Big thanks to UK reader Alan Cook for sending in these images of the original Edco Ergo shifter levers with integrated Magura hydraulic road brake levers and center “push” calipers.
From the early nineties and designed around 8-speed Shimano Campagnolo cassettes, these weren’t on the market long and are currently getting a lot of interest on eBay and the like. The shifter amounts to not much more than a down tube shifter mounted at the top of the hoods with a fatter lever, making it impossible to shift from the drops, but showing that putting a hydraulic master cylinder inside a relatively normal size shifter lever isn’t all that hard to do.
As some commenters and pundits have suggested, combine a hydraulic brake with electronic shifting and you could very easily hack some buttons into the hoods…heck, Shimano’s remote pods that have found popularity on mountain bike mods could likely be integrated in pretty easily, placed where Campy’s thumb button is normally.
The left shifter will work with a triple chainring set up.
