tangent – i got a few questions for you….
summerwastin- here’s some sorta answers…
1) in the pic am running an XTR shifter (using hope ‘matchmaker bracket’) + hope tech lever this works really well together…
As an additional bonus is that the reservoir of the tech lever offers a nice flat surface to rest your hand on when riding along depending on what angle you have it set at. I haven’t tried it, but am pretty sure the match makers are swappable left to right (i.e. the same either side).These brackets only work with XTR shifters (I think).
2)before I got the XTR+mounts I had squeezed on an XT underbar shifter and hope tech lever it was a but cramped but just about worked OK for me–but probably not as well as they ought to!
3) When I was using older hope brakes, (before getting underbar shifters going) I also tried barend shifters ( with the cable hidden underneath bar tape). This was worked OK for shifting, but was pretty strange as they tended to be pointing at weird angles and I found it all a bit disconcerting. Couldn’t get my XT thumbshifters to work near the reservoirs of my old hope brakes either
Hope that helps, can always take a detailed pic and put it on here, if you need some clarification…