/34/28 crank. My Cannondale has an Al frame. I had the middle ring swapped out for two reasons. One, because its size was so close to that of the big ring, overshooting shifts (i.e. shifting to the big ring when I really wanted to use the middle) was all too common; I'd overshoot, then have to drop back down to the middle ring, losing precious momentum. Two, I wanted the bike to be usable in my hilly area. Otherwise, my Cannondale is all original.

I know it’s blasphemy, but would you ever move the shifter for the rear derailer to the bar end? I’ve taken my old steel bike and made it a flat bar and thinking of putting a trigger or thumb shifter on the flat bar for the rear derailer.

At 6:50, how gravel is that gravel road to the left? With 32 mm tires if it’s hero gravel, have you ever tried to ride it?

Threadless stem conversions look ugly on steel frames. Quill stems are far more elegant.

It's ok until the group suddenly surges and/or you need to ride out of the saddle due to the surge/on a climb

Possible? Yes Safe? No Downtube shifters are a significant safety risk in fast group rides and races. I personally wouldn't want someone close enough to overlap my rear wheel mess with downtube shifters instead of having both hands on the bars.

Van Fleet Trail. Nice trail. I see you probably live closer to the south terminus of the trail. I do the trail several days a week from the north end up by Mabel. Yes, the paved trail has seen better days with all the tree roots popping up over the decades, but its still safer than most roads, so I choose to do my time trial training almost exclusively on this trail (also at Lake Louisa State Park which I really enjoy due to how low trafficked and wide the roads in that park are. Also, the rolling hills in there are Goldilocks perfect for TT training because they are just enough to put a hurt on your legs, but not big enough to where it ruins your average speed). The Clermont area is such a great place to ride bikes with all the hills. I mostly ride my 1992 Merlin titanium Extralight (with downtube shifters), but like most bike lovers, I am always on the lookout for my next dream 'lifetime' bike. Funny how my list always seems to come back to metal bikes. I flip-flop a bit between steel and titanium, but the one decision I think I came to is that I have enough road bikes. I think all my bikes from now on are going to be "gravel" or all-road. I think thats just where things are at nowadays with it getting more difficult to ride on the roads like we could back in the 1980's or before. Florida in particular is just a traffic nightmare on even the once quiet farm back roads. The Mason Exposure (most affordable of the options) and the brand new Battaglin Pave are the two steel bikes I am looking at, and Prova Mostro, Stanton Switchpath, or Rodeo Labs Flannimal, or custom geometry Seven Cycles are a few of the titanium bikes I have been looking at. Too many choices... I cannot decide. :-) I do like the weight advantage of Ti, but the beauty of a nicely painted steel bike is hard to resist.

Not going to lie, but video titles like ths ragebait me a bit (obviously effective title nonetheless). As much as I enjoy talking about the nostalgia of old tech, it does anger me a bit when people talk about down tube shifters as if they are the equivalent of knowing how to drive a vehichle with a manual transmission (stickshift). Not even remotely close. Down tube shifters are every bit as easy as STI shifters, if not even easier when in indexed mode as the "clicks" are so much more positive than spongey STI levers. As for the whole placement of the levers angle... I just dont get it. For the life of me, I just dont get why people think there is any big difference between the two. Well, actually there is a difference I have noticed over the years, and that is STI levers have made people incredibly lazy, and they hunt for gears incessantly (even on flat ground) which is an incredibly bad habit aside from being incredibly annoying. Riding right next to certain people who gear hunt every ten seconds is second only to squeeling disc brakes on the annoyance scale. You never saw this bad habit back when riders could easily climb hills in 42 tooth chainring with 21 or 23 max cassettes. It made for stronger riders because you only shifted when you really needed to instead of relying on huge cassettes and nonstop shifting every ten seconds. Retrogrouch rant over for now. Anyway, I still daily ride my 1988 Alan carbon fiber and 1991'ish Merlin Extralight titanium, both with the original Dura Ace and down tube shifters. Group rides, solo rides, time trial training, and hill training; I still prefer these bikes to my new aero bike with Campag Record and 60mm deep wheels as the old bikes are every bit as fast as my new bike (except when going downhill. 30+mph is when those deep section wheels really start kicking in). When I do the Horrible Hundred ride in Clermont, I always get way more attention with my old Merlin titanium than my new aero bike. This frustrated me a bit the first year I brought my new bike. I guess that in a sea of carbon bikes, yet another carbon bike rarely stands out. People almost always notice down tube shifter bikes.

