I have the same exact bars. I ride the Raleigh Port Townsend, and I have 5,000 miles. You'll love it.

So during my ride yesterday I fell over on the side of the street. Nothing major, just a small scratch on the knee and the handle bar. The pannier took most of the hit, but the left shifter was smacked as well. It still works fine, but it's no longer tight at all with the bars. It feels like it's the cable it self that holds it in place and I can rotate it about 30 degrees each side.
Does that mean its interior attachment broke?

It probably just needs to be tightened.

See:
http://techdocs.shimano.com/media/te...9830628723.pdf

If I recall correctly, you need to tighten turning allen wrench counter clockwise, not clockwise. After you remove the shift lever, the allen wrench goes into a hexagonal hole in the bolt (number 4 in figure). When you remove the lever, be careful that part number 2 in the figure stays in the same position when you reassemble.

I am not sure if yours is an 8 or 9 or 10 or other speed, this link is for the 9 speed but I think all are the same general construction.

I needed to loosen mine to fit the bike into an Amtrak box. Not a big deal. You can see how mine is turned so I could get it into the box.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=341044

Great, that did the job. Thanks for the diagram.

So do you think it's in purpose that the threading is opposite on the left shifter? So in case of such hit, it just un-tighten itself?

No, you are turning the bolt from the backside, that is why it turns that way. Both shifters tighten with counter clockwise.

you can fit a different drop bar .. Randonneur bend ? the flare is in the drop not the ends..

I have Nitto Noodle bars now, the drops are also parallel ..

My road bike, also with bar end shifters, has Nitto Dirt drops ,
a more gentle flare than the WTB design ..

I love bar-end shifters. Once you get used to them, I'm sure you will like them to. The same is true for drop bars. I have bikes with bar-end, down-tube and STI shifters and prefer the bar-ends to other options.

Dohh...that makes so much sense now!
=]

I was looking for some other information, and ran across this one...
No problem with the Sojourn and whacking the shifters on stuff.
One problem is that if you sweat a lot, that sweat tends to run down your arms, down the handlebars, winds up on/in the shifters, and corrodes things. That's a longer-term problem, not immediate.
The stock wheels on my Sojourn were not adequate. The rear wheel lasted about 4,000 miles, was replaced under warranty, and the replacement lasted about 500 miles. I had a friend build me up a rear wheel with a Chukker rim 36 hole, think I replaced that hub once, but have about 34,000 miles on the bike now. I think I'm on my 3rd set of barend shifters, if I remember right. This was the wheels from 3-4 years ago, and I have no idea how they compare to what is currently used.

I'm looking for more responses to ch3's question about whether bar-end shifters will take the hit if the bike falls. My Surly Trucker tipped over this morning, and the front bar-end shifter is now bent inward toward the frame, even though--really--all the bike did was tip over. It wasn't thrown, nothing (like a car) impacted it. I leaned it against something and thought it was stable, and I was wrong.

The shifter, however, is not loose. It isn't cracked. It still shifts, but the angle for my hand is now all wrong and very awkward.

No one seems to have had this experience, and I've searched all over the Internet, coming up with zilch.http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=406485 The shifter is as bent toward the frame as it looks in the picture.

Looks like it simply rotated in the handlebar. Are you sure it's bent? Have you tried fixing it?

All levers/brifters/shifters are subject to damage when a bike strikes a hard surface. Grip shifters are, however, impervious to this type of damage IME. MTB brake levers sometimes warn in installation instructions to not over-tighten, so that the lever can rotate around bar in the event of impact rather than sustain damage.

remove the lever from the pod the expander bolt loosens turned CW/ RH with a 6mm hex wrench.

turn the pod straight up and then tighten it CCW/ left. put the lever back in the pod.

Thanks, seeker333. I firmly gripped the shifter--not at the "delicate" end, i.e., the lever itself, but at the "works" end where it meets the handlebars--and slowly, slowly rotated it into a more normal position.

