Old Bar End Shifters
 

Hello, I have a mismatched pair of bar end shifters that I took off of my old 3x8 Marin that had been converted to drop bars. They worked well there. I now have a new/used 3x9 bike that I'd like to convert to drop bars. I believe that they are just friction. I will attach pictures. One is Raleigh, and the other is Suntour. They each say the same company name on both sides of their lever. Will the right lever work on a 9 speed? Thank you!
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They are both SunTour shifters despite the Raleigh rubber cover. In my experience those old Suntour levers are great but do not pull enough cable to work with a nine speed cassette. Maybe someone else here has made them work, though - i am certain we will hear if so!

EDIT to dad tht I was always trying the Suntour shifters with a Campagnolo cassette. Maybe that explains why I was not able to get the shifters to work, as they apparently do for Shimano cassettes

I’m wondering if you can put something in the cable channel to make it slightly larger in circumference and get a bit more cable pull?

Thank you so much for your input. Can you recommend a reasonable pair of bar end shifters for a 3x9 set-up? I do not need indexed shifting. I'm used to friction, and it's less to break.

Microshift are nice. And not too expensive. Sometimes you can find them on ebay and they have a friction mode I think.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw...Condition=3000

A lot of good choices in the $30-50 range.

I have them on my daily driver before the one I ride now, they were put on for last Eroica in Cambria CA 2023, had to go analog and left it that way.

They work great in all conditions, Campy 9 speed triple, same SunTour bar cons, fantastic.


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I had Suntour bar end shifters with a 9 speed cassette on a bike for a while and it worked fine, but it might have just been luck that the intervals were perfect--I doubt there is much room for error. I certainly didn't do anything clever to make it work, it was just a bin build that I threw together.

"Intervals" don't matter for friction shifting (which is what those shifters do).

If you set everything just right it may work.

As jdawg mentioned, Mircoshift, and also Shimano both make ones that will certainly work. I have experience with the Shimano bar end shifters. They work either as friction or indexed with the turn of a d-ring.

As I posted in the other thread, I’ve used these up to 10 speed with no issues, using Suntour and Shimano derailleurs.

Sorry, bad use of terminology on my part, I wasn't thinking about index (because I never think about index), I was thinking about the total amount of cable pull versus the total interval from 1-9.

Also of note - 8-10 speed cassettes all have the same overall width, so shifter throw shouldn’t be an issue unless you’re using a SRAM 1:1 or more modern Shimano derailleur that requires more pull.

I use Suntour bar ends like this on 5 of my bikes that use 9-speed cassettes. Not a problem at all. They work just fine.

Another option is the Dia-Compe ENE shifters, which can pull enough cable for ten speed cassettes. At Velo Orange: https://velo-orange.com/products/dia...r-end-shifters

Another successful 9 speed/Suntour barcon user here. PX-10 with an Ultegra rear derailleur. Shifts great.

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