Quote Originally Posted by rij73 View Post
What kind of bars do you mean?

I meant that pushing the lever with my thumb to downshift hurts a lot after a while. I figured it's harder than the upshift lever because the chain is going up to a bigger cog instead of down to a smaller one...
Flat bars like you have. All flat bars have a straight center section. They then bend at an angle back toward the rider. To achieve a neutral position you may need a bar at steeper angle. You may also want to look at Grip Shift (twist) shifters.

Look at the yellow line in this photo. There's the neutral postion.

If you cannot locate a bar with the correct bend, both Dean and Seven make custom flat bars that are worth it. Sometimes drop bars are inappropriate for the application.