Crosstop lever on shallow track drops...?
 

I've been riding on old bullhorns for a while now and am looking for something with less reach and more drop...I'm eyeing something along the lines of those Eighthinch track drops because I like the proportions, but I'm wondering if I can mount a crosstop brake lever on them? The curve at the top of the bars seems pretty narrow, can I still expect to be able to pull the lever with some room to spare between the lever and the part where the bars start curving down?

For the record I'm using a Cane Creek crosstop lever.

works on my deda pista bars

i use a cane creek crosstop lever on my Origin8 Gary bars and it's all good...you need to get a crosstop lever with a larger clamp if you're using a 31.8 bar...

My buddy from work has the same setup you're talking about. Eighthinch classic drops and a Tektro cross lever. Works and look great.

What size clamp does your lever have?

Well the Eighthinch bar has a 26mm clamp size, I'm not sure if my stem is 25.4 or 26, and without an actual spec it's impossible for my eyes to tell the difference of half a millimeter. It is a quill stem though, so I do hope it fits, but how much difference does half a millimeter make? I'm also not sure what the exact clamp size of the lever is, but it fits the bars I'm currently using so I figure I can safely assume that it'll fit any handlebar that fits in the stem...Cane Creek's website says it's for 26mm bars...

Scrod, would you or your buddy happen to have a picture of the bike or handlebar setup?

Thanks guys.

I can get a pic on Monday. I do know that the bulge for the stem on those bars is 26mm, then it tapers down to 24 for the rest of the bars. If your lever has a 26mm clamp, you'll need to shim it. I've got a couple of cross levers laying around with 24mm clamps so if you find yourself in a bind and needing (or wanting) a new lever, PM me.

You may need to slightly file down the inside edges of your quill and grease up the bars to get them in, but it should work. Back the bolt out enough to put a quarter inside of it and tighten it a little to spread your stem if need be.

I looked a little closer at the bars I'm using now and they have a ~24mm OD across the entire bar with a shim in the center to fit in the stem. I still can't tell how much the shim adds to the diameter but I figure if I'm determined enough I can get a 26mm bar into the stem. Anyway the brake lever clamps to the 24mm part and doesn't fit around the shimmed part of the handlebar, so I'm pretty sure it'll fit the narrower part of the Eighthinch bars.

Yeah...you're golden. What kind of stem?

I dunno, some old quill stem that came with the bike... I'm riding a 70's Sports Tourer conversion.

Buying bars without knowing what size the clamp you want to fit them into is a bad idea. Cramming a 26mm bar into a 25.4mm clamp is a terrible, jackass idea. Youre not a jackass are you? Then get some Vernier calipers and measure everything properly. It makes a huge difference to be able to know exactly what size your bike components are.

Plastic ones are about 2 bucks. They work fine for everything bike related and will measure accurately to a tenth of a millimeter and higher.

http://www.widgetsupply.com/page/WS/...-vernier/BEU07

Actually I'm pretty sure we have all kinds of calipers and such in our metal shop... I need to remember to drop by with my bike and take some real measurements.

Great idea. Sorry that I'm a little bit pushy about vernier calipers but once you get your hands on some you'll get it. Get someone to show you how the scale works, that's the place where you read off tenths of a mm. Remember, you can always get your own set for $2.

I had an old 25.4 SR quill stem on an old bike and easily slid bullhorns that were 26mm right into it. I guess I'm a jackass.

Okay so I brought my bike into the shop today and realized that we didn't have any small-scale calipers, but we did have pinch calipers so I used those anyway (better than nothing). I didn't know how accurate the pinch calipers would be but I measured a couple times and each time it turned out dead 26mm. So I ordered those bars later today. Yay!

Waiting for new parts to come in the mail is the worst thing.

Agreed. I'm currently waiting for new pedals/clips/straps, a chainring and a wheelset for my bike and a set of bars for my wife's bike. Thank goodness for tracking numbers!

With no shim, this can lead to clamp failure once that extra room is torqued down. This is indeed a jackass idea, sorry. But trying to get 26mm bars into 25.4mm clamp, which is what I was talking about to the OP, is worse.

