Swapping handlebars---tougher than it looks?

[KathiCville]

Hi Zen....Good point. I remember asking my friend if we could do that (as we were looking at the Nashbar website), and I think the main reason he 'voted' against it was because the price of any of the bar ends that he liked was more than the price of the Time Trial handlebar. (Which was on sale at the time for @$23.) And since he was thinking he'd install it for me, I suspect he was probably trying to save me money.

Later edit: Ooops! I just realized that the reason we weren't going to get just the bar ends wasn't price, but the darned Ergo grips that are currently on the handlebar. He put them on for me last fall as part of our effort to deal with an ongoing shoulder problem. The Ergo grips (original model) are not built to allow you to add bar ends to them. (I think there's a newer model that has bar ends built in.)

Soooooo, if I just take off the Ergo grip---they're part of the hand-numbness problem anyway, ironically---I'll probably be good to go with just a decent set of bar ends.......And I'll return the Time Trial handlebar to Nashbar.

Thanks DebW and Zen! Problem solved much more easily than I realized once you both began asking questions...........

[DebW]

Those TT bars are means to put you in a very low, stretch-out position, on a TT bike. See the picture here. You'd be putting them on a more upright bike, so not sure what position you'd end up with, or how many usable hand positions there would actually be. Also, there are special brake levers, called reverse levers, made to mount on the ends of those bars and send the cable the reverse direction.

I think Zen probably has the better idea, of just adding bar ends to your current bars. But you could play with these TT bars and see how they might mount, how many hand positions you'd have, and if/how your current brake levers would mount. Might as well give it a try since you've got them.

[KathiCville]

Good point about the resulting shift in riding position that would come from changing the bar out. I just had the bike fitted a month ago, so the fewer changes made at the moment, the better. Thanks much to both you and Zen!

[elk]

I switched out a flat bar for an albatross and it was quite simple....except the cables were suddenly too short...and that's where I was at a loss.

Have you seen some of those videos on line about swapping bars?

[KathiCville]

Hi Elk....Do you have a link to the videos?.......I'm going to go with the plan Zen suggested for the handlebar 'fix', but I would love to learn more about how to tinker with my bike on my own. Or, at least be knowledgeable enough that if I have to take my bike to the LBS, I can understand what they're doing and why........Thanks!

[kat_h]

Just a general comment - any time you take anything apart take lots of pictures of it from every imaginable angle first. Then when you're half way through reassembly and you need to check how something goes you have something to look at.

[KnottedYet]

If you ever do decide to switch out bars, would moustache bars help with your arm/hand issues? Lots of usable space for hand positions. You might have to do some monkeying with levers and shifters and clamp sizes, though...

Well, maybe I didn't have such a good idea. But I really like my Nashbar steel moustache bars. They're a little narrower than standard moustache bars. Very comfy.