Originally Posted by CrosseyedCrickt
I saw drop bar ends for ATBs over a year ago online and thought they were cool, but never wanted them. For 40-60 bucks you can get full on drop bars for mountain bikes and set it up with brifters and hood brakes, would be much better in my opinion, but wouldn't work with my pogies
Ha ha. If you look a little deeper into what you'd need to do for the conversion, you'll see that $40 - 60 is a pipe dream.
There's a reason I almost bought these: You cannot get brifters, bars, compatible front derailleur, new brakes (road levers don't have enough pull for v-brakes) and bar tape for less than $150 new. And that's with some savvy shopping. You could probably pull it off for about $100 (shipped) if you shopped on ebay for about a month, but that would give me an ulcer.
So yeah, I'd spend $20 on these things OR put that $150 as a down payment on an actual road or cross bike. The conversion just isn't worth the hassle or cost. You end up with an overly heavy mountain bike with drop bars and a hole in your pocket where your money used to be!
I would never have believed how many things needed to be replaced just to add drop bars if I didn't do the research at the time!