Making/modifying handlebars
 

I don't know if this belongs in this forum or in framebuilders, but I thought I'd start here and see what happens.

Recently, I've been wishing for various handlebars that don't seem to exist, and this has led me to kludgy "solutions" involving bar ends and bolted-on appendages. I've been wondering what it would take to either modify existing bars (I mean bend, not just cut - I know how to use a hacksaw! :D), or to make new ones from scratch.

I'd be most interested in working with alloy bars, to save weight, but would consider prototyping in steel if that turned out to be a lot easier to work with. So the questions are:

What sort of tubing do you start with? What tools do you need to bend it cleanly? What's the technique?

Anybody done this?

Thanks!

I've never done it, nor do I have any knowledge of the specifics, but from my limited general experience with bending metal tubing, I imagine you'd have to start with the metal in a relatively malleable state, heat and bend it use mandrels or something else in the tubing to keep it from collapsing or kinking during the bending process, then subject the finished piece to a hardening process using heat and quench. You'd need a pretty good knowledge of metallurgy to get the final hardening right, as too soft and the bars would be prone to bending, and too hard and they'd be brittle. Steel would be infinitely easier than aluminum, I suspect.

I agree with O2Pilot you need a pretty good shop for this. Something a heavy guage aluminum tubing would be a starting point then you need a tubing bending machine like a plumber or muffler shop uses. after that a big oven for heat treating. I am not sure you would use the simple heat and quench process for aluminum but a heat and cool in a certain timed fashion.

OK - I've done some googling, and agree that this is probably out of my league, at least not without buying a lot of tools that I don't have. I wonder if there's a place that would do this for me. Has anyone else tried to have handlebars customized?

Making your own handlebars is a great idea. I'm surprised that there isn't a custom handlebar maker out there.

Check out this video of an English bicycle factory in 1945.
It shows the bending of handlebars.

http://vimeo.com/39401575

Customized handlebars I've seen online, done for a single project, often have been made out of wood or layers of wood.

You could try contacting a few frame builders and see if they can offer something but it would likely be a ChroMoly tubing then.

Just what kind of bars are you looking for?

Road bend? (there are like 6+ different styles, back in the '80s TTT used to have like 4 or 5 styles themselves)

Criterium Bars, Track Bars, Randonneurer, Nitto "noodle", Nitto 'Dirt Drop"

Track Bars

Moustache bars

Bullhorns

Upright styles, North Road, Dove, Porteur, Promenade,

OH I give up, check out this site almost anythign you could want except Scott "Drop Ins"

http://www.benscycle.net/index.php?m...&cPath=188_232

What I'm looking for (I have a thread going on this topic on the FiftyPlus forum), are handlebars that allow an aero, or fairly aero position, that offer several hand positions, but that also offer a really upright position for relief. The need comes from having worsening stenosis and arthritis in my neck, which makes long rides very painful, with the pain persisting for weeks (making all riding uncomfortable).

One of the configurations I was thinking about was kind of like "bum bars" made from standard drop bars, flipped so that the ends pointed forward, but instead of the 90 degree bend from the bar top to the inverted drops, it would be more like something between 30 and 45 degrees. The ends of the bars would point forward and towards the stem. The point would be that you'd mostly ride on the tops or on the lower part of the inverted drops, but could use the high part to relieve the stretching of the neck. Another way to describe this would be that they'd be sort of like butterfly bars mounted so the orientation of the "wings" was vertical, and sort of flapping towards you.

There are some other configurations I've been playing with mentally, but I was going to try this last one by modifying some old drop bars that I have. Once I read about aluminum fatigue and catastrophic failure, though, I haven't been as eager to try it...

Our own Frank the Welder has a thread on making your own handlebars:

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...dlebar-project

Hard to interpret your description, but I believe I have seen people who's bikes aren't fitted do something similar, by riding with mtb flat bars, and long L-bend bar ends rotated to point straight up, such that they ride around on the tips of the L-bends (with their controls down below and out of reach) always makes me cringe... ("just get a riser stem people!")

For that matter, why not just get a riser stem yourself and some non-compact drop bars? Get the tops of the bars high enough to keep your neck happy, still have the drops for an aero position

Seems like you need a abnormally tall stem, to set up regular bars , then, fit
a bar already made , in top of that. to achieve a higher comfortable position..
I sorted something I found suitable , then fitted a Zzipper fairing up front,
to tidy up the frontal area .. put a gadget bag behind the fairing ..

If I was going to do this, I'd prolly make it an integrated bar/stem.

Seems to me, the easiest way to do it would be to prototype the shape in steel, then do it with structural foam and carbon.

I've done both of these things. On my road bike, the bar tops are a couple of inches higher than the seat - that works out fine for rides up to about 90 minutes. On another bike, an old Raleigh Record, I have the setup with the flat bars and L-shaped bar-ends pointing up. That works. As far as the controls are concerned, is this any worse than riding the tops of drop bars? Or using alternate positions on trekking bars, or on straight bars with bar end pointed in any direction?

In traffic, you ride with your hands near the brakes. But, when it's safe, you have an alternate position..

That sounds really interesting. Do you have any pictures?

That is a great video. However, the part where they show the manufacture of the handle bar is quite short. Also, notice that the stem is integral to the bars.
There is a bike builder in NYC (Fastboy Cycles http://www.fastboycycles.com/) who makes wooden handlebars, too. To me the most intriguing part about making a handlebar is the inflated center found on most road and MTB bars. May be the OP can procure some blanks with the center already blown to the correct size and then bend the rest by himself, e.g. starting from relatively straight MTB bars.

I would try a standard clip on aero bar with a tall technomic stem. I athough personally I have an issue with the proliferation of aero bars for recreational riders. I feel they are dangerous in traffic.

Anyway a tall stem will get your a pretty upright ridining position and standard drop bars will give tou ample hand positions.

I use some rather tall stems but a technomic can get you higher and closer.

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...4&d=1338739801

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...5&d=1338739831


http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=254004http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=254005

There are some bar systems with a base-bar and several clip on aero bits.
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I think carbon fibre is an easier and safer material for home building than bending aluminium. The worries about carbon fibre breaking are because people insist on making carbon bits ultralight. Anything ultralight is in danger of breaking. You can test your home-made bars to destruction to see how much force is required to break them.

shoe benders have a roller forcing the tube into a curve on the inside..

Muffler shops use that type equipment.. you can see the Imprint of the shoe .
mandrel benders add a solid plug that will keep the tube round as it's bent.
it is held inside the tube as it is bent.

wall of tube thins as it is stretched, around curve, outside , thickens on the inside..

the really good tooling redistributes the metal so wall thickness remains consistent ..

You can put sand in a tube to stop it folding when bent...

After getting a professional fit, I've got my road bike set up with an adjustable 90 mm stem, set at about 130 degrees, so my bars are a little higher than the ones in your pics. I took a 2 hour ride on that bike this morning, and did feel some discomfort towards the end, but it was tolerable.

I've got some kludgy solutions on my other bikes - I just finished mounting trekking bars on a Bianchi Hybrid, with long, L-shaped bar ends mounted upright to give a relief position for longer rides. That was the bike that was the real problem, and the trekking bars, which shorten the reach by about 2.5 inches, may be enough of an improvement so that I can take the bar-ends off. My other bikes have solutions involving MTB bars and bar ends.

I just thought there should be a style of handlebar that solved the problem without having to cobble something together...