Question About Bar Ends.

[nsandz]

Hello,

I will be going on my first tour in mid to late September (Bar Harbor, ME - Key West, FL). I was having a lot of trouble with pain on my original bike (Fuji Touring). The local bike shop said it was too big for me and we did a number of advanced fittings and tried to get a dropped handlebar bike to fit me where I had no back pain (I have short arms and a price budget). We were having a lot of trouble but then I tried the Trek 7.3FX and loved it! My back pain is gone, except now I have a flat handle bar and I bought simple bar ends that are just a metal tube and very hard. I am wondering if there are better ones for long tours that perhaps may have rubber grips or at least a more ergonomic grip to them. Any suggestions?

Thanks everyone!

[Cataboo]

I think you can get rubber covers for bar ends. you could also buy the padding gel and foam handlebar tape that people use for taping up road bars.

Flat bars are actually kinda brutal in terms of hand positions - so something you might want to consider is getting butterfly or trekking handlebars, they give you a lot more positions. they get taped up with handlebar tape.

If you want to stay with straight handlebars - consider getting some ergon grips. They're currently on sale at REI & at performance bicycle.

Other handlebars that you could consider are the soma sparrows, but I don't know how they do for long tours.

[Zen]

Something like this?
They're just regular grips I had the lbs put on.

[susan.wells]

My commuter bike has a flat bar handlebar. I did some research and decided on the Ergon GC3. Here's a link to a blog that helped me make that choice: Kent's Bike Blog. I've been really pleased with these.

[nsandz]

Thanks everyone! These are all great ideas, I just have to figure out which one is best for my situation...

I was looking at trekking handlebars, I have never really seen these before, and I am a bit confused.

There are ones that resemble the shape of a butterfly, and the only thing that makes me reluctant to get those is that I think I would have to redo my whole system, new shifters/brakes and whatnot.

However I saw a Bontrager- Satellite Plus Trekking 25.4 and Bontrager-
Satellite Elite Carbon Trekking handlebars.

It says that these give you many hand positions...but I do not understand how these give you more hand positions?

P.S.
Zen - I LOVE your pink bar ends!!

[Cataboo]

I don't see how that would give you all that many more handlebar positions either.

However, you can put trekking handlebars on your bike without having to get new shifters or anything like that.

Here's an example:
http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showthread.php?t=30740