LHT First Ride Report

[Catrin]

Glad to hear all is well with Sully! I have my Surly now and like you have to get new handlebars. Very awkward to reach the brakes, and it hurts my wrists, too. Have you seen this site? Another good forum-like resource for us Surly owners.

Enjoy!

Have you checked to make sure you have the right brake levers as well? Surly sent a set that was too large, but they replaced them at no charge. The bars were actually the right size that they were supposed to send, but they were too wide for me. Which size do you have? I have the 46cm.

Woohoo!

As far as the shifters - this is a total stab in the dark since I've never used bar ends (and I admitted earlier I was kind of dubious about them... )

but how are you at just riding in the drops? Just practice riding in the drops, and getting your hands back and forth from the drops to the hoods. One hand at a time, easy as pie. Don't even worry about shifting yet.

The drops seem so far away..though they really aren't I figured that I would start with just being able to move my hands along the tops of the bars and just take it one step at a time. I CAN almost touch the shifter with the tip of my thumb on the top of the bar - though I haven't tried this riding. Amazing what you can do when the bike is leaning against the couch

Yeah, this was the part that I was always dubious about, but the bike is so great that it is worth the trouble. I already know what it will cost to change to STI shifters if I can't adjust, but as I don't know how to shift those either it seems better just to go ahead and learn how to use these. For some reason, on the trainer, the bars and shifters didn't seem so......LOW

ADDED: Then again, I've never used road bars before, Stella has mountain bars and trigger shifters. I even had the wild idea yesterday that a taller stem might solve it! It is about the hand movement though, I really don't think the stem is too short.