Folding Bikes - Bike Friday NWT - H bars or Drop bars?

I recently bought a used BF NWT on ebay (August). I'm thrilled with the bike and ride it as often as I can. My full size touring rig (Jamis Aurora) has drop bars and I REALLY want to emulate that on the NWT.

That said, it looks to be pretty costly if I go through BF. I spoke to a local authorized BF dealer and he said I'm looking at a couple hundred bucks. I'm really not looking to spend nearly half of what I purchased the bike for on drop bars.

Has anyone retrofitted their bike with some home made drops?

My brother is currently in the process of retrofitting his NWT with drops and things look to be working out quite well.


Any advice?

My wife bought a Pocket Crusoe last year with H bars and the first upgrade we made this year was to add drop bars. Roger

Its not as easy as it sounds in some cases. In regards to the Bike Friday, you don't just need the bars, you need quite a few components. This is likely where the high cost quoted to you is coming from.

Going from a flat bar to a road bar, you also need road levers. In particular, if your NWT has linear pull (v-brakes), then you also need road levers specifically built for long pull (v-brake, disk) applications. New cables are also needed, as the cable interface is different, and you may also need new housing if your old housing was short.

Unless you previously had bar end shifters, your old ones won't work either. The clamp diameter is different on the road bar, and the ergonomics of using a trigger on a road bar would be atrocious even if you did force it on. Again, you may need new cables and housing if the overall length requirements are too different. If you have bar end shifters already though, it takes a lot of the cost out of the story.

You'll also want a handful of small assorted parts, such as bar tape and in-line barrel adjusters if you need adjustment on your brakes and gearing.

Integrated brake + shift levers are doable, but require several technical obstacles to be overcome, such as pull ratios. You would need either a cable travel adjuster (such as a travel agent) or to simply use cantilevers or mini-v's, if you wanted your brakes to work well. If your NWT is equipped with a mountain ratio front derailer like the R440/443, you might want to get a traditional road derailer instead, to get proper trim and response.

Its all certainly doable. I'm in the process of converting my Llama to drop bars right now, with bar end shifters, long pull road levers, and WTB mountain drop bars.

This is your cheapest option: http://www.amazon.com/Origin-Bicycle-Drop-Ends-Black/dp/B0013G6PB8

It's not ideal, as the brakes are still on the straight bars, but, it's cheap.