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So I just bought the 2015 Fuji Touring Bike and it came with bar-end shifters. I do a lot of city riding so having STI "Brifters" is really convenient in hilly city traffic.

The problem is my Fuji Touring comes with a 9x3 Deore rear derailleur and a Altus front derailleur. The only 9x3 STI brifter I could find was Shimano Sora.

Now technically the Deore/Altus groupset is for mountain biking and the SORA is for Road bikes. Can I put the SORA "Brifters" on the the Deore/Altus groupset?

My Fuji Touring Specs Here: http://archive.fujibikes.com/archivebikes.php?prodid=3591&prodname=Touring

Thanks!

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    Since you don't mention what model Fuji, you have to make sure your brakes are compatible with your new brifters. STI's are generally incompatible with linear pull brakes.
    – mikes
    Aug 27, 2015 at 23:27
  • Sorry it's the 2015 model. Details in the link I sent. It does have linear pull brakes... I'll have to look. Thanks.
    – DigitalMC
    Aug 28, 2015 at 3:36
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    So for the record the SORA shifters worked great with the 9 speed Deore Derailleur as well as the Altus 3 speed front derailleur. Now this was in part because the Altus has bottom pull cable routing. But can be routed wither way. Bottom allowed it to integrate smooth. Also oddly enough the linear brakes worked great. Now after talking to the mech at the bike shop it had to do with the fact that these brakes had shorter arms and were build for use with road levels. So this isn't universal compatibility with linear pull... this was a favorable exception.
    – DigitalMC
    Sep 1, 2015 at 13:05

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For the rear, a 9 speed Sora brifter will be fine -- 9 speed cable pull is the same between Shimano road and mountain.

For the front, the bike has a Shimano Altus front derailleur. You'll need to swap a road triple front derailleur for that (make sure to check the spec sheet to ensure your crankset's chainring sizes are within spec (not a problem) and the difference between the largest and smallest chainring are within spec (can be a problem) ) -- the bike you have has a tooth difference of 22t for the crankset, which is slightly higher than the 20t that the Sora FD-3403 or FD-3503 is rated for.

There are triple front derailleurs (e.g. Microshift R539) which will have the right front tooth difference though (comes in braze-on and band mounting, depending on the type of mount on your frame).

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  • Awesome thanks! I've update my question to reflect the Altus. Thanks for the heads up, I'll look into these options.
    – DigitalMC
    Aug 27, 2015 at 15:38

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