Changing gear levers

[1FJEF]

(08-09-2013, 05:22 PM)GYBlue Wrote:  Hey I am new to the site and also to road bikes.
I have a Rayleigh Pro Race bike and find the gear levers on the down tube a real pain and get an occasional wobble when changing gear.
Cheers

Are you going to keep the drop bars or convert it to flat or low rise bars? How many rear gears? Do your shifters say Shimano, Suntour or ? on them. Here are some shifter pics too.
You'll need new shift cables & housing, starts at about $20 US for something decent.
Then you'll put two cable housing stops (screw in, where your shifters used to be), about $25 US the pair. These will capture the housing that runs from the new shift location to the old shifter area, from this point the new shift cables will continue, naked, as they were before the change.
The real money is usually in the shifters. If you keep your bars and brake levers, and you want to maintain your indexed rear shifting then the main choice will be bar-end shifters, mounted at the bar ends or on thumb mounts, like nfmisso shows in the 2nd picture. If you now have Shimano shifters you could relocate them with thumbies like these but it might look & feel awkward on your bars.
I know it doesn't look cool, but I would rather have my shifters on the stem than die messing about with drop tube shifters, you could use the IRD set up like this. I think you need IRD levers (nice) too.