Reading comprehension FTL. He said he was able to fit a 26mm (LARGER) handlebar into a 25.4mm (SMALLER) quill stem.

Anyway, can you elaborate on how this would be a bad idea? I still don't really understand the effect of a half-millimeter difference...

Basically, aluminum doesn't like to be deformed, it fails catastrophically when it fails, and stem failures are always bad. Just torquing a 26mm stem down on a 25.4mm bar and risking your teeth and face is a bad idea, especially when you could just put in a piece of pop can or something.

That .4 of a mm is actually a pretty big distance in this context. I have put 25.4mm bars into a 26mm pop top stem with a shim, and without that shim it couldn't even grip the bar properly. Trying to go the other way (26mm bar in a 25.4mm clamp) would be a disaster, I don't think you could get the bars on but you might manage to scratch everything up trying.

What part of me saying that I got them in with no trouble at all did you miss? Doing a quick Google search for "26mm bars in a 25.4 stem" pulls up a lot of results...most of them threads from right here on good ol' BF...and it seems like everyone who has done it has had no issues of "disaster".

At any rate, the OP's stem and bars both measure 26mm, so there's no real need to get in a virtual pissing contest.

I am confused, because before you were saying that you fit 25.4mm bars in a 26mm stem. Of course that's not going to be any trouble to fit in, you have .6mm of air around the clamping surface. The problem is all the deformation that the aluminum will undergo once you torque it down, and that the resulting shape is unlikely to be perfectly round, resulting in a poorly clamped bar and a clamp that is significantly more likely to fail.

My google for "26mm bars in a 25.4 stem", which you were not talking about earlier, has turned up five results, all of which are forum threads where the op states that it's possible with a pop top/ open faced stem. Of course this is true but I had closed face stems in mind when I said it would be impossible. Note that all five of these forum threads have people cautioning that it's a bad idea.

As for closed face stems, you could probably cram 26mm bars in a 25.4 closed face stem if you wanted to bad enough, but you would have to use a screwdriver to pry the clamp way open and you would likely scratching the bar's clamping surface to hell. Either way someone is free to go for it and it probably won't break, but it's still not something I'd consider doing.

As for putting 25.4mm bars in a 26mm clamp, I just don't get why someone would take on that risk instead of simply cutting up a beer can to make a shim, or even going to the bike co-op and getting a different 3 dollar stem with the correct size clamp. It's janky and dangerous, and doing things right costs you next to nothing. We are all free to make our own choices though.

Just for sh*ts and grins, I'm quoting my own earlier post. Knowing how to read is good.

Oops, my bad. Are you sure that was a 25.4 stem? It should have been a giant pain in the ass; the one time I tried (not knowing what size everything was) it it seemed prohibitively hard. .Often with a closed face stem that fits correctly, let alone one that's .6 of a mm too big, you need to pry it a bit to put it on.

Anyways, it's not a mander recommended procedure, but of course you can do whatever you want.

I am in no way stating that everyone should make common practice of it, just saying that I once did it without any issues. It was definitely a 25.4 stem, as it was an old alloy SR quill that came off a Schwinn World Tourist. The bars...26mm Origin 8 bullhorns...went in without having to pry the stem open at all. Perhaps it was just one of those freak things.

Okay so the handlebars came today and here's the verdict...

They were definitely a little bit thicker than the bullhorns that I originally had (and thought were 26mm), the bullhorns came out with no problam but the drops were a little bit more difficult to get in. I finagled a bit and were able to squeeze them in there without having to pry the stem open or anything, and only got one small scratch on the handlebars which I don't care about at all. So at this point I'm still pretty confused whether my stem is 25.4 or 26, but either way I got the handlebars in without too big a fuss.

I'm probably gonna die though.

Oh PS - I was able to get the brake lever on there fine but I had to angle them down quite a bit to clear the curve of the drops. It's not unuseable, just different from when I had them on the bullhorns and I'll just have to get used to it.

I had the same problem getting the curve into my quill stem, its a sharp curve. I had to pry my stem open a little bit but it really was not much trouble after that... heres a picture..
http://i606.photobucket.com/albums/t...s/DSCI0932.jpg