Well, I've had a hard time finding the motivation to ride to work lately. When that happens, one thing that brings me out of it is to change something on one of my bikes. I did something fairly significant to the old trusty trek that I use for commuting. I made it a single speed. Why? so that I could use a particular set of handlebars I had kicking around my garage.
I got these bars off of an old bike I picked up for free at the town of strathmore recycle yard and wanted to mount them upside down for quite a while now. Problem was that if I used these bars, there wasn't enough room for my shifter and brakes while leaving enough of the bars for me to grab onto. So, yanked off my front and rear derailer, picked a gear ratio that worked with the correct chain length and had a fairly straight chain line and committed myself to the project.
I've order some gear spacers from Ebay so I can lose the unused gears, but for now this is working okay. I'm not sure that I have the right ratio though. I think it'll take about a week of riding to make sure that it's not too high and not too low. Also, the chain tension is a bit tighter than I would like.
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Who knows. This whole thing might not work out as well as I had hoped. Add to that, the bars mounted this way are so far uncomfortable. But they look so cool. Is the sacrifice worth it? I'll have to give it a bit more time to be sure, but so far no.
I like bikes and always like to be changing them. Sometimes they work out great, as in the case of my fixie, which I will never change from what it is now, and sometimes not so much. This Trek was set up well, I was just getting bored of it and thought that it could be improved. Maybe I'll add a 3 speed internal gear hub I've got kicken around and flip the bars back upright.
Forever in search of making my bike better.
Jerome
I got these bars off of an old bike I picked up for free at the town of strathmore recycle yard and wanted to mount them upside down for quite a while now. Problem was that if I used these bars, there wasn't enough room for my shifter and brakes while leaving enough of the bars for me to grab onto. So, yanked off my front and rear derailer, picked a gear ratio that worked with the correct chain length and had a fairly straight chain line and committed myself to the project.
I've order some gear spacers from Ebay so I can lose the unused gears, but for now this is working okay. I'm not sure that I have the right ratio though. I think it'll take about a week of riding to make sure that it's not too high and not too low. Also, the chain tension is a bit tighter than I would like.
Who knows. This whole thing might not work out as well as I had hoped. Add to that, the bars mounted this way are so far uncomfortable. But they look so cool. Is the sacrifice worth it? I'll have to give it a bit more time to be sure, but so far no.
I like bikes and always like to be changing them. Sometimes they work out great, as in the case of my fixie, which I will never change from what it is now, and sometimes not so much. This Trek was set up well, I was just getting bored of it and thought that it could be improved. Maybe I'll add a 3 speed internal gear hub I've got kicken around and flip the bars back upright.
Forever in search of making my bike better.
Jerome
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