Hi there

I would like some help and guidance. I am building up a CycloX bike and want to get some barend shifters (the ones that slot into the end of the drop bars). First off I am not too sure which ones to get (or the best place to get them) and secondly how to run the cables on the bars and onto the frame stops – pictures would be useful here.

Any help greatly appreciated.

Adrian

There's an easy answer to all of those questions. Use STIs.

atparry,
Bar end shifters are pretty easy to get hold of – CRC has them, as does wiggle although don't hold me to that. Your LBS should be able to source some for you.

I would advise getting some nice ones, XT or something like that. Your great great grand children will still be using them when you have long since shuffled off this mortal coil.

As for cable routing the cable normally sits under the bar tape until approximately half way up the drop and then you loop the cable out and around in front to route it down the downtube. You can kind of see it on here:

However, as a CX rider myself I would advise against this cable routing as it would be very easy to tangle this. You could try routing the cable right the way up the bar under the tape and bringing it out with your brake cables. I don't know if this wouold produce some nasty kind of satanic cats cradle of cables.

XT? Bar end shifters? Really?

There are Dura Ace and a cheaper groupset, could be Sora IIRC, not any of the MTB groups.

And they're really designed for TT bikes where the bars are usually drilled for cables, running cables under the bar tape will be pretty messy. Talk to someone like St John's street cycles, they'll know all sorts about this sort of thing!

Many of the bar end shifters on the online stores are NOS from pretty old touring groupsets. I'm pretty sure my Dads Dawes Galaxy has a set of XT or XTR ones, might be dura ace though

A quick search of Wiggle shows they have Dia Comp and Dura Ace:
– Dia Comp £35
– Dura Ace £57

For the handlebar try getting a dedicated touring bar. These are often drilled for an internal cable routing or have a groove that seats the cable neatly under the tape.

Personally I would run STIs for CX.

Enough of the misinformation already.

Bar end shifters exist in Dura Ace, Ultegra, Campag Sram as well as Diacompe friction shifters.

Choose the flavour that matches your number of gears/budget Ribble are good for Shimano shifter very cheap but not stella delivery times.

Exit the cable before the brake lever ideally the shimano shifters come with instruction, at a pinch just check the Shimano website for a PDF or perhaps Sheldon Brown as a reference.

Barcons work fine just not quite as convenient as STI but they are cheap and the Shimano shifters offer friction as well as indexed shifting if that floats your boat.

Seeing how expensive STI's are at the moment my next CX bike will likely run bar cons possibly mounted by the stem using Paul component adaptors.

Essentially you can run Barcons and Shimano brakelevers of Ultegra quality for about £70 a chunk less than STI's.

The only Ultegra bar end shifters are old 8 speed ones. All 9 and 10 speed Shimano ones are Dura Ace only.

There was a bar end shifter in XTR many moons ago but it went on the end of bar ends on an MTB bar rather than in the end of a drop bar.

There was a bar end shifter in XTR many moons ago but it went on the end of bar ends on an MTB bar rather than in the end of a drop bar.

Also required you to have a normal trigger shifter which the remote plugged into, so not really quite the same thing. Was known as a Satellite Shifter IIRC.

The XTR shifter was a supplememntary mechanism to the main shifter though wasn't it?

Rather than a dedicated bar con shifter IIRC.

Raoul speaks the truth. I generally route cable all the way under the bar tape and then out. Depending on frame size you may struggle with the length of the inner doing it this way though.