A drop bar to fit flat-bar levers

[Cudzoziemiec]

Not flat-bar levers to fit a drop bar, and not a 'how to' post at all (probably doesn't belong in The Knowledge but wasn't sure where to put it; not Reviews cos I haven't used or even seen it). This is a drop bar designed to be compatible with mountain bike levers and shifters.


It's kind of like a wide, shallow drop bar might be with the bar ends of a flat bar stuck on the hoods, and all made of flat-bar size tubing. So it's for converting a mtb to drops not a road bike to flat bars. In fact it's got a 25.4mm clamp diameter so won't fit most modern stems whether they're road or mountain. And because it's steel, it weighs over 700g (it's suggested that because it involves welds, aluminium might not pass strength tests).

I'm not entirely convinced by it, but then I'm not a mountain biker or even a gravel biker (I do own something that might be considered a gravel bike but the use I put it to is definitely more surfaced – it even has a pannier rack!). There's a comment comparing it to an upside down North Road bar, and I tend to think in that situation I'd prefer a North Road bar (but the right way up). And lastly, I note there's no price mentioned.

https://bikepacking.com/gear/surly-corner-bar-review/

Anyway, I await the forum's appraisal.

[Blade]

I've had a rapidfire gear shifter from a mountain bike on one of my drop-barred road bikes for some 20 years.

The clamping collar on the shifter was slightly too small to fit my drop bars, but i opened it up using a flap wheel fitted in a power drill.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yeah, the clamping diameters are slightly different, another reason they cite in favour of such solutions. Where have you mounted your rapid fire shifter; I can imagine it on the tops but hard to see how it would work on the hoods?

[Kim]

It makes sense to want to use MTB controls on drop handlebars, because the majority of the time MTB controls are simply better.  (And anyone who disagrees probably has big hands and/or enjoys picking bits of frayed cable out of horrendously complicated mechanisms.)

Converting a MTB to drops seems pretty niche (certainly more than converting a road bike to flats), though I'm sure someone will find it useful.

[Cudzoziemiec]

John Tomac, obviously.

The first true World Championships for XC and DH, sanctioned by the Union Cycliste Internationale, were held in Durango, Colorado, in 1990 where John placed 4th in the downhill. John is well remembered for riding road style drop bars on his Yeti mountain bike at this race which was a noticeable deviation from the other riders. This equipment decision was influenced by his recent experience riding for the 7-11 road cycling team in Europe where he was under contract.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tomac#Mountain_biking

[citoyen]

It makes sense to want to use MTB controls on drop handlebars, because the majority of the time MTB controls are simply better.  (And anyone who disagrees probably has big hands and/or enjoys picking bits of frayed cable out of horrendously complicated mechanisms.)

This answers the obvious question I was going to ask... kind of.

I'm still struggling to get my head round how it would work in practice. Seems like a worst-of-all-worlds kind of solution to me.

[grams]

Flat bar bits are sometimes an order of magnitude cheaper and you can mix brakes and gear systems. You could have four different kinds (front and read) if you really want.

The other reason is that if you put an actual flat bar on a gravel bike you end up with a mountain bike or worse a hybrid, and then how will your fellow roadies respect you?

[Blade]

Yeah, the clamping diameters are slightly different, another reason they cite in favour of such solutions. Where have you mounted your rapid fire shifter; I can imagine it on the tops but hard to see how it would work on the hoods?

My rapidfire is fitted so that then I'm riding with my hands on the back of the bars, the rapidfire levers are just where my thumbs rest. No need to do any palm of the hand repositioning  at all just a push with the thumb or a pull with a finger.

[Cudzoziemiec]

The brakes make sense to me. I can't entirely visualise how trigger shifters would work on it, probably for two reasons: it's several years since I used trigger shifters, and in the article he uses some other sort of shifter (rear only it seems) which is indistinct on the photos and only mentioned in passing in the text.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Yeah, the clamping diameters are slightly different, another reason they cite in favour of such solutions. Where have you mounted your rapid fire shifter; I can imagine it on the tops but hard to see how it would work on the hoods?

My rapidfire is fitted so that then I'm riding with my hands on the back of the bars, the rapidfire levers are just where my thumbs rest. No need to do any palm of the hand repositioning  at all just a push with the thumb or a pull with a finger.

No sooner do I post than it's answered! Or in fact while I was typing. Thank you.

[spesh]

John Tomac, obviously.

The first true World Championships for XC and DH, sanctioned by the Union Cycliste Internationale, were held in Durango, Colorado, in 1990 where John placed 4th in the downhill. John is well remembered for riding road style drop bars on his Yeti mountain bike at this race which was a noticeable deviation from the other riders. This equipment decision was influenced by his recent experience riding for the 7-11 road cycling team in Europe where he was under contract.[3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Tomac#Mountain_biking

Not forgetting Jacquie Phelan...

https://www.thebicyclestory.com/2012/01/jacquie-phelan-the-godmother-of-womens-mountain-biking/

[mrcharly-YHT]

If you wanted to build up a road bike with low gearing, wouldn't it be much cheaper and simpler to use MTB shifters, chainset and derailleurs?

