Originally Posted by sstorkel

Right. If you break a derailleur, lock your bike into the 53x11 combo, and aren't willing to change that combo when you get to a hill then you're going to be in trouble.

A more reasonable approach in mountainous terrain would be to lock the bike into gearing that allowed you to climb anything you might need to climb and plan to coast on downhills. This gearing combination would still work on flat sections, though if you knew there were extended flats you might want to stop and switch over to a higher gear. Having put tens of thousands of miles on my uber-light SRAM Red shifters without a single issue, I didn't hesitate to install brifters on my touring bike. Modern brifters are so well made I just don't see the point of suffering with bar-end shifters...