The Dura Ace bar end rear shifter just ate a detention spring this morning. I’m thinking of replacing them with Sora 9spd Brifters. Anyone using these for touring? I have never had brifters on any of my bikes so this would be a first for me. I’m favoring the Sora right now because as I have aged ,I’m spending very little time in the drops.

What do you all think? Go with the Sora brifters ($161) or spring $200 for another set of Dura Ace or go cheaper with the Microshift bar ends?

Since you say you're spending very little time in the drops, have you considered some style of flat bar? I changed all my bicycles to flat bars, either flat MTB bars or an inch or three of rise via a BMX-style bar. I get a little more width to the bars (better control, IIRC) and my old body likes the little extra height; the bars are about 54cm wide. You'll need new brake levers and shifters (minimum) along with handle bars and hand grips. If you're going to change you might as well consider all the options.

With good parts I'd expect it to be less money than the drop shifters. Good New 3x9 flatbar options are readily available including Microshift. I really like the shift/feel of Alivio 3x9 stuff.

Microshift R9 is also another option to keep the drops.

Sora 9 speed are pretty much like the previous generation of Tiagra 9 speed, trickle down.
Just make sure you get the paddle versions, not the old Sora thumb trigger versions that were 8 speed with Sora, but carried over for a year or two when Sora went to 9 speed, but then they changed them to the paddle version.

Sti's are just nice to use, smooth, light shifting, and compared to bar end shifters so easy to shift, so we tend to shift more often -- which has benefits on our legs and overall riding.
I've ridden on all kinds of shifters and love sti's, my 15 year old Tiagra 9 spd are still shifting fine, and really, Shimana sti's are in general very long lasting and reliable.

It's up to you if you like bar ends that much, but its a no brainer that sti's are easier on our hands and less hand moving around.
You mention not being in the drops that much, so consider the varied options of dropbars that have much shallower drop (distance from tops to drops) and shorter distance from tops to the curved part of the drops---without knowing what bars you have on your bike, you might appreciated more "compact" drops, they are really nice and a real change from older style dropbars -- again, we don't know what you have

dropbars with a slight flareout are also really nice, again there are tons of options out there nowadays due to the gravel popularity.
About ten years ago I put Salsa Cowbell dropbars on my tough touring bike, and the 12 degree flare of the shallow drops is great -- not too much, but just nice to make being in the drops more useful

oh, the one thing with triple front derailleur sti's is that there is an audible "clunk" when downshifting to a smaller chainring
Not silent like front friction shifting, so that takes getting used to.
My touring bike has hood friction front shifting and hood indexed (or friction if you want) rear shifting
Friction front shifting is still really nice, but sti front triple shifting is fine too, its just noisier at each shift (we don't shift that often really)

While you cant fine tune front shifting as much as with friction, shimano has a great feature called Trimming, basically "half shifts" with the front shifters, so if you are in the middle ring (I assume you have a triple) and you start to get towards the smaller cogs at the back, the chain can start to rub the fd, but you do a little "half shift" towards going to the big ring, and the fd moves over a smidge so that you don't have any rubbing -- super useful and intuitive to use

this trimming sort of half shift stuff has been on shimano sti's for ages, easily 20 years I reckon, and it just works.
I was recently borrowing a ten speed Tiagra bike with a double crankset, and the left shifter had this.
Tiagra is up to 11 speed I think now.

if you want to stay 9 speed, Sora 9 spd shifters are a great option.

Or you could go to ten speed easily and get 10 spd shifters, but I think with your 9 spd era rd, you might have to look into microshift or something.

