How can I get a handle on this bike?
March 16, 2016 5:55 PM   Subscribe

I want to change the handlebars on my bike. Google tells me this is potentially expensive and more difficult than I imagine, but I think my bike might be an exception. Am I fooling myself? Or can I ignore the warnings? Bonus: Can I do it myself?

I found My First Bike (as a grown up) at the thrift store last weekend. To my totally untrained eye, it seems like a pretty nice one now that I've got it cleaned up. I'd like to use it to ignore my car.

BUT these handlebars are super wide and heavy. I don't think they were original to the bike. Everything I've read makes changing them out sound like an ordeal. But, also, all of those things I read seem to be more about changing to the wrong kind of handlebars for a bike's frame. And I think that part already happened to my bike. Does that mean it might be easier to switch back?

For your consideration:

- Exhibit A: Look at the shape of this thing on it - the stem thing the bars grow out of. It looks the same as the ones on my neighbors' road bikes with drop bars vs. this totally different one on spouse's mountain bike. Is that a sign?

- Exhibit B: The gear shifters are on the body, not the handles (though the brakes are on the handles). Does that make it easier?

So to boil it down:
- Will the handlebars be as hard to change as the Internet says, or is my bike special?
- Will it be too hard for a bike novice but not-entirely-unhandy person to do without professional help?
- Drop bars? Are some other kind of bars better?
posted by circle to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (15 answers total)
 
The bolts on the front of the stem will make it easier ... but what might make it harder is the size, and availability of replacements. Can you measure the diameter of the current handlebars?
posted by Dashy at 6:08 PM on March 16, 2016


It boils down to what kind of bar your thinking about getting.

Exhibit A shows that you have a quill stem, also called a threaded stem. The easiest path to new bars is getting the bar you want with the same clamp diameter. If you're lucky, the existing bar will have this printed on there.

If you just want less wide bars, you can take off the grips and brake levers and cut the bar shorter with a pipe cutter. Pipe cutters are pretty cheap tools and handy to have.
posted by advicepig at 6:11 PM on March 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


Your bike was born a road bike and has road brakes, so if you get a handlebar that needs new brake levers, make sure you get ones to pull a road brake. This is great news if you want a drop bar.
posted by advicepig at 6:14 PM on March 16, 2016


Best answer: Congratulations on your bike!

It's true that the downtube shifters make this a bit easier, but it can still be tricky. A couple considerations: Installing brake cables is not rocket science by any means, but it's somewhat finicky if you haven't seen it done. One thing to watch out for is getting a clean cut in the cable housing, which will be difficult unless you have a tool specifically for cutting bicycle cable housing, and/or a grinder. Sheldon talks about this a bit too at the same link.

The other tricky part is getting the brake cable tension right so that you have sufficient braking power. You have to maintain considerable tension on the cable at the same time as you're tightening the nut that captures the cable at the brake. The fact that the tools which bike mechanics use to do this are called "third hand" and "fourth hand" tools hints at the awkwardness of trying to do it without them, although it can be done with a pair of pliers and a helper.

If there is a bike co-op near you, I think this would be a great job to attempt there. They will have the specialized tools that will make it considerably easier and potentially someone who can help you figure out the parts of the process that are hard to learn from a video.
posted by enn at 6:15 PM on March 16, 2016 [4 favorites]


Response by poster: @enn Thank you! I do have a bike co-op nearby I'll pay a visit to. Brakes seem fairly important to get right.

I need a more precise measuring apparatus to figure out the diameter of the current bar. Whither went my good ruler...

@advicepig If I'm lucky, where might the diameter be printed on the current bar? Would I need to take it off?
posted by circle at 7:43 PM on March 16, 2016


OK so I love DYIing as much as anyone and my current bike is literally held together by stickers. Changing handlebars is not very difficult if you have the right size and tools, but Fucking with Brakes is Advanced Bike DIY (the other members of Advanced DIY Club are Broken Spoke and Derailleur Mis-Aligned). You are gonna need a stand to hold your bike up off the ground to set your brake cable length correctly again, and most people I know do not have a stand.

enn is 100% correct: go to your local bike co-op and they will have Guru Level Bike DIYers who can teach you what to do and stands and tools and parts; this will cost some amount in suggested donation (so if you can't pay you are not turned away) plus cost of parts (which might be offset if you donate your old handlebars to them to re-use for someone else). Post your location and people can help you find one nearby. If no co-op exists, you might be able to go to a local tiny bike shop or local bike club full of passionate bikers and convince someone to help you through it. Or take it to a shop and they can fix you up for cost of the new handlebars (and maybe new brake handles and/or brake cables, neither of which are very expensive) plus 1-2 hours of labor. Whatever you choose, you get a sweet ride for limited cash outlay- GO YOU!!
posted by holyrood at 7:44 PM on March 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


A brief heads-up. Most bike co-ops are run entirely by volunteers, so generally speaking, plan to spend more time there than you think you'll need. I think that in this case you'll only need somewhere between half an hour to two hours, depending. It takes a while to learn things and sometimes to find the tools and parts, and the learner to tutor ratio isn't always ideal. Especially on a warm weekend in the springtime. I would recommend showing up at the beginning of a shift if you can. Or now, while it might still be winter where you are!

Bike co-ops are awesome and I'm glad you're going to go to yours because they're there just for this purpose.
posted by aniola at 8:11 PM on March 16, 2016


Having the lingo is as important as anything else when trying to communicate to Guru Level Bike DIYers.

Your handlebars are connected to your bike's frame and fork via a quill stem and headset. Your spouse's handlebars are connected with a different kind of stem and headset system, called 'threadless'. You should be able to replace the handlebars without worrying about the stem too much.

