Hey all,

I am back from a long time away from here & having changed jobs thinking serioulsy about commuting.

For some reason, given my route and road condition an MTB with slick tires & drop bars seems ideal. I know, i'm daft.

In any event, I wonder how on earth to set that up. I am guessing use whatever stem fits you on the mountain bike, but put in a dropbar instead.

Also, would one want the handlebars the same width as a standard road set (CTC on bar matching CTC on shoulders) or would wider be better?