Man, I was just watching Luis s' video on Cinelli gravel bike build thinking if you guys were close by. Nice that you're in the same area.

Man! This was awesome. I appreciate you coming down and riding with us. Yes, your bike definitely made an impression on many. Hope we get to do it again.👍🏾

Did the Diamondback Master find a new rider?

I once had a rider ask me about my '91 Trek 2100 Pro which had full Shimano 105 and downtube shifters. He asked, "What are those for?" while pointing at my shifters levers. I said, "Are you serious?" and yes he was, he hadn't seen them before. Curious, do you use just one hand to shift both levers? I always used my right hand for shifting and for grabbing a water bottle. I no longer have that Trek, I sold it to one of the owners of an LBS where the bike had originally been purchased.

Yooo always love a new upload!

"Downtube Shifters in Modern Group Ride!" I do that all the time. I get lots of kudos!

Nice meeting you on the ride 👍🏼

It's junk the 9 speed, 1800KM and 2 new cassettes . Teeth are complete gone

For non competitive riding, there's a subtle graceful nuance to using downtube shifters.

On a Vegas group ride a few years ago, one rider was checking out my old De Rosa SLX so I naturally thought he was admiring it. Eventually he said "How do you switch the gears?"

Girl's bag.

There's also someone in the internet that if you have an 8-10 speed hub and had an unsused 13t cog then you can use it as a spacer for 7 speed cassette. And he demonstrated it and it works.

This 69 year old bike maniac finds it very refreshing when a young cyclist likes the vintage look! I have become so bored with black everything on bikes. Since I live in the mountains of west Texas, my old legs like a super low climbing gear, while my inner speed freak wants to have a super high gear for descending. My solution is used Ultegra and 105 3x9 and 3x10 components, mixed with Deore, XT, and XTR rear derailleurs and cassettes. I get the aesthetics of polished aluminum combined with enormously wide gear selection. I still have a couple of 2x7 bikes with downtube shifters for short trips around town, but my back prefers STI shift/brake levers for longer rides. Also, I use a lot of quill-to-threadless adapters and polished Velo Orange stems to preserve the shiny bling and make setup changes much simpler. I do like low spoke count wheels with bladed spokes and aero rims, but I like to build my own and I usually use natural stainless steel and brushed aluminum rims with polished hubs. I’m currently dragging my ’73 Raleigh Grand Sport into the “modern” era with 3x9 Ultegra 6503 levers and crankset, XTR rear derailleur and 11-34t cassette. It already has been widened to 130mm droupout spacing, so no issues there. I haven’t decided whether to build 700c or 27” wheelset, but I will probably use 32 spokes for this one: something about the chrome rear triangle and fork legs with white frame and teal panels on the head and seat tubes just cries out for lots of sparkling steel spokes for group rides under the desert sun. Also keeping the Campagnolo Record seat post and Weinmann “999” center pull brake calipers: they look great, and the brakes have plenty of power. Whatever you ride, have fun with it. If you don’t like something about it, don’t be afraid to make changes. I don’t have anything against aluminum, titanium, or carbon frame sets (titanium is the only one I don’t have in my collection), but steel bikes are still my favorite: they just keep going, and going, and going! Ride far, ride fast, be happy!😎❤️

How is the pake frame? Looks nice for the price they go for

gorgeous bike you've there fella. reminds me of my first racer. BSA from the mid 80s. i do miss that bike.

I'm building a late 90s steel bike right now with relatively modern components, it has a 1" aheadset with a sleeve to use a modern stem.

where to buy chain rings for vintage cranksets?

8:50 If you have a 3d printer and a little CAD skill it would be trivial to print out a replacement cable holder. Love the review, the State 4130 is on my short list for a drop bar gravel bike. Love the color options they have too, so sick of one flat/matte color like so many manufacturers do.

Nice I should put back the old quill stem on my 1988 bianchi short story tho my boss at work got a hold of about 13 vintage bikes from an estate sale so he has given me the task to sell them 😮 I work at a mechanic shop an he’s not into bicycles - cannondale r800 - trek 2120 carbon -trek 2100 carbon -schwinn continental . so far

been having this fuji sagres frame from 1987 and you just found some dope shifters for me💪💪 thank you and dope ride!!

They look very much like the Michelin Power Competitions I have on my CFR3. Claimed to be 23C and they look about right. Beautiful Suntour components and low profile wheels by the way!