That's the USP I'd see for these bars.

Steel bars also make sense for that scenario; it is likely to be tourers wanting the low gears, and dropping a laden touring bike puts a lot of strain on the bars.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Not forgetting Jacquie Phelan...

https://www.thebicyclestory.com/2012/01/jacquie-phelan-the-godmother-of-womens-mountain-biking/

Wow! Well I'm riding a bike to work and back, why don't I enter the Olympics? I'm sure it wasn't quite like that... but wow again!

[zigzag]

it still looks like a prototype, but i can see the use if they or someone else makes a better version. not too keen about the inevitable fountain of cables in the front which can interfere with lighting and looks messy in general. props for the innovative idea.

[Kim]

You could always use hydraulic brakes (indeed, MTB hydraulics are a lot more mature than the road ones, which seems like the sort of reason you might want to do this in the first place), which would allow you to use 90 degree hose couplers to keep things neat as you sometimes see on tiller steering recumbents.

[Deano]

Quite tempting, then I could have drops and still use the Swore hydraulics on my Surly.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I think one of the things shown by the existence of bars like this and perhaps the whole "gravel" erm, category is that categories don't exist as hard boundaries in terms of what people actually want to do. So you like riding your mountain bike off road but you also don't want to be unduly inefficient on the road getting there, or you're primarily a road rider but you can't resist an unpaved excursion from time to time, or you want to use your shopping and commuting transport for weekend leisure of various sorts, and so on. Of course in time this just leads to another category and has done since at least the invention of cyclocross.

[LittleWheelsandBig]

It is uncomfortable riding significant distances with my hands perpendicular to the direction of travel. My flat bar bikes (MTBs and otherwise) that get ridden for more than a couple of hours at a time always have bar ends fitted (and used). This seems like a reasonable option for me.

[mzjo]

This makes me think of some bar-ends that SJS used to sell a couple of decades ago that put a drop-bar end on a mtb flat-bar. It's not quite the same but there is a very similar logic.

[Paul H]

This makes me think of some bar-ends that SJS used to sell a couple of decades ago that put a drop-bar end on a mtb flat-bar. It's not quite the same but there is a very similar logic.

Used to?
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/handlebars/jtek-superlight-drop-bar-bar-ends-black/

These are made by Jtek which is I think owned by Mr Thorn, so they must know there's a market for them, though it's small enough that I've never seen anyone using them.

[Kim]

I think one of the things shown by the existence of bars like this and perhaps the whole "gravel" erm, category is that categories don't exist as hard boundaries in terms of what people actually want to do. So you like riding your mountain bike off road but you also don't want to be unduly inefficient on the road getting there, or you're primarily a road rider but you can't resist an unpaved excursion from time to time, or you want to use your shopping and commuting transport for weekend leisure of various sorts, and so on. Of course in time this just leads to another category and has done since at least the invention of cyclocross.

At risk of invoking xkcd://927, wouldn't life be so much easier if all the handlebars were the same diameter...

[perpetual dan]

Without checking I'm assuming that's the standards xkcd

I've got drop bars on an old mtb, and have toured on it. Front suspension getting squashed in the drops is a bit of an odd sensation but the overall arrangement is comfortable.

My current bike has mtb gears on a drop bar gravel bike, which i like.

Both use bar end shifters, but they offer no particular positioning advantage over a mountain style shifter. So i can completely see the attraction.

I'd miss the hoods on those bars, unless I'm misreading the curves.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[Cudzoziemiec]

No, the hoods position is lacking.

31.8mm has in a way provided one standard. At least, for the first time in my lifetime, the "default" clamp diameter for drops and flats is the same. Apart from the flats on non-mtbs which AFAIK still tend to use 25.4. And it's done nothing for control diameters. And then there's the 35mm clamp diameter used on some mtbs now...

[Cudzoziemiec]

There's a video: https://youtu.be/jjWpYkL0a5k
which says the hood-position extensions are intended to be the place you should mount shifters. It has a bit more to say about shifters, and various other aspects of using the bar. It also gives a price: 100 USD. I dread to think what they will translate to when/if it reaches the UK.

[jsabine]

This makes me think of some bar-ends that SJS used to sell a couple of decades ago that put a drop-bar end on a mtb flat-bar. It's not quite the same but there is a very similar logic.

Used to?
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/handlebars/jtek-superlight-drop-bar-bar-ends-black/

These are made by Jtek which is I think owned by Mr Thorn, so they must know there's a market for them, though it's small enough that I've never seen anyone using them.

I have a vague memory that the old ones were made by or branded Newk. Didn't they also have an MTB bar end as well as the drop section?

ETA - google reckons there were two versions, with or without MTB bar ends. Interestingly (to me at least), SJS have endured that a search for Newk bar ends also resolves to their version as linked above.