I think I've come to the conclusion that I just don't like flat bars, so this weekend I switched the Muirwoods over to drop bars.



I thought about doing this last fall, but I didn't think the fit was going to work out. It turns out that I had the top tube length wrong in my calculations. Once I realized it would work, it was just a matter of getting a new stem, handlebars, brakes and cables.

I used a Salsa Moto Ace Bell Lap handlebar, a set of Tiagra STI shifters I had sitting in the parts bin in my garage and the road version of Avid's BB7 disc brakes.

In theory the Tiagra shifters should work just fine with the XT rear derailleur, but I realized as I went to adjust it that neither shifters nor derailleur has a barrel adjuster, so until I can get an inline adjuster my shifting is gonna suck. I was able to get it tolerably close setting the cable tension by hand.

The front derailleur may be another story. Even when things are supposed to work I have a terrible time getting a triple derailleur set up to my satisfaction. Right now I'm using the XT front derailleur, but I didn't have time to fiddle with it much, so right now I've got it set up so that it will only use the middle and big rings. That works pretty well, and those are the only two I ever use for commuting anyway. When I get the inline adjusters, I may try it again, because it would be nice to have the granny gear for off-road use. I've also considered just going to a 1x9 setup with a 36T ring and a bash guard.

The Bell Lap bars aren't quite full on dirt drop bars, but they do have a slight flare. They're about 4 mm wider at the ends of the drops than they are at the hoods. That doesn't sound like much, but you can definitely feel it. Riding in the drops, it feels really wide. The idea is that this give you better control. I went with the flare and set up the hoods angle in quite a bit, and that feels like an even more natural wrist angle than normal for drop bars (which I think are already much better than flat bars). This is my impression after 11 miles on the new setup. I'll have to ride it a lot more to really know, but so far I like the changes.

I tried to get a picture that shows the shape of the bars well, but my camera wasn't quite up to the task. Here are the best shots I got.