Hi all. I need to replace these grotty, sticky, torn hoods on my Shimano Ultegra shifters (ST-6501) but can't find any on the entire internet. Does anyone know of any other Ultegra hoods that fit? Or does anyone have any other potential solutions? I've tried washing them with dish soap to restore the rubber but it hasn't worked.
by Red_Peter
8 Comments
There are a bunch of Shimano hoods listed on Amazon. Not sure if they fit your specific model though.
If you can’t find anything you could try wrapping them with bar tape.
I went through this before a few years ago. I couldn’t find anything that would fit besides buying a used or NOS set on eBay. I ended up wrapping them with a layer or two of inner tube and then bar tape. It was less than ideal but worked ok enough.
I don’t think there’s a solution beyond rigging something up like that or buying a new set of 9 speed Shimano Sora or Microshift levers.
A few ideas:
I’d be willing to bet that the ST-6500 uses the same hoods as the ST-6501. You could try to do a photo comparison of the two from pictures of the internet.
Do you have any bike co-ops in your area? If so, they may have bins of parts including shifters that may be a match, or at least to confirm if they are the same.
I’ve also heard that applying a little talcum or baby powder can help with the stickiness of the hoods, but if they are deteriorating you may just need to replace them.
Otherwise I’d suggest looking to buy replacement shifters.
Take them off and wash in the dishwasher.
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This is speculative, but given how SOL you appear to be, you might give it a try.
Sometimes the design of components across different product tiers within a given generation is similar. So, like, the other brifters from the Ultegra 6500 era might use similar/identical hoods. Those other tiers would be Dura-Ace 7700, 105 5500, and Tiagra 4500.
This old forum thread suggests that the ST-4500 hoods may be a good match for ST-6500: [https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?t=72157](https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?t=72157) but the photos are missing so it’s hard to tell for sure.
Then, there’s a kinda reasonable looking listing for ST-4500 replacement hoods on AliExpress: aliexpress[dot]com/i/2255801169691527.html Maybe you could buy these and see if they work??
Reading the above, I’m almost ashamed at what I’m suggesting. Swap in parts for one shifter and hope they fit another shifter? Buy some random crap off AliExpress?? As I say, this is highly speculative, but the parts are cheap enough that it might be worth a try.
If this does work, let us know!!
I went through this hunt about five years ago. The answer is that they don’t make them for the 5500/6500 shifters anymore — and neither do any 3rd parties.
Good luck with your bar tape and tubes frankenstien job! 🙂