THE Donald

hi all

im a novice biker and have recently bought a standard road bike with 21 gears, shimano flick your wrist style. hurts my back when im riding around even though its set to the optimum comfort position. i often find myself with hands in the flat bar position where i have no brakes so an extra thing to think about should a hazard pop out of nowhere.
i want to change this to a flat bar setup, one of those short flat bars that you see couriers using.
as i have a derailleur is this a real pain to do? ideally i would like to swap for flat bar but keep the gears and get those small bmx style brake levers.

can anyone offer some noob style advice? ive browsed the forums but i dont understand the terminology used when describing the procedure. guess im after an idiots guide lol. sorry if this is a dumb post but i need advice before going to the shop so at least i appear to know what im talking about/trying to do.

thanks

kycycler

You can change the bar to flat, you will need to change the shifters as well. You can install brake levers into the cables that run along the bars. These are not like the old style "danger sticks". These work by being attached to the cable and actuate by pulling the cables. Another option would be to get comfortable riding on the top of the bars and get a PROPER bike fit.

dabac

Easiest place to start (although purists will shudder) is to get a shorter stem, a riser stem, maybe a steerer tube extender and a really short & stubby DH/BMX stem. A combo of those parts might put the bar where your back can stand it. Adding a pair of CX/interrupter brake levers is no big deal.

If you aren't comfortable with a drop bar I don't think it's advisable for you to get flat bar cut down courier-style either. Even if it gets within a reach you can manage it still takes a certain amount of skill/experience to ride a narrow bar bike safely.

zzyzx_xyzzy

I might try a long high rise stem before a short one, any additional rise will tend to reduce the reach to the bars, while super-short reach can be deceptive and wind up with you putting more load on your wrists. Also suggest moving the saddle back if your back is complaining at holding your upper body up.

I'd also look at "moustache" handlebars, they are the same diameter as road bars, so you wouldn't need to get different shifters and brake levers, but they're more upright.

THE Donald

thanks for the replies. i actually purchased a shorter riser stem the other day its better but still not perfect. im 6ft 1 and my frame is 21" my seat is back as far as it can go. it just feels like everything is too low for a lanky fella such as myself and after maybe 30 mins of fast riding i feel like an old man.. ooh me back me back straighten crunch!

THE Donald

heres my bike

dabac

According to the pic your saddle might be as high as it would go, but luckily enough not as far back as it would go. In terms of back & forth adjustment of saddle I recommend conservatism.
And for what that can be gained from the pic the set up seems fairly average for a reasonably experienced rider, top of drops a little lower than the saddle. The flat bar of my commuter probably ends up somewhere between your tops and your drops. But yeah, for a novice rider, that's a quite straining position to be in.

Where to go from here depends on what you want, and how you cope with riding on the tops. If riding on the tops is OK, then, as suggested, a moustache bar could be the easiest way forward, requiring the least amount of associated replacements.

But I'd suggest getting a steerer tube extender instead. Slap one of those in and you should get the bars a good few inches higher. Then you can ride in that position until you've gained enough strength to be able to start lowering the bars towards their current position again.

THE Donald

ace! thanks dabac i will give that a go

BCRider

Well first off I'm going to suggest that your frame is too small. Depending on how you measured it a 21 inch frame is only a 53.3 cm size. That's fine for a mountain bike that uses a radically sloping top tube but road bikes are a whole other enchilada. I'm 6' 1" as well and the SMALLEST road frame I ride is a 58 cm that just happens to have a long top tube so it fits nicely. Unless it's one of the sloping top tube style frames (hard to see for sure from the picture) with a long top tube and a larger effective seat tube length then I'd say that this bike is too small for you. I'd say that you should go along with what the others are suggesting and get you and the bike into a proper road bike shop and have them size you up and set up the bike for you. At the same time they'll be able to confirm if the frame size is suitable for you. Because from the picture it sure looks to me that you must feel like a size large guy trying to fit into a size small Speedo.

Before you run in for the bike fit look at some other bike pictures. For example touring bikes use the same sort of bars and levers and the riders find them comfy for man hours at a time. But the key there is that for a touring rider they use a stem that puts the top of the bars up much closer to being even with the top of the saddle or even just a hair higher than the saddle. Asking for your riding position to be set up more similar to a touring bike may be something to consider for now. Then later if you find you're becoming more aggresive in your riding you could get it re-fitted for a lower bar position so you're more aerodynamic in the saddle.

But none of this alters the fact that this bike could well be too small for you. That's the first thing to find out. You could google for "bike fit" or "bicycle fit" and find some articles. If it's close there's some room to play with and at least you'll learn what all the terms are and how to measure the effective top tube length.

wrk101

+1 Frame way too small. That is a frame for someone 5-7. That's one reason you are unable to get the bars to the same height as the seat.

Secondly, converting this bike to flat bars is going to be relatively expensive, and lower the value of the bike. Since it is the wrong size anyway, I would suggest you sell it and get yourself a flat bar bike, perhaps a hybrid. Around here, used flat bar bikes sell cheap, really cheap.

You should end up with $$ left over when you are done.

THE Donald

really? i did the calculation, i forget the maths..but i said i need 21.5", i figured this with the seat pushed up a bit would be fine but have obviously run into the bars are now too low problem. this bike wasnt expensive i only paid £130 its a claud butler san remo 700 sprayed black cos the original job was union jack ridiculous! hence me thinking i could put parts onto it to make it suitable for me.

six30nine

I haven't had a professional bike fitting done, but I have used the Competitive Cyclist Fit Calculator to find a starting point for buying and/or setting up bikes.