Ive installed 9 spd microshift sti's on a bike, and the Sora have a nicer feel in my opinion, both hood feel and shifting, but I'm not up on the latest versions.
cheers, and good luck

the reasoning to going ten speed is having slightly closer jumps between gears for the same cassette range, or a wider range with similar jumps -- if the rd can do it
-- both nicer for older knees

but yes, devil is in the details, as shimano stuff , cable pull, changed a lot around the 9, 10 change period, including the mtb rd's and shifters being very diff than road stuff -- so just be wary and do proper research if considering this route

Thanks for the reply. The sweet spot for my comfort on this bike is on top of the hoods. If I did a flat bar I would either have to get a bullhorn or add bar ends to keep the same relative position, I have those on my MTB and it works. But I still want the option of having the drops . What I’m more inclined to do is get a gravel bar with much shallower drop than the 130 mm I have now.

thanks for the reply! I got a chance to try out a Sora setup this morning on a 6 year old bike at the weekly coffee and donut ride. .The shifting was both light and smooth. I immediately ordered a set of Sora brifters . I had thought about the 10 spd. If I was doing the more challenging touring I use to do I would probably make the change. But I’m not carrying that much gear anymore and doing more railtrails that hills.

well, there you go, done.
What bike do you have, and style/era/shape of dropbars?
Have you thought about slightly wider and or shallow drop bars with a bit of drops flare?
Now would be the time to do it, and heck while you're at it, put new housings on the bike too as you'll be mucking around with it all anyway.

If curious about the options of shallow dropbars, if you can, visit a bike store with actual models you can hold and see how they feel.
I did this when setting up my touring bike for a long trip, and it was useful to see how the one with a lot of drop flare out feel.
A wider drop stance is nicer for when on rough surfaces, more control, but some of the more extreme ones put the hoods at an inward leaning angle -- not my cup of tea but Ive never lived with them, only seen them on bikes, but my feeling was that I prefer my hoods more or less straight up and down. Mine might be very very slightly angled in with the Cowbells, but its fine.
The wider drop stance is nice on descents, I like it a lot, with a touring load (more leverage on downhills, even paved) or on dirt and single track when bikepacking, which I do with my bike also.

have fun with the changes you do.
I find the bars change kinda gives an old bike a new feel and look, fun to ride and as I've mentioned, has some real life benefits.
Also fun to do a different bar tape, again, makes the bike look and feel newer.
I really like how with wicked headwinds, shallower drops and slight flare makes the drops so much more realistic and helpful to use when battling a headwind.
cheers

A little late to the party but don’t worry about the durability of STI. The STI shifters on my touring bike have been on there since 2006 and have been problem free. I have other shifters on my commuter bike that aren’t quite as old but have far more mileage…around 20,000 miles…without issue.

Especially since the Sora levers and internals are really quite chunky. I'd be quite surprised if they broke without a major impact etc.

The bike is a 2009 Trek 520. Original Bontrager bars. They wouldn’t be so bad except for the attempt to make the drops more ergonomic with the sloping rise into the bends. Never been comfortable for me. I have 3x hands and the flats are too short a traditional shallow drop with a long flat in the drop works better for me (Like Nitto Grand Randonneur)
I’m in no hurry to change bars because I’m still readjusting to a road bike again. Who knows what will feel good in another 3 or 4 months? In the meantime I will keep an eye for a bar that might fit me better.

Shifters arrived this morning, pretty easy install.The XT Rear derailleur worked perfectly but front derailleur took some tweeking, I had to pinch the cage together about 1 mm and I mounted the cable at the bottom of the pinch screw to gain a smidge more travel from the shifter. I will probably change the front derailleur at some point to amore compatible road triple. It works fine for now.
Deore vee brakes work perfectly with the Sora 3x9 shifters (R3030)

Glad it's a pretty straightforward installation.
I've setup Tiagra triple fd a few times and following instructions it has been fine with brifters.
I suspect the Sora FD for triples is very similar, and one you could find easily (if yours really is finicky)

re your stock bars, one thing to notice with both them and the Nitto ones you showed, is how the drops have your hands (on the drops) kind of in line with the stem clamp on part of the tops.
My Cowbells, and I suspect other similar bars, put this drop area back more towards the rider, which I find more comfortable. Also, my bars are at about seat height, so these two things really make the drops so much more useable than other drops I've ridden.

I see that the Cowbell 3 bars have a slightly shallower drop and shorter reach also than the Nittos.
You can compare these dimensions with lots of other similar bars available now, and also keep in mind the "hands on drops" position -- I totally get what you mean about the curve of the drops on your bars, its something I really like about more horizontal real estate shaped drop bars like mine or the Nittos, but really do like the closer position of mine relative to the clamp on area of the tops.
Hope that makes sense.