kingston 

The matching red fenders are fantastic! What's your plan for luggage, downtube42 ?

downtube42

That's a question I need to answer pronto. Thus far I've made do with just a flat repair kit strapped under the saddle, and everything else in jersey pockets. With the weather turning and the need for cold/rain gear, I need additional capacity. I hope to do a full SR series next year; that means being prepared for a wide range of weather conditions and a change of clothes.

So many options these days, with bikepacking bags, bespoke options, and decent DIY plans. Suffering analysis paralysis at the moment.

I have some (8) of these in the garage I bought to mod into DIY bike luggage.
https://www.varusteleka.com/pictures...161fa1054a.jpg

But that was before I had a pretty red bike.

kingston 

I think you are going to have to bite the bullet and get a handlebar bag with a front rack and decaleur. That bike deserves it.

rhm

+1

+1

Big in Japan

My 2 cents:

LNL 2017 : saw a few riders desperately looking for Di2 chargers at controls (and quite early in the piece).

You've had it—or at least have an uncomfortable ride ahead of you—if you break the DR middle of nowhere. If you're away from home (overseas) it's going to take time to get a replacement, and it's going to cost a bomb.

Keep it simple: bar end shifters—
easy to repair & long lasting (I have a set of SunTour ones from c.1977 that have been around the world & still work);
force you to move your hands around;
indexed ones work better than brifters, with a satisfying click when you change gears;
easy to see/feel what gear you're in;
can shift across multiple cogs easily;
easy to repurpose (eg, front for rear) if one of them breaks (and if using < 10 sp you can convert to friction mode);
separates brake levers from gear changer—this is a bonus for repair & maintenance;
and FWIW lighter than brifters.

I used 6700, 6800 & 8000 brifters for a few years, thought they were great—great in fast traffic & pacelines &c—but they all eventually lost precision & the inward movement to change gears made my hands sore on long brevets. Went back to Shimano 11-speed bar ends—it took about 2 km to get remind myself where they were/are & get used to them, and I never found myself accidentally looking for the brifters. My hand issues disappeared.

In a pinch you can also use bar-ends with a non-matching DR if you happen to fall & break your proper one.

unterhausen

I had to give up on bar end shifters after I hit my knee on them too many times.

I think the problem randonneurs have with Di2 is they ride too much and are too tired after the ride to charge the batteries. I also think that the charge interval for Di2 is too far apart. With etap, riders are charging batteries all the time, so they don't forget. OTOH, I have only heard of people having these problems with Di2, I have witnessed far more broken shifter cables on brevets.

Tourist in MSN

I have never had a problem with hitting my knees on bar end shifters. I have bar end shifters on several bikes, prefer them for touring. Some bars extend further to the rear than other bars and I suspect that is part of it. And I have ridden behind some riders that their pedal upstroke involves swinging their knees outward instead of a straight up and down motion.

I suspect some people that complain about hitting knees on shifters were out of the saddle when it happened. I have bad knees, years ago I quit standing on the pedals to accelerate from a stop sign or power up a hill.

I am not trying to convince you to try them, you obviously have something that works for you. Just saying that they work for some people.

That said, my rando bike has a brifter for the rear, downtube shifter for the front.

Big in Japan

Granted, hitting a knee can be a problem for some. This can be minimised or eliminated if you shorten the ends of the bars.

When I returned to using bar ends, I shortened the length of the drops by c.2.5 cm with a pipe cutter. This only reduced the effective length of the bars a little since the housing of the shift lever overhangs the bars by a cm or so, and the back part of the heel of my hand can rest there. I use a small part of the heel of my hand to shift the lever downwards (the movement is tiny) & the last or last two fingers to move the lever upwards—the bulk of my hand is lying along the bar and the top of the lever. If I'm riding in the drops, other riders can't even see that I've changed gears (some have commented). But if they're close enough they can hear me change the rear cogs cos the lever makes a satisfying click when it's moved—helpful when I'm tired in the night and trying to keep track of what I'm doing.

I can honestly say that since permanently changing back to bar-cons over a year ago, I have no recollection of ever hitting a knee against the shifters. Nor can I recollect ever knocking the shifters out of position when leaning the bike against a wall.

A few BTWs:
* Of course, my whole fit & set up is adjusted with appropriate bars &c in mind, and my bike has relatively short trail (44 mm) & headstem (80 mm), so it doesn't sway much—or at all—when I'm climbing, out of the saddle or if I'm ever "grinding" up a hill (mostly I fly lightly up hills like a little bird).
* I ride in the drops more than I did when using brifters, but I think that's a good thing—more variation of hand & body position over long distances, and greater control on descents &c.
* If I'm riding on the hoods or ramps it's a simple movement to drop my hands into position; sometimes I don't even let my hand touch the drops, just flick the lever up or down (often with a whimsical flourish).
* Moving from hoods/ramps to bar con to change gear is a little slower than tapping a brifter, but not by much, and carefully watching & anticipating traffic minimises problems. For me, the advantages of bar cons that I mentioned before, outweigh this relatively minor problem.
* Bar con levers are perhaps marginally more exposed than brifters if the bike falls—but if they are not over-tightened when installed there should be enough rotational "play" to allow them to move a little when they hit the ground, minimising damage—and, as mentioned, they're much cheaper to replace than a brifter. I was recently doored and the bike fell hard to the ground at speed: fwiw, there's only a slight scrape on the bar con; the corresponding brake lever is heavily scored.
* If you have brifters and you damage the braking mechanism you have to pay to replace the gear mechanism as well; if you damage the gear mechanism. you have to replace the braking mechanism as well.
* If I were riding in a lot of criteriums or pacelines, I'd reconsider brifters. On brevets I'm mostly on my own. If i'm in a small group and I think there's going to be a problem I call out my gear changes, eg, "changing down". (It's like calling "standing" if you're in a group of unfamiliar riders.) But I can only recall doing this less than a handful of times.

