bar ends?

[badgercat]

I currently have bar ends on my Trek 7.2FX. They make climbing a whole heck of a lot more tolerable and have resulted in much less wrist/arm discomfort/fatigue on longer rides. Mine are just fairly generic Bontrager-branded ones that I picked up for like $15 and installed myself, nothing fancy. However, like many others it seems, I've been seriously considering swapping out the handlebars themselves... my wrists just don't seem to like such straight bars.

I hope this isn't too much of a hijack, but do either of you (Catriona/sarahspins) who've gotten the Sparrow bars have any pictures to share? I'm very interested to see what they look like set up, and I've only found pictures of the plain bars online so far.

[Cataboo]

I think Sarah stuck hers a different direction than I did (I seem to remember hers angling downwards, so she probably has them flipped from what I did first. I need to angle mine downwards slightly. You should also consider butterfly/trekking handlebars, they're what I'm switching to next if I don't like these long term.

But this was when I hadn't quite finished because I still needed a headset spacer & a different top tube cap:






out today:

[Cataboo]

Yeah, Sarah did hers opposite.

That just felt weird when I tried it:

http://forums.teamestrogen.com/showt...parrows&page=4

[badgercat]

I think Sarah stuck hers a different direction than I did (I seem to remember hers angling downwards, so she probably has them flipped from what I did first. I need to angle mine downwards slightly. You should also consider butterfly/trekking handlebars, they're what I'm switching to next if I don't like these long term.

But this was when I hadn't quite finished because I still needed a headset spacer & a different top tube cap:

Thanks for sharing! I'm just beginning to explore options...

ETA: also, thanks for finding Sarah's thread.

[sarahspins]

You're not supposed to post while I'm gathing stuff for my post!





Mine are the 490mm.. I have since taken off all the extra junk on my bars (bell & reflector), and my computer is now mounted on my stem. The bars can be flipped and used as risers like Catriona's if you want a more casual riding position. I eventually flipped my stem to drop mine a little lower because that was what I liked.. but there's no right or wrong, it's whatever you want. I have two layers of tape in the "grip" area for a bit more cushion, but could have easily just used grips and no tape.

As mentioned before, the reason I opted for these and not something else is these are MTB lever compatible.. which is what we get with our FX's

[Cataboo]

I got the 490 mm as well. I've got a 130 cm 16% stem on it or something - my surly's top tube's a bit (quite) too short for me. I've got 2 road bikes, so I already have 2 bikes with drops that I can ride more aggressively - basically I wanted a more comfortable riding position on the surly, but still wanted to be upright because it is my commuter bike or my riding a gravel towpath or something like that bike.

I may eventually try flipping them over, but we're trying this for now. I initially put them on the bike flipped like Sarah did, and got on the trainer a few times and just didn't like the position.

[Cataboo]

It looks a bit cooler how Sarahspins has it, I think.

http://picasaweb.google.com/EyeofCat...hSomaSparrows#

That's with them flipped over when I was trying out that position to begin with.

The bars are naked, so it might be easier to see the shape.

[Cataboo]

To tie this back into bar ends - this is what I replaced on the surly - riser bars + bar ends. Mostly I think the bars were just too wide.