I'm looking for a commuter, steel. Maybe some touring in its future too.

…or you know, the limit screws.

that's crazy talk!

or you could remove the cable from the housing, pull it all the way through the barrel on the der, clamp it in the gear you need, and coil up the rest. mainly if you need something quite low.

You could clamp the cable to a water bottle boss, get a small child to run along side you pushing the derailleur to the correct point, or not run pre 2011 105 STI front shifters.

What is the story on this year's 105?

The front shifter certainly feels a million times better. A much softer action. Hopefully Shimano have sorted the reliability issues out.

I've had an STI shifter break on a longish tour before.

• i had the housing shred on my bar-end shifter on a tour. $hit got jammed up but good, to the point that i had to unwrap my bar tape and swap in my front shifter housing, sacrificing front gears, to finish the tour.
• i resurrected a "broken" ultegra brifter from the recyling bin in 2007 - it's still going strong.
• i rode across ontario on a set of tubular tires.

lesson learned? live your life, ride your bike. sometimes $hit breaks, so you deal with it

I think your missing the fact that I am more or less agreeing with you. My only point was that given the choice I would chose friction shifters out of OCB bins over STI for longer tours. I seem to kill shifters, especially Shimano ones. Maybe its my lot in life. But overall I agree with you.

The front shifter certainly feels a million times better. A much softer action. Hopefully Shimano have sorted the reliability issues out.

Cool. I have older 105 on my road bike and have always found the front shifting on the touchy side.

• i had the housing shred on my bar-end shifter on a tour. $hit got jammed up but good, to the point that i had to unwrap my bar tape and swap in my front shifter housing, sacrificing front gears, to finish the tour.
• i resurrected a "broken" ultegra brifter from the recyling bin in 2007 - it's still going strong.
• i rode across ontario on a set of tubular tires.

lesson learned? live your life, ride your bike. sometimes $hit breaks, so you deal with it

Just because you made do with what you had doesn't mean that someone who is setting out to buy something for a purpose should buy something stupid.

…or you know, the limit screws.

wow, you're like some sort of bike mechanic guru.