... Has that always been the case or is it a Brexit thing, I wonder.
The price is €12 more if the shipping country is France or Austria for examp,e. What’s that all about?!

I bought my Nomad Mk II frame, fork, and lots of parts in 2013, at that time I thought shipping costs to USA were pretty high from SJS.  But other UK suppliers seemed to have pretty good rates. 

Over time, SJS found ways to cut the shipping costs to the point that when I built up my titanium light touring bike frame, I bought the parts to build it up in three batches, one from SJS, one from Germany, and then a bunch of other parts here in USA, mostly from Amazon.  SJS at that time was a low cost supplier to the USA.

Then Brexit happened.  Suddenly shipping costs to USA went crazy, probably the same with other countries that UK wanted to export too. 

Before Brexit, I bought stuff from several UK companies to export to USA, but I think I have only bought a couple items from SJS since Brexit, none from other UK companies. 

Sorry if I am treading on political ground here, it is not my intent to take a political side.  I am only making comments as an external observer that lost the ability to buy a lot of stuff from UK.  I have never been in the UK.

Starbike don’t ship this item to the UK, according to the website. Has that always been the case or is it a Brexit thing, I wonder.
The price is €12 more if the shipping country is France or Austria for examp,e. What’s that all about?!

Rohloff produces, and SJS stocks, a left-handed shifter.

Blimey, 110 squids plus an eye watering freight charge!

In first gear on loose gravel, I have had wheel spin problems with my Nomad Mk II, both unladen and with a heavy load.  When your gear ratio is low enough and your hill is steep enough, loose gravel can be a problem because that low gear gives you a lot of wheel torque.

First photo, if you look down, you can see some switchback gravel road, I had a lot of trouble with wheel spin there.  But, I needed that low enough of a gear to climb the hill.  Each time it spun and I lost momentum, I would have to push the bike to the next turn where it would be flat enough for me to start out pedaling on the bike again.  I had a 57mm wide Schwalbe Marathon Extreme on the bike, that might have not had enough grip on gravel because of the tread design, the knobs are big and the grooves are small.  Bike was unladen.  There were several other mountain bikers (derailleur bikes) in the group I was in, they all pushed their bikes to the top, but I managed to pedal parts of that hill.

I see no problem with that.  Numbers will be harder to read, but you already know how to shift it so you probably almost never look at the numbers unless you are stopped.