AEO

I looked at the levers, and all it says is "SL-BS77" on the rubber grips.

other text on it: SHIMANO, Japan, SIS <-> fric., light action.

It doesn't say "Dura-Ace" anywhere.

clasher

I'd like to see the same style of levers that the dura-ace downtube shifters use made into bar ends. I might just do that with the rivendell pods now that I think of it. Then you can have your DA levers, mostly.

I remember when I bought my nine speed bar cons, they came in the dura ace box, but didn't really specify the actual parts as DA, but it stands to reason if you're making one bar-con, make it to the highest quality since it's a niche item anyway. IDK...

|3iker

Any reason why there are no lesser model bar-cons like 105, tiagra or sora? Maybe not enough demand?

TimeTravel_0

I'd agree w/ clasher's reasoning.

Jeff Wills

Not enough demand. Brifters are still a much easier sell in the bike shop than bar-ends. "See! All you need to do is flip your fingers and you shift!" It's not until you're stuck in West Antler Branch, Saskatchewan, with a broken brifter that you'd want a bombproof shifting system.

mikethezipper

I'm Sorry, but I'm gonna call the whole pricing thing a massive load of BS. Saying that it is all about supply and demand is a load of crap. How can a company like Velo Orange make a square taper bottom bracket with italian threading and sell it for $30???? And yet a company like shimano .... takes them over $60 for a flippin shifter... Have you taken one apart? Well of course they don't break, there really isn't anything to them. Don't tell me that the demand for what velo orange sells is more than shimano's crap which is sold in every bike shop there is. The prices shimano sells their crap for is solely because there are only a couple people making them. I see stuff all the time with significantly less demand than things in the biking industry that require infinitely more machining and closer tolerances, and yet they sell for almost nothing.

Case in Point: https://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s...dProduct=12390 This thing is $37 and as far as the number of parts, the tolerances on it, and the amount of machining necessary, it kicks the #%$& out of Shimano's shifters (any of them).

I have taken apart and re-assembled most of Shimano's shifters (including tons of the "impossible" STI's) and have to say that their pricing has NOTHING to do with how expensive or hard it is to make their stuff.

As far as assembling costs, there is nothing more expensive than having to assemble by hand so saying that their STI levers have to use special jigs to be assembled... well that shouldn't make it more expensive! That would GREATLY increase their output so any cost incurred in the assembling jigs/"ROBOTS" would easily be recovered.

By the way, that helicopter was assembled by hand (most likely)

Jeff Wills

Fine. Set up your business and sell bar-end shifters. No one is stopping you. If they're as good as Shimano and cheap as you say you can make them, the world will beat a path to your door.

clasher

They are priced to what the market will bear, and as we've noted previously bar-ends are a niche product. Many things in the cycling world are priced that way, especially since the product is highly developed and refined. Companies like Velo Orange are a response to that kind of thing. Besides, there are significant numbers of cyclists that want to pay more for their stuff, the associations were made long ago that the best performance is obtained by spending the most money, every year.