Big in Japan

Yes. For a while I ran a triple front with 11-speed rear cassette. Used a brifter for the rear, and a bar-con with gutted brifter for the front. Worked well, never a problem. Some would say best of both worlds since adjusting the FD was never a problem.

unterhausen

I sure hope so, that would be a real T Rex fit otherwise.

Tourist in MSN

One of my touring bikes has a Rohloff hub. And the Rohloff shifter is a twist grip shifter. I tried lots of different places for the shifter and finally settled on the right side bar end, bought the Hubbub adapter that allows me to put the Rohloff shifter on one of the bar ends.

No, I do not call this a bar end shifter, but ... in a way it is a bar end shifter. And no, never hit it with my knee either.

Big in Japan

As to gearing—

* Presently, depending on what I'm doing & what other riding I might do before or after a brevet, I use WickWerks chainrings with Ultegra 8000 crankset & FD, RX8000 RD & 35 or 38 mm 700c tyres, 42–34 x SRAM 11–28 or11–32; or XT 11–40. These give a range between c.24–105".

* My favorite setup was 50–39–24 (105 10-sp crank, 9-sp Ultegra 3 x FD & bar con shifter, Ultegra 6800 GS RD & Ultegra brifter) x 14–28 (11 sp Ultegra junior cassette) or 14–32 (combined two Shimano cassettes or used Miche—tho I don't recommend the Miche). These give a range between c.21 or 24" & 98".

Actually, for long brevets, unless I'm expecting to ride with a lot of strong tail winds, I don't think I need a top gear of more than 90–95". I think I can never have too low a gear, but IME unless I'm riding big mountains, lots of gravel, with a load, or a very very long way (400 plus km), having lots of closely spaced gears in the 25–35 kmh range is best for my overall speed—the closer ratios let me keep momentum on hills & stop me getting bogged down, but as I age this is getting harder to do. My three fastest overall times on rides over 200 and up to 600 km have been on 50–34 x 14–28, 50–34 x 11–40, and 50–39–24 x 14–28,

I'm 65 and ride overwhelmingly on my own. I ride occasionally I ride with a friend, but I avoid groups because you can't control who you're with. Riding brevets over the last ten years, with two exceptions—an exceptionally flat 400, and with my son on a 200—the longest I've ridden with another rider or in a group has been about 20 km. Once. I think this is fairly common—most people settle into their own pace & I've found it difficult to set up groups with others, even people I know, though it would plainly be to advantage. I haven't done PBP but I've done LNL and even there I was only fleetingly with groups. I'm no Eddy & I have a lot of injuries so I expect to finish a 200–300 km brevet at on the road ave. speed of 25–30 kmh; 400–600 kmh, with supplies, spares & clothes @ on the road ave. of 22–27 kmh; 1200 km @ 18–25 kmh). Credit card touring or doodling around roads I don't know I'll average anything from 18 to 25 kmh. I know a 50 plus year old woman who's done multiple 1200s all round the world & she averages c.18 kmh on the road, no matter the elevation or the length of the ride. I also know a man in his sixties who's done more 1200s & 2400s, and Super Randonees than I've had dinners (including, I think, 7 PBPs & 3 or 4 LNL. He uses something like a 22–33-42 crankset on a 1990s steel bike. Tells me without irony that he has weak legs. He always finishes behind me in anything up to 400 km and always in front of me in anything longer than that. Gearing has to reflect the reality of strength & conditioning,

42–34 x SRAM 11–28 or 11–32
Bicycle Gear Calculator

42–34 x XT 11–40 or 50–34 x XT 11–40
Bicycle Gear Calculator

50–39–24 x 14–28 or 14–32
Bicycle Gear Calculator

Classtime 

unterhausen , Are the broken shifter cables you mention, brifter, bar end, or down tube? I had my dream rig's down tube shifter braze ons removed and now wished I hadn't.

unterhausen

Shimano brifters are known to break cables. Change them out every year and you should be fine. I have never had trouble with SRAM shifters, but I'm probably living on borrowed time.
I would never remove DT bosses, there are some nice stops that go on them. IRD makes some I got for my travel bike, the cable comes off easily.

Tourist in MSN

The last time I broke a cable was maybe half a decade ago, it did not completely break but the strands of wire were stabbing my hand near my bar end shifter, plus I had to keep adjusting cable tension so I knew something was going on.

morrisond

I'll second this. I did the same thing to my Winter/Long Distance bike using Campy 11SP TT shifters - they work great and are Return to Center - so you just hit the right one with your palm to release cable go to bigger gear and on the left drop to the smaller chain ring in the front.

Shifting up is really easy. The biggest benefit I find is in the winter when using big gloves they are really easy to operate.

downtube42

Crossed 10k miles on the Fog Cutter yesterday, the bike that came out of this quest.

​​​​​https://photos.app.goo.gl/crJrwQxQ5dS9sFfU6
It doesn't have a few desired bits like a pump peg, chain hanger, 3rd bottle mount. Has a shimmy at 15mph if i ride no hands. Paint jumps off if you look at it too hard. But it rides like a dream, feels better after 100 miles than any bike I've ridden. I think I'll go for another 10k.