Drop handlebars to flat

mattdavies

Hi everyone, I have a 5\6 year old Cannondale R1000 running 9 speed triple Ultegra and want to convert it into a flat bar commuter. My question is can i simply go out and buy a shimano 9 speed brake\gear mountain bike combo levers, or will the reach be incorrect for the brakes. I'm pretty certain the gear lever will be ok, but again any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

Bozman

I tried a similar conversion on a bike a while back, i removed the sti and put shimano R770 shifters and brake levers matched in with Ultegra 6500 and it worked fine.
Take it steady on the brakes though because the stopping power is incredible compared to sti levers.
P.S I swapped back to drops 2 mths later, couldn't get on with flat bars

jomoj

Matt - mtb 9 speed REAR shifter will work with your rear road mech but with a road chainset you need to get a road triple front shifter (R443, R 773) and a compatible front mech (also FD-443).

I did a similar conversion, got a pair of R443 shifters on ebay and out of interest, tried the front shifter with my road mech and it doesn't work, the cable-pull arm is shorter than on an MTB / flat bar road mech. Rear mech works fine (ultegra 6503)

I'm fairly sure that the amount of cable pull on the R443 shifter is the same as an MTB mech but the cage shape on those are optimised for smaller rings.

I'm currently running just a 1x9 set up, never got round to getting a front mech and havent really mised it on my commuter bike. BTW - I prefer drops for longer / faster riding but flats for riding in traffic.

maddog 2

what jomoj said

If you run a double/compact chainset then you get around a lot of the front mech cable pull issues. Then the R440 LH shifter will work with road double mechs.

If it's a genuine commuter then I'd even consider a 1x9 setup. Simpler, lighter, cheaper. You could run a 9spd RH MTB shifter pod, which you can pick up s/hand for <£10.