This must have affected cable tension, because my usually smooth shifting sounds like grinding, and the derailleur struggles to move the chain. It seemed that this means the cable needs more tension? So I turned the barrel adjuster one-quarter turn to the right. Still a problem. One more quarter-turn, and I couldn't tell whether the problem was worse or the same, so tomorrow I'm taking it in to the shop before I break something.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=406530

Thanks, fietsbob. As it turns out, it appears that I don't have to get into the workings. The manager of Joe Bike, Portland, Oregon, who sold me the bike, said that the first thing to try would be to firmly grip the shifter (not the shifter itself, but rather the workings where it joins the handlebars), as I describe above in my answer to seeker333, and slowly, carefully rotate until the shifter is in its normal position. This appears to have worked.

The next thing to do is to get the cable tension back where it belongs, and although I turned the barrel adjuster two quarter turns (one turn, test, another turn, test), my derailleur is grinding and struggling, so tomorrow it's into the shop.

I'm going to guess the problem is where the shift cable comes out of the shifter and goes into the cable housing that's attached to the handlebar. When your bike fell and the shifter got twisted, it jerked the cable sideways. Maybe kinked the cable, maybe just pulled the housing out of the little socket it's supposed to nest in. Should be an easy fix; possibly you'll want a new cable.

If the shifter was installed by a bike shop, note: it's the mechanic's fault. He didn't tighten the shifter enough.

Thanks, rhm! I took it into the shop and had the barrel adjustment made by someone who knows what they're doing. However, your point is interesting and I'm going to cut and paste it into my notes about this so that if the shifting gets rough again, I can suggest your idea to the mechanic.

The shop where I bought the bike is in Portland, Oregon, so the mechanic who put the bike together isn't going to be my regular one here in Seattle. However, the Portland shop's customer service is very good, and the manager there (who may be the one who put the bike together; I'm not sure), did mention that they usually do keep the shifters slightly loose for just such mishaps as this, so that the shifter can be hand-rotated back into place with a bit of effort.

But the cable-kinking or the cable being pulled a little out of its socket--mentioning that to the Seattle shop will make me sound sooo savvy!

I think BigBlueToe has the right attitude -- just about every common shifting option is totally fine, and it's pretty easy to adapt from one to the other.

I happen to prefer bar-end shifters, but I wouldn't say that's based on some truly rational personal evaluation of the different options. Perhaps the first touring bike to capture my imagination had them, and that set my preference... I really don't know. But, if my bike were magically converted to brake-lever shifters, I'd be perfectly content with them as well.

I hate bar end shifters. Hated them in the '70s, hate the modern SIS compatible-and-shifting-like-a-champ ones. Ii is an unnatural act for me to shift from the bar end. Lots of other people like like them, and rightly so.

FWIW, in 2006 I had a custom bicycle (my Arvon1) built for touring along the Savannah Way in Australia. The Brooks saddle, drop bars, bar end (Sun) shifters, brake handles, front derailleur and cranks were all purchased used. I figured they would all stand the test of time, and they have. They are simple and effective.

One day in Cairns a "round Australia" tourer stopped into the bicycle shop to replace his brifters which both died on the Cape York run (and he went both North to the tip, then back south to Cairns in only 1 speed). The bike shop showed my old bar end shifters and he bought a new set. That fellow then completed his trip around Australia with a "slight detour" from Kalgoorlie to Laverton and along the Great Central road to the Olgas and Ayer's Rock, then south (on the bitumen) to Adelaide.

Drop bars and bar end shifters worked for him, and they still work for me.

+??? for bar ends. My road bike has downtube shifters and I hate that (not to the point of modifying that beauty) and while STI/DoubleTap/ErgoPower shifters are cool they just aren't as practical for touring except maybe in areas with lots of bike shops and even then I would still rather have simple brake levers and simple shifters.

I wish I could somehow modify some of those nifty "return to center" aero shifters for 9 speed, I know SRAM/ZIPP makes em and I am sure there are some others. Or better yet build a whacky E-Lectronic DI2 9 speed rig with Dynamo hubs and use the TT shifters as bar end shifters (insert mad scientist laugh here) Granted an E-Lectronic system might not be so practical in world touring or far away from bike shop touring but with the rig I have dreamed it is pretty damn close.