I could stick my head up a butcher's ass...

It was not an easy purchase.  I can be cheap.  Thrifty... when it comes to certain things.

Like the other night.  My cable end had fallen off my drooper post cable behind my Wolftooth ReMote lever.  The cable was fraying, and I'd already managed to twirl it back into place and get it into a cable end once.

But not this time.  It was a ratty mess.

So, I cut the frayed end off, saw that it was pretty darn close to still being a functional length, released as much cable as possible from the drooper end... and still came up a dollar (or two) short.

And then I just went ahead and installed the $2.00 cable that was on my work bench bought for this very purpose.

Time wasted?  About fifteen minutes (not including the ten purposeful minutes installing the new cable).

So anyways, the purchase I'd made.

I bought a Lindarets Belltower.

Their image, not mine... the orange bit is the Belltower.

My Spurcycle bell has not always played friendly-like with my handlebar accouterments, the most recent battle being when I installed my TOGS.

I had already constructed one shim to clear my brake lever out of a hunk of titanium handlebar shim material that I found in my toolbox.  The TOG required a slightly thicker shim, so more time spent trying to piece something together and hold it in place while tightening the tiny bolt and holding the rubber feet in place...

It was an endeavor only worthy of exerting on a $60 bell (glad I kickstarted this, because I would probably never pay $110+ shipping on a couple bells).

Anyways, my homemade shim was admittedly shitty, and I've had to mess with it a couple times when swapping my cockpit around.  Let's say that the time I've invested in reinstalling my bell (including digging through my toolbox, picking dropped shit up off the floor, running upstairs to grab another beer, etc) would total well over an hour.

How much should I be charging myself for labor?

$6.95 for a piece of 3D printed plastic, plus $4.99 in shipping...add in another $1.88 to rush the whole process along... because at that point, why not spend another $2?

This showed up in short order (thanks to that extra $2):

Yeth, that tiny bit of plastic in a Ziploc bag with bubble wrap in a giant box.  Sigh.

Not that I needed to, but because it's who I am, I put it on that night when I got home form work.

Clearance, Clarence.

Let me tell you, it went on about one thousand times more easier than anything I had concocted thus far.

One of the key features is this tiny hole that allows a place for the bolt to go as you tighten down the retaining band.

Something I've struggled to get right with some (but not all) of my shims.

Mebbe you know someone with a 3D printer and the time to figure all the details out.  Mebbe you don't have conflicting interests in your handlebar real estate.  Mebbe you don't even have an artisanal bell (you should tho).  Mebbe you stopped reading this post somewhere after I mentioned being too cheap to use a $2 cable.

But mebbe you're like me and your anal compulsion does not allow for half-assery when it comes to your bikes.  I'm not sure what it is about the new placement of the bell, but I've got a certain amount of sustain in the ring that wasn't there before I installed the Belltower.

I have theories, but that's about as much as I can write about a $6.95 piece of plastic (that cost me $13.82).  Ask me over a beer (that you pay for) and I'll tell you how sound waves and their relative exposure to quarks might affect bell sound quality.