Bicycle Mechanics - Making brifters work with bullhorns

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asherlighn
10-18-07, 01:05 PM
Due to the impending addition of a new road bike to my stable, I am going to turn my Trek 5200 w/ Shimano 600 8speed into my fair weather commuter. I really want to use bullhorns as that is the position I feel most comfortable with in traffic (have been having great success with them on my fixed gear). Now I know I can just use cross levers and bar end shifters like this:

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l156/Wordbiker/P8040145.jpg


but I think it would look and feel a lot better if I could hack the angle of the brifters so that they would work with the bullhorns. Anyone have any suggestions of how to do this?

(yes this is reposted from the road forum. I realized after posting there that this would be a much more sensible place to try and get info).

SoonerBent
10-18-07, 01:23 PM
I've had Shimano brifters on Profile bullhorns. The lever position was fine and the shifter cabling is simple. The brake cables are another story. The brake cables are designed to go "up" from the brifter. On bullhorns they need to go "down". Here's what I did. The bars already had holes for internal cabling so I drilled a 3/8 inch hole almost at the end of the bar, right where the brake cable opening is on the back of the brifter. It's a bit tight to get the cable from the brifter into the bar but everything worked smoothly when I got done.

Oh yeah, you can get the levers closer to the bar by moving the lever more into the curve of the bar.
Peedtm
10-18-07, 04:32 PM
I've had Shimano brifters on Profile bullhorns. The lever position was fine and the shifter cabling is simple. The brake cables are another story. The brake cables are designed to go "up" from the brifter. On bullhorns they need to go "down". Here's what I did. The bars already had holes for internal cabling so I drilled a 3/8 inch hole almost at the end of the bar, right where the brake cable opening is on the back of the brifter. It's a bit tight to get the cable from the brifter into the bar but everything worked smoothly when I got done.

Oh yeah, you can get the levers closer to the bar by moving the lever more into the curve of the bar.

+1
I Just slid the brifters on past the hole , then installed the brake cable. The angle in there isn't bad at all.

fiver
10-18-07, 06:30 PM
The brake cables are another story. The brake cables are designed to go "up" from the brifter. On bullhorns they need to go "down".

A pair of linear brake noodles would get the job done.