Originally Posted by
App4that
I have a 95 Trek 820 I'm turning into a town bike. Already have the rear rack and comfort seat, would like to install higher handlebars, as in they trun up. There's enough cable to do so, do I have to worry about the shifters fitting?
In a word, yes. The diameters of drop bars and upright bars are not always the same and thus stuff that works on one doesn't always fit on the other. I'm talking here about the diameters where stuff attaches.
The clamp areas are also often not the same. The clamp area on older style drop bars are usually 26.0mm, although old Cinelli bars were 26.2mm for reasons known only to Cino Cinelli (edit: now that I think about it, I think it may actually be 26.4mm). In more recent years, a lot of drop bars have a clamp area diameter of 31 point something millimeters. Upright bars often are 25.4mm. You can shim a smaller diameter bar to work with a larger diameter stem - my drop-bar-to-upright-bar city bike conversion has a shimmed bar - but be absolutely 100% no-doubt-about-it certain your bar will tighten down enough with the shim in place. You do not want to have the bar slip the first time (or any time) you apply the front brake hard. At least not if you like your teeth.