Bar End Shifters - cable run

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Sharky

Guru
Location
Kent
A while back, I converted my focus to a TT bike by adding clipon tri bars and Sram TT shifters. The original sram rival levers were passed on to my Ribble training bike and am really pleased with that upgrade.

I never used the focus much for TT's as I prefer my fixed bike for timetrials. So I am going to convert my focus back to a road bike by putting the drops back on. Now I dont want to reclaim the sram rival levers from my ribble but instead going to use an old pair of 105's for the brakes and use the bar end TT shifters for the gears.

Has anybody done similar? The main question I have is how did you route the cables? Did you run the cables all the way up to the stem or have them coming from the lower part of the drppped bars? Did you run the cable internally and drill a hole for the cable to come out?

And lastly does it work ok or should I fork out the £150+ for a new set of levers. Seems expensive for just levers when the whole bike only cost £800 new when I bought it about 10 years ago.

Thanks
 

numbnuts

Legendary Member
My cable come out just before the first bend
 

Smokin Joe

Legendary Member
Most British riders favoured the cables running up to the bend, but if you look at old pictures of the continental pros who used them they took the cable right to the end of the bar tape -

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I would not drill the bars, and having used bar ends as in the picture indexing is not effected.
 
OP
OP
Sharky

Sharky

Guru
Location
Kent
Finally getting round to fixing my Focus up.

Have put drops back on and found a pair of shimano 105 brake levers (still to be cabled), but have installed the Sram TT gear lever into the bar end of the drops. When this was on the end of my Tri Bars, the lever was such that you pushed it forward (down) to change up the gears and back(up) to change down. But now when it is the end of the drops, pulling up to change down and pushing down to change up, seems a bit strange. It is the opposite of the way the old down tube levers worked.

So for those with bar end levers, do you push down or pull up, to move the gear into a higher gear.

Thanks
Keith
 

rogerzilla

Legendary Member
I take them from under the bar tape after 4-5 turns, then they make a smooth 180 degree bend back to the cable stops on the down tube. They don't get in the way of anything and you can peg your socks on them when you're on camping trips...
 
Last edited:

KneesUp

Guru
Finally getting round to fixing my Focus up.

Have put drops back on and found a pair of shimano 105 brake levers (still to be cabled), but have installed the Sram TT gear lever into the bar end of the drops. When this was on the end of my Tri Bars, the lever was such that you pushed it forward (down) to change up the gears and back(up) to change down. But now when it is the end of the drops, pulling up to change down and pushing down to change up, seems a bit strange. It is the opposite of the way the old down tube levers worked.

So for those with bar end levers, do you push down or pull up, to move the gear into a higher gear.

Thanks
Keith
My cable doesn't go under the bar tape at all - I'm not sure why I did it that way as I thought it did go under the tape. Anyway, they cross neatly in front of the bike and then again under the down tube, so they are the correct way round.

Left hand lever (front) lift to change up because front derailleur defaults to a low gear, so increasing tension moves it 'out'
Right hand lever (rear) lift to change down because rear derailleur defaults to a high gear, so increasing the tension moves it 'in'
 

KneesUp

Guru
They do pull a lot of cable, so I think they have a bit of delay. I kind of went to brifters for the one bicycle I would have used bar ends for. (Rando)
They pull the same amount of cable as any other SIS (in my case) shifter, otherwise the indexing wouldn't work. The older non-indexed derallieurs didn't pull so much cable IIRC, but all indexed stuff by the same manufacturer has to pull the same.
 
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