CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Stuff

Buy the horns?

(24 posts)

  1. wingpig
    Member

    The current situation:

    My middle chainring is starting to skip under load again.
    No-one wants to have a direct replacement in stock. TBW will order one for £40ish; entire replacement chainset is £50 at CRC. Cheese-flavour 130BCD chainring is £19.

    Also:

    I ride exclusively on the hoods of my bottom-of-the-range Sora STIs. Finding a comfortable cruising/climbing position is easy.
    It's just about possible to simultaneously downshift and brake to avoid those setting-off-in-the-wrong-gear moments.
    But...
    When I brake hard, rather than putting extra pressure on the largeish contact area my weight usually rests on when not braking, all the pressure is concentrated in the bit between thumb and index finger. To squeeze the brakes as hard as possible I have to shift my hands a bit.
    The left-hand brake lever has seen better days. It still works but I used to be able to easily lock the rear wheel.

    Therefore...

    Despite their distressing fashionableness, I've been wondering about horn-bars again (after first wondering about them six years ago when I first started frowning at my handlebars).
    I'd be able to have my hands almost exactly where they are now, but I'd be able to use all fingers to haul on the brakes and would be able to brace the pull against more of my hand.
    Bar-end shifter levers are way cheaper than STIs:
    the cheapness of shifter levers would offset the cost of converting to a chainset paradigm (probably involving replacing the BB) which comes in flavours like 34/50, which ought to force me to switch chainrings more often when riding, avoiding the current situation where the middle (42) has been chewed to death in a very short time whilst the little (30) and big (52) ones are still quite usable.

    The main problem is having no idea how I'd get on with bar-end twiddle-shifters after STIs, though I managed fine on downtube-mounted friction shifters until 2005.

    What are other people's findings of horn-bars after drop-bars, or bar-end shifters after STIs? Any particular brands of horn to seek or avoid? I see that some come in allegedly aerodynamic cross-sections but that would leave nowhere to attach shining or dinging things.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  2. chdot
    Admin

    "Cheese-flavour 130BCD chainring is £19"

    Not much choice on ebay either.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  3. Darkerside
    Member

    Given the current discount, I'd say that On-One midge handlebars were definitely worth a look. I was in a similiar situation of only ever using the hoods, and find them perfect for the job. I can wax lyrical if required.

    As an additional bonus, they're definitely not fashionable, despite my attempts to call them 'gull-wing'

    Posted 12 years ago #

  4. wingpig
    Member

    @Darkerside Which way round to they go? What sort of shifting and braking things would be attached thereto?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  5. steveo
    Member

    I'd been considering some "alternate" handlebars for the single speed. The track bars aren't all that comfortable, partly because they are too narrow but the drop on them is pretty deep compared to the ergonomic ones on the racer.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  6. steveo
    Member

    The Midge is deployed in a similar manner to a normal drop bar.

    I think what you are looking at is the Bingo
    http://www.on-one.co.uk/i/q/HBOOBINGO/on_one_bingo_handlebar

    Posted 12 years ago #

  7. chdot
    Admin

    Or this sort of bars?

    Posted 12 years ago #

  8. Darkerside
    Member

    They end up like wide, flattened drops. Hand position is on the drops, but this ends up being about where the hoods on a 'standard' set of drops are (maybe a touch lower). Bonus being you're actually on a full length of handlebar, with tape and padding. Drop brakes end up nicely under the normal finger position, and there's probably no reason you couldn't use STIs, although I'm on bar end shifters.

    Bells, lights, computers and other accoutrements attach as usual to the horizontal bit near the stem.

    If you're ever across in Glasgow you're welcome to give them a try. There's a fair number of reviews online as well

    Posted 12 years ago #

  9. wingpig
    Member

    The current levers' thumb-flicky-shifting thing is a pain to use from the drops - I have to twist my hand inwards to get at the thumb-lever. I'll see if this is any different when the accompanying arms aren't in an on-the-drops position or if I just have short thumbs. I did wonder a while back if inverting the drops and sawing them off would result in something usable - might invert the bars and one of the levers this evening to see if it might work.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  10. chdot
    Admin

    "The current levers' thumb-flicky-shifting thing is a pain to use from the drops"

    Singlespeed?

    Only joking...

    Posted 12 years ago #

  11. chdot
    Admin

    I like 'old fashioned' thumbshifts on drops.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  12. wingpig
    Member

    I have steveo's old SS conversion kit, which is either going on the sparebike to replace the current bent mech(unless it gets the old mech from properbike) or on oldbike (when I get round to finishing off stripping the old knackered bits off it), if the rear fork of either seems happy with a freehub-width hub. The brake-only levers from oldbike still seem perfectly usable so might get modelled on some spare bits of pipe to see if they'd work on horns.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  13. chdot
    Admin

    "if the rear fork seems happy with a freehub-width hub"

    Play with the washers.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  14. kaputnik
    Moderator

    @wingpig - cheap way to experiment with bullhorns would be to buy an old set of drops from bikestation for a few squids and saw them off and turn them upside down.

    I've just ordered a pair of replacement chainrings for my well sharkteethed ones. Middle-of-the-range Shimano Ultegra ones were £68 (eep!) for the pair, although I did get a £12 discount on CRC seeing as it was 12th of the month! I also took opportunity to shed a few teeth and lower the gearing on this bike.

