Bikepacking – Handlebar harness with drops and Shimano STI

Has anyone managed to get a handlebar harness to work with older style/Tiagra STI shifters? (The ones with the cable that comes out of the side)

What did you go for and was it just a case of maneuvering around the cables?

I’ve got a Wildcat Gear Mountain Lion and found it’s just too tricky. I found an alpkit airlok xtra drybag (13L) was fine with straps on it’s own.

**long winded story for quick answer alert**

A neighbour donated me a stack of (mainly CTC) cycling mags a few weeks ago, I was leafing through one last night, and there was a question about how to fit a bar bag with STIs. The, rather elegant I thought, solution was to use v-brake noodles as the cable exits the STIs, thus keeping them out of the way. Wouldn’t work with the narrowest bars or the widest of luggage, but a nice idea.

ctc say v brake noodles work ok-ish

I use v-brake noodles on my STI (105 5600) equipped road bike and use a traditional type of bar bag. The bars are 44cm and the bag is mounted on R&K standard width support prongs. It works okay but the cables have to be very long to reach around the bag and the shifters touch the side of the bag when changing gear. If I didn’t already have the bar bag, I probably wouldn’t have bothered but the bag is handier than a saddlebag for accessing snacks, phone etc on the move and the map window is useful.

V-brake noodles would probably be quite beneficial in guiding the cable away from a strap on (matron!) style of bar bag. Just watch the width when changing gear.