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Josh
Ah thanks! Let me tell the story of the bar end shifter...
I was less than 1000 miles into my TransAm ride, so that's well under a quarter of the way to the Pacific, and I ended my day in Marion, Kentucky. I'd quickly become a loyal follower of the gas station soda fountains, the kind that give you a bucket of syrup for barely a dollar, and was attempting to manoeuvre my very heavy touring bike with one hand while drinking with the other. The predictable occurred and I dropped my bike hard, and definitely swore very loudly.
The damage was twofold: firstly, the hooks on one of my Carradice panniers had snapped clean off, and I had no spares. This was fixed with zip ties, which lasted right through to Colorado where a new set had eventually been mailed to me. The more pressing issue was that the right hand bar end shifter had snapped off in the fall, meaning I was unable to shift the rear mech. Given the state of the hills around those parts, this was a Big Problem.
I spoke to the (slightly scary) pastor of the church I was sleeping in that night, and he made clear that there wasn't a bike shop anywhere nearby, let alone one that would stock bar ends. Instead, he suggested I head to Riley's metal shop of the other side of town to see what they could do...
I showed the burly man in the very serious workshop the problem, and he gestured that he could work something out. He took a huge drill and made a hole in the stump of the shifter, then tapped a thread and stuck this big old bolt in the end. $20 and ten minutes was all it took and I was back on the road. I wrapped the bolt in some Gorilla tape to make it a bit comfier, but other than that it needed no attention for the rest of the summer and worked without a flaw.
Two years on, I want to repurpose this shifter for this build, as it's a nice reminder of the challenges of that trip and Iohan's videos were one of the main things that pushed me to take the leap to do the TransAm in the first place.
It's a 9 speed shifter so it'll have to be in friction mode, which will take some learning with the 10 speed setup, and I might add a bit of clear tubing over the bolt, but otherwise it's good to go.