    Have you considered some sort of moustache / north road type bar to avoid the putting-all-the-weight-on-bit-between-thumb-and-finger-when-braking? Both happily accept an STI turned on its side.

    As for shifters, Tiagra are the cheapest STI you'll find (in Shimano range at least) with double-paddle shifters rather than brake lever / thumbswitch combo on Sora and the one below that.

    Man in TBW said to me that bar-end shifters were more expensive than the need be because of fashion in the TT / Tri market which keeps prices high (a pair of return to neutral levers will cost you a couple of hundred quid). I'm sure friction levers could be picked up for much less cost.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  15. recombodna
    Member

    "@wingpig - cheap way to experiment with bullhorns would be to buy an old set of drops from bikestation for a few squids and saw them off and turn them upside down."

    I have a pair of these already cut in the garage You're welcome to them if you want to experiment.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  16. chdot
    Admin

    I have a ready cut pair.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  17. wingpig
    Member

    Thanks for offers: I'll try TBS first as I've been trying to get there all week.

    I'll definitely need some bar-end shifters even if I re-mount the existing STI levers:

    [+] Embed the video | Video DownloadGet the Flash Video

    Posted 12 years ago #

  18. Instography
    Member

    I can lend you a single speed with that kind of bar - you'll have seen the photo on Blip - to have a play with but you'd need to imagine the bar end shifting. I ride on the hoods all the time and those bars feel very comfortable. You're right about the braking - whole hand is much more powerful.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  19. wingpig
    Member

    TheBikeStation had what looks slightly more like a sawn-off drop bar than a created-as-bullhorn in their handlebar drawer at lunchtime AND a quite unworn-looking thing with 42 teeth hanging on the hook labelled "130" on the chainring-board. I'll not do anything as rash as call it a 130mmBCD 42-tooth chainring until I've taken it home and measured it. Hopefully the tooth pitch is compatible. That should allow me to refresh the rest of the drivetrain, test the bars in fake-singlespeed (not changing gear) mode before seeing if I want to buy some bar-end shifters and continue to ponder what to do with the crank.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  20. kaputnik
    Moderator

    TheBikeStation had what looks slightly more like a sawn-off drop bar than a created-as-bullhorn in their handlebar drawer at lunchtime

    Former was there on Saturday when I raked around. The latter I dropped off as a failed experiment - it's a proper track pursuit bar so has a big drop in it.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  21. crowriver
    Member

    I know what you mean about weight transferring to the hands when braking hard riding on the hoods: had this happen a couple of times on steep descents and it felt like the bars were turning forward in the stem! They weren't, but that was the sensation, most unsettling!

    I've found Cyclocross style inline brake levers a good way to have crisper braking on steep descents: just need to shift hands onto the straights before braking...

    Posted 12 years ago #

  22. wingpig
    Member

    Too much of my braking occurs immediately after rapid-upshift-acceleration for having to switch to the flats to get full braking to sound like much fun. Whenever I've had the sensation that the bars were rotating forward in the stem clamp (either during hard braking or gradually over the course of lots of milder braking) it turned out to be the bars rotating forwards in the stem clamp; last time I rejiggled everything I tried to arrange some little bits of tape to mark where things were to see if they still lined up later but the tape came off when I had to refit a light bracket.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  23. Instography
    Member

    If those cyclocross in-line brake levers are the same as touring in-line brake levers, I've got a pair that I just had taken off my tourer on the grounds that I've never ever used them and they get in the way of a bar bag. Your's if they're of any use.

    Posted 12 years ago #

  24. wingpig
    Member

    Using the sawn-off manglebars worked, but was a bit weird whilst still using the thumb-flick-STI. Braking was noticeably massively more comfortable. I noticed when climbing/accelerating that I didn't have the side of the STI to use to prevent unsightly bike-waggle and that I couldn't pull against the bit between the root of the brake lever and the bars any more. Generally the position was reasonably comfortable, so I started ordering stuff.

    The manglebars (which I wasn't going to keep permanently as they'd had a few holes drilled in them by a former owner) accepted about two-thirds of the length of the Ultegra eight-speed (with friction-option) bar-end shifters. They could be bent about a bit but the noticeable oblation of their cross-section where the STIs were fastened gave me the heebies. Charge Slices turned out to be too narrow to accept the bar-end shifters (and shall be de-wiggled when I get round to repacking them in their giant air-filled box), but a set of Zenith horns for almost the same money appeared to be normal road-bar diameter (which the bloke at the website confirmed prior to purchase).

    The lever has since been rotated as there was nowhere for the cable to go to the underside of the bar with the STI sitting in the way. At the moment the cable runs from the shifter onto the inside of the bars and hasn't yet made itself noticeable but should be at less risk of so being if the lever is tweaked, to where it wouldn't be straight but where it the axis of movement still be compatible with available thumb-finger motions.

    There's a little bit of spare length in the upturned sections which I might remove eventually. The STIs can be tightened fully without warping the bar and can be squeezed to wheel-lockingness with ease without getting sore thumb-webs. The stupid arrangement of the cable-inlet of my front mech made trimming a pain in the face when it was installed which the friction-only front shifter should now ease, though I rarely move off the middle ring during normal use. One journey has been undertaken using the STI for the rear mech but with the right-hand bar-end lever in place and it feels like it will be more workable. When I've rewired the gears I'll try some different brake levers (and possibly horn-reduction) to get everything within reach without requiring hand-shuffling.

    Posted 12 years ago #

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