switching out drop bars

[elk]

i got a new handlebar--Cinelli Little Wing--- to replace my Ritchey and I cannot find any info in my books or on the net ?????? about switching out drop bars.

Is that because it's just too darn eay to talk about? Can I do it in an hour or two myself? safely?
I have Shimano brifters and brake interruptors on the top bar.

I also have shims I want to put in the brifters. (I do have directions for that.)

Anyone point me to a tutorial? or....?

[VeloVT]

It's easy but a bit time consuming. You can do it in less than an hour (not including the new tape job ). These instructions assume you are not changing the stem.

If you do need to change the stem, it's still easy -- you would just change the stem after removing the old bars and before installing the new ones. There is an order to how you need to tighten the stem bolts -- you must tighten the top bolt before fully tightening the pinch bolts on the side. And, of course, you want to be very careful to align the stem and front wheel precisely before you tighten the new stem down all the way.

Anyway, assuming you are keeping your current stem:

1. Remove tape from current bars.

2. Remove brifters. Facing the front of the bike, push back the rubber covering on the hoods. You should see an allen bolt on the outside of the brifter about halfway down. Loosen it as much as possible (if you have a set of LONG allen wrenches, it will make this much easier, it's a little fiddly with a multi-tool). Once the brifter is loose, work it down the drop and off the bar (depending on the shape of the bar, you may have to actually twist the brifter over to the "wrong" side of the bend to get it off). Repeat on other side. The brifters will be hanging down from their cables -- this is fine, just don't let them fall down quickly because they can scratch the fork.

3. Remove the bars from the stem. Take off the stem faceplate carefully and remove the bars.

4. Install new bars. (If you have a four-bolt faceplate, it's a good idea to tighten or loosed the bolts gradually -- that is, tighten all four a little bit, then once all four are finger tight, go back and tighten each a little bit more, and so on, rather than tightening one all the way, then the next all the way, etc). Once you have the bars mostly tightened, you will need to center the bars. There may be a graphic to help you center them; it's still a good idea to measure though, my FSA bars have a graphic that appears to be centered but isn't. Once they are centered, tighten more, but still not all the way, and rotate bars to your preferred position. Tighten all the way.

5. Install brifters. Slide on and tighten the allen bolt you loosened before. Once they are mostly tightened, adjust the position. You can get a good sense of whether they are both positioned evenly by taking a yardstick and laying it so the edge is hard up against the back of the hood covering. Check the line of the yardstick against the line of the bar tops. If they are not parallel, the hoods are uneven. You also want to make sure they are rotated evenly. I don't know of any tricks to help with this, I think you have to do it by eye, going to the front of the bike and making sure the levers have the same angle.

6. Retape the bars. The Park Tool website has a much better tutorial on this than I could ever hope to give. This part takes me more time than the rest of it put together .

[VeloVT]

One more thing -- I don't think this will apply to you -- but if you are switching to significantly smaller or larger bars, or a stem that is longer/shorter/has significantly different rise, you may need to run new cables/housing since the old ones may be too tight or too long with the new setup.

This is still beyond my expertise, I take it to the shop if I need cables changed. I want to learn how to do this soon ...

[DebW]

I've never worked on brake interrupters, But my guess is that you'll either have to remove both the brifters and interrupters together with them attached by cable, or uncable the brakes. If your bars are a different size and the brifters and interrupters need to be a different distance apart, then you will have to change the cable housing. I'm really just guessing here, but is should be obvious when you untape the bars.

[VeloVT]

Oops, after reading Deb's comment I realize my instructions are not very helpful. I totally missed that you have interruptors...

Sorry, I tried !

[elk]

thanks for taking the time to write that down!!

the bars are almost identical in size (just the shape is different) and I think I might be able to just unclip the interuptors and take them off with the brifters and then clip em back on....

those are very useful tips.

another good tutorial for wrapping bars (I like this series.):

http://bicycletutor.com/drop-handlebar-tape/

maybe Georgena will do a bar switch one...