How long have you been riding? I started back up again a few months ago after not riding in years, and it takes my body/back a few weeks to get used to a different bike or new set of adjustments. If you just started, maybe you just need to give it some more time before you decide to make adjustments.

The first thing I noticed in the pic you posted is that your saddle looks like it's tilted forward. If so, you might try leveling it or even tilting the nose up slightly. If you feel like your sliding forward, it might be causing you to try and compensate by pushing back on the bars, placing more pressure on your hands/wrists and increasing the strain on your back.

cappuccino911

To answer your original question a flat bar conversion can be done using your existing rear deraileur however, you will need a new front deraileur. Flat bar shifters are basically mtb shifters and the front deraileur have different amounts of cable pull. 7 and 8 speed rear flat bar shifters are verycheap, they can be had for around 20 bucks and have the brake levers integrated as well. 9 and 10 speed shifters are more expensive and you need to buy separate brake levers. Depending on your drive train this could be cheap or very pricey. I also agree that it sounds like your frame is.too small.

BCRider

Not all of us are built the same. For example I need to tilt my own saddles at least as much as he shows or the horn puts a huge amount of pressure in the area that cuts off the blood to the naughty bits. I just keep altering the tip until I can feel most of my weight on the sit bones of my pelvis and the saddles end up with a pronounced nose down tilt. For folks like me a flat saddle isn't an option.

Back to THE Donald;
It may be that you used a chart that was intended for the new "three sizes fits all" style of radically sloped top tube road frames. But if you used such a chart then you should have stuck with that style of frame. If you had then your bars would not be so far below your saddle.

One of my road bikes is a Redline single speed 925 model. I was a bit shocked to check it just now and find that it's a 21.5 inch size from center to top just like your bike. The difference being that my bike has a more sloping top tube so the steering head tube is quite high and the bike was also put together with what appears to be more spacers under the stem. Again as a comparison for you to measure the flat horizontal Effective Top Tube length on my bike from the center of the head tube in line with the center of the top tube weld to the center of where the horizontal line intersects the seat post is 23 3/8 inchs. Check your bike for this and let us know what you find for your own measurement.

As I said before I'm the same height at you are. I just measured a couple of my bikes and the distance from the nose of my saddles to the center of the bars for my road bikes where they fit into the stem is 20 inches in all three cases. The bars on these three bikes are either drop bars like yours or bullhorn bars that are ridden with the same sort of reach as riding drop bars up on the hoods so they pretty much match up. To compare upper bodies for length between us I wear 34 inch inseam pants with my 6' 1" height so factor that into your own measurement when you check this out. With this all in mind go measure the distance from the nose of your saddle to the center of the bars where they fit in the stem and get back to us.

Oddly enough I never went out of my way to match these three bikes like this. But after fine tuning the saddle position over the pedals and then altering the reach with various stems they all ended up matching to within an 1/8 inch once I found my comfort point. Also all three bikes have the bars where they pass through the stem even with or up to one inch below the saddle. This is very much in line with the touring bike style I was describing earlier. This setup provides for a very comfortable riding position for a non racer while still allowing for effectively leaning forward aggresively to beat against a strong headwind or for those occasional fun sprints. But as some of us mentioned it may still be a little too aggresive for a new or returning rider. I know that when I started out I sure would not have been comfortable on the bikes that I enjoy now.

Who knows, the camera perspective of your picture may be playing tricks on us too. It may be that with a little bit of parts swapping you can get this thing to fit you decently. Start by measuring the stuff I gave you so we can compare. Also if you can try to get a more square on shot of the bike with the camera in line with and perpendicular in both planes to the middle of the main triangle so you have the flatest possible perspective of the bike that would help as well.

DRietz

If you're just worried about braking while on the flats, put on cyclocross interrupter levers...

fietsbob

frame proportions are a trend driven thing .. older was a short seat post , 2 inches of stand over was right.
top tube proportionally shorter.

now you see racers with a lot of seatpost and no stem height

Shorter frame with longer seat post= longer top tube is needed to keep things the same reach.

you may need a different bike, one which fits your current needs. maybe an upright position will be better

different style bars , and a comfortable posture.. and switching a few parts will not get you there..

Note there is a "fitness Bike" category which is a straight bar equpped and has narrow tired wheels if the bend over can be tolerated picking bits from those groupsets can be tapped into..

20 year-olds in bike shops rarely know history , even just of bikes .

LesterOfPuppets

I'd probably just get Cane Creek Crosstop levers (or similar). Install on the flat portions of the bar and work in addition to current levers. You should be able to get 'em installed for $40-70 if you've a good bike shop around. If you install 'em yourself, they're as low as $22 on the internet.

To do a flat bar conversion, you need to determine the clamp diameter of your stem. If it's a 26mm, you'll need new stem, bar, shift levers and brake levers.

Figure for the conversion:
$15 stem
$15 bar
$15 for falcon friction shifters, if you can live without the clicky. (might be able to score 7-sp index off ebay for about the same price)
$17 brake levers
$10 grips
$10 cables/housing

$82 + shipping.
Add money for tools like a cable cutter.

Oh, and do 200 twisting crunches and at least 20 pushups a day. Pretty soon your back should stop hurting.

NormanF

A moustache bar is good. You can still use road brake levers/shifters AND ride upright. Drop bars are just not kind to my back and I don't care for riding in a hunched over position. I like to see what's going on around me and enjoy the scenery when I ride my bike.