Trekking bars/mountain shifters

[Catrin]

I've been talking with the head mechanic at an LBS (they will also do my fitting once I've reached about 150 miles on the new bike). He has convinced me that a better alternative for a first step is to keep the same shifters, but move then to the top of my existing bars. He said that Paul's Thumbies are very versatile about where they can be installed on the bars and that my fear that they will be awkward can be addressed.

He said further that while it is true that trigger shifters can be installed on Trekking/Butterfly bars, there are not many places on the bars where they can go and that I may not be any more comfortable with that situation than what I currently have.

The hardware/labor cost would only be about $90 to do this work, so it seems a reasonable first step instead of immediately switching out bars and shifters - and who can say what would be needed for the brakes? This is a pretty major move and I don't want to make such sweeping changes as a first attempt.

I do wonder if my bars are just too low on my LHT, but we will address that at my fitting. It was recommended that it would be best to move shifters before my fitting so that everything can be adjusted properly. This makes sense to me.

So, I will keep working with these bar-end shifters, but I am pretty sure that I will go ahead and have them moved to the top of my bars. Time will tell