Personally I wanted to like bar ends but found I really didn't like them in practice. They seemed to get bumped out of gear when parked, they banged my knees, they were not as convenient to reach as I expected. In fact to me they were no more accessible than down tube shifters. While I like really like STI brifters, I used down tube shifters on my last 31 day road bike tour. They worked out very well. I used Shimano 105 ones and found them to be more than adequate.