Your biggest issue is going to be making sure you get the right diameter handlebar for your stem. Quill stems are older designs usually, and so usually take the smaller of the two standard diameters: 25.4 mm. (The other one, more common on newer mountain bikes, is 31.8mm.)

The handlebars that are currently on your bike look like plausible OEM spec for a crossover bike like that*. They're called 'riser bars.' Handlebars come in couple of other basic configurations:
- Flat bars look a lot like riser bars, without the part that rises up. They extend in a straight line from the stem and are usually wide.
- Drop bars come in 8 million different shapes, but tend to be positioned lower, so that your back is more horizontal and your hands rest much lower. They also tend to be much narrower than risers or flat bars.

If you are looking for a drop-bar configuration, I think you will need to get different brake levers? But if you just want a flat bar or a differently-shaped riser bar, the brake levers you have should work fine.

(*Then again, the shifters on the downtube say to me 'drop bars.')
posted by carsonb at 8:16 PM on March 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Yo, bike mechanic here. Changing bars is easy, that is, physically taking a handlebar off a bike and swapping in a new handlebar is easy. What's tricky are the details.

Details like.....will your new bars be the same diameter at the clamping interface (the dead center of the bars) as your old bars? If so, yay! If your new bars are smaller, you can use shims (which I don't like to do, but it usually works). If your new bars are bigger, then you need a new stem as well.

Details like.....what are your new bars like? If they're "flat bars" or something like that, then it won't be a problem to swap your brake levers over to your new bars. If your new bars are "drop bars", then you're going to need to get some new brake levers that work with those bars. Levers like that will take a different cable (but the same cable housing) than your old levers.

Since you're going from risers (fairly high risers at that) to something (probably) lower, your cables aren't going to be too short after the conversion, so you won't need new cables and housing. If you were going from flat bars to risers, then your new lever position would probably need to have a longer run of cable and housing.

Do things in this order:

1) Determine what you don't like about your current bars (you say too heavy and too wide).
2) Find bars that you think you'll like more (so....lighter and more narrow). Perhaps you also want something with less rise. Maybe, maybe not. They're your bars.
3) Take your bike to your local bike shop and tell your mechanic what bars you want. Discuss comfort, style, whatever. Make them understand what you don't like now and what you hope to achieve with your new bars. Or....
4) Remove grips. Remove levers. Remove bars. Buy new bars. If new bars don't fit current stem, buy new stem. If you bought a new stem, remove current stem. If you bought a new stem, install new stem. Install new bars. Install levers. Install grips. Run new cable and housing (or re-use existing cable and housing after cutting to length, depending on condition). If you're installing drop bars, buy bar tape. Wrap bars with new bar tape.

REACH
So right now you're riding a road frame (relatively shorter top tube) that's meant for drop bars (longer reach, more drop). Someone put riser bars on there (shorter reach, less drop, or in this case, negative drop). Switching to a flat bar (more drop, more or less the same reach) or drop bars (on tops: more drop, more or less same reach, on hoods: more drop, more reach, in drops: much more drop, much more reach) is going to feel way different. It sounds like you're wanting something way different, just be aware that moving from high rises to a flat bar, or from high rises to drop bars, is a fairly drastic change. Not good, not bad, but different than what you have now. Which, you know, is what you're wanting to do. Just sayin'.

Grease your stem bolts. When they're tight, they hold your bars tight. If there's too much friction, they won't get tight. We lessen that friction with grease, so that the resistance comes from the clamping force, and not from the friction of the threads in the bolt turning in the threads of the stem.

I live to talk about this stuff, so feel free to ping me.

Saw dancestoblue in my shop today while I was building wheels for my new bike, but dude cut his hair and I was pretty engrossed in the task at hand, so I didn't recognize him. Keep ridin'.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 8:57 PM on March 16, 2016 [4 favorites]


FYI, I noticed your release lever on your front brake is open. Wanna close that once the wheel is on. Yay bikes.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 9:06 PM on March 16, 2016 [1 favorite]


Looks like it's a 2004 model. Doesn't list the specific bars (or their diameter), but it definitely came with drop bars.
posted by alexei at 11:18 PM on March 16, 2016 [2 favorites]


Some bars stamp the clamp diameter by one of the ends. Some stamp it right in the clamping area. Many don't bother at all. A friendly shop would happily whip out the calipers and measure it for you and show you a few bars you could get.

One of the reasons you probably aren't getting advice about what kind of bar you should get is because we don't really know how the bike fits you and what your goals are. If you told a story about how you wanted the bike to feel sportier, that leads us to drop bars or a flat bar or a few other things. If you said you wanted a lighter bar but more upright position, maybe you want a northroads bar.
posted by advicepig at 7:39 AM on March 17, 2016


For new bars, I would not suggest drop bars, as most people don't actually use the drops. But bullhorn-style bars would give you the flexibility of grip positions, and you'd likely be able to mount the old brake handles on there easily enough, though only for the across position.

Like Spike said, different bars will really change your position on the bike, though -- your hands will be further away, and further down.
posted by Dashy at 8:35 AM on March 17, 2016


Response by poster: Man, thank you to everybody! All of this is incredibly helpful, and I'm totally checking out the bike co-op ASAP and a little more informed. Realized I probably need to hop on a couple other bikes to get a feel for different bar styles, too. And I closed that release lever (double thanks).

Yay!
posted by circle at 5:15 PM on March 17, 2016


The bars you have look sort of like North Road bars; for a more aggressive riding position without new handlebars you can actually invert the handlebar and mount it upside down (you may find that using bar tape instead of grips is better with that configuration, as well, for more hand positions; and bar end rather than downtube shifters may also be an option).
posted by Pseudonymous Cognomen at 4:25 PM on March 23, 2016


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