how much to convert to flat bars?

robbie7

hi there, i am after some mechanical advice.
i have my girlfriends specialized dolce elite up for sale on here, but the only real reason for getting rid of it is because she wants to go back to flat bars. being she has rather small hands she is really having a hard time with drop bars and after months of trial and error with different hand positions she has had enough. even with the reach on the levers adjusted she still cant pull the brakes on or change gear on the drops and struggles sometimes on the hoods, sorry for the long story but what i really need to know is how much would it be to convert to flat bars? would here front mech and brakes need replacing? the front mech is Shimano Tiagra bottom pull and the brakes are Ultralight dual pivot breaks currently running with Tiagra 9 speed STI Levers.

any help would be gratefully recieved.
many thanks

topdude

Sell the Dolce and get her a Specialized Sirrus or similar.

maddog 2

depends on whether you buy new or s/hand, and if you run a triple or not.

bars and possibly a stem are cheap s/hand (see ebay). Especially if you go non oversized. Add bar ends too (Profile and Titec are favourites).

if you run a triple c/set you'll need the R440 shifters which are about £45 ish (see wiggle)

if you run a double then you can get away with using mtb shifters, which can be picked up s/hand for 20-25 (LX or XT)

brake levers - use anything designed for cantilevers, not V brakes. Avids SD range on their 'softest' setting will also work . Say £15 ish max

Overall, if you go new then I'd say you could do it for around £100ish including bar ends and all cables. Less if you went s/hand. You could also flog your old stuff to offset the money.

alfablue

It may be throwing good money after bad, but how about some "auxiliary" or "interruter" levers. They fit on the flat part of a dropped bar so you can use either brake lever. They are not the same as the old "suicide" levers. They are fitted to some cyclocross bikes, or bikes like the Edinburgh Country Traveller.

The Tektro levers are £18 from All Terrain Cycles


You should also have some pad spacers or shims with the existing levers to adjust reach by 4 or 8 degrees (they come with Tiagra shifters, if you don't have them the LBS should have some spares).

With both these modifications, it may be possible for her to get on with the drops.

alfablue

Planet-X have several "cross top" lever models for sale.

ride_whenever

what about bullhorns? Stick the sti's on the ends and see what happens...

Underscore

maddog 2 wrote:

if you run a double then you can get away with using mtb shifters...

Is that right? I've got a Sirrus (base model with MTB crankset) and was thinking (as the current rings and BB are both showing a bit of wear) of replacing it with a road set. However, it's got those integrated brake levers/shifters so I had nixed the idea due to the different amount of cable pull required - so it was going to be too expensive. Are you saying that a two ring set-up (50/34 would suit my riding fine as I currently run 48/38/28 and almost never use the 28 - and then never with a biggest rear sprockets) would work fine with my existing shifters?

_

P.S. Sorry for hijacking the thread but I'd never heard this before and needed to check it out...

maddog 2

yes it will work

a front mtb shifter pulls more cable than a road shifter (STI)

so when you run mtb shifter on a road front mech it will try to move the mech too much with each shift.

this is a disaster for a triple as you simply can't set it up correctly

however, on a double this is how you can set it up:

- set click 3 on the mtb shifter on the bigger of the two rings

now when you shift down to the small ring (click 2 on the shifter) it tries to over shift - you stop this happening by adjusting the limit screw on the front mech itself.

bingo, click 3 is right on the big ring, and click 2 is right on the small ring

click 1 is redundant - it just makes the cable go slack