Touring - Straight Bar to Drop Bar Conversion

Howdy,

I bought a used Miyada Cross frame. My understanding is that this frame was designed for a straight handle bar and that Miyada catgoriezed this frame in the Hybrid family. I have bought a drop bar for this bike and all of the associated hardware before I realized this frame was designed for the straight handle bar. If I put the drop bar on this straight bar frame, will that messes up with the ride of the bike? I mean, will the riding position be messed up? Also, this frame came with a fork that has the logo "koga." Is this fork compactible with my drop handle bar?

As you might be able to tell, I know very little about bicycles geometry and fitting. However, I am very mechanically inclined, so building the bike will not be any issue. The issue is building a bike to fits me well.

Also, I'm not sure if this Miyda is a good platform for touring. Since my purpose is exercise, I might consider making this a fixed gear bike, which will probably be cheaper to build.

I put drop bars on a Miyata Triple Cross without any problems. It worked well on my tour of India.

There are a few issues at play. Apart from the drop handlebars themselves you will need:

- new brake levers
- new brake cables
- maybe a new stem
- maybe new shifters and shift cables
- maybe bar tape

What kind of stem do you have? Most flat handlbars are 25.4mm diameter so your stem is probably 25.4mm clamp size, which means that most road bars 26.0mm will not fit in. This isn't always the case though so YMMV. Also stems for flat bars tend to be shorter and more upright, while stems for drop bars are longer and lower down. This is a fit issue you're going to have to fugure out though.

Further along the vein of handbar diameter, are the brake levers and shifters. You probably don't want to attach your flat bar brake levers to your drop bars -- nor can you because the drop bars will be too fat. Same issue with the shifters unless your bike has downtube shifters or you addapt it for downtube shifting.

You will need new cables because now the levers are a different distance away from the brakes and derailleurs.

You'll also need bar tape, but thats your call.

You should not need to replace that fork; if you have any issues it will be the stem you need to replace.

BTW. the company is "Miyata" and they made solid mid range steel bikes. I'm not sure what their line is like these days though. Fixed gear is fun (I have 3), but if the components are in good order on the Miyata, I say keep it geared and ride it as is.

Flat bars and drop bars are a different fit and feeling but shouldn't affect the ride that much. You have more leverage turning with flat bars and have a more upright position, but with drop bars you have more variety of hand positions and a more aerodynamic poisition.

Thanks for the rapid responses. I think I've got everything I need except for the wheel, tire, and axle (hub). I got an extra set of drop bar and stem, in case I don't feel comfortable with the one I got. One of the stem looks like a MTB stem because it very tall; the other one looks like a typical road bike stem, very forward but not tall. So, I got both style to try out. I installed the MTB stem with the drop bar yesterday, and everything bolts on good. I don't know what size of stem it was; the seller just handed 'em to me and said they would fit.

My Miyata frame is allegedly aluminum on the front part of the diamond, and steel on the rear part. Makes me wonder how good the connection is.

Some frames have high tensel steel rear triangle and 4130 steal frount triangle but alu and steel mix sounds strange. From what I know you could not weld the two together (or if you can it must be very difficult due to the diffrent melting temps) but I may very well be wrong so if any one knows better let me know. Maybe it has a alu frame and steel fork? Good luck with the build post it up when your done.

Using a drop bar will have no real effect on the ride.

My understanding is that some Miyata frame was "glued" together, instead of welding.
I don't see any sign of welding on my frame. According to Miyata's technical report,
their adhesive is stronger than welding!


Some frames have high tensel steel rear triangle and 4130 steal frount triangle but alu and steel mix sounds strange. From what I know you could not weld the two together (or if you can it must be very difficult due to the diffrent melting temps) but I may very well be wrong so if any one knows better let me know. Maybe it has a alu frame and steel fork? Good luck with the build post it up when your done.