Here are a few shots of an old chrome plated steel bar I had mounted on... yep, an old chrome plated steel French track bike.

In this case, the frame size combined with the reach and drop of this stem and handlebar bar really happened to work out perfectly for me. Drop bars felt simply too deep and would have been impractical any sort of riding around town, the bar in an upright position felt very awkward on this bike.

I think the setup also looked pretty Kool on the bike... almost like something from the early 1900s.


The brake is a very cheap old Weinmann 500 sidepull and the reverse lever is a Dia-Compe 188 so I could sometimes use a wheel with a 14-18 freewheel and "manually" (in the literal sense) change gears for steep hills... or when I was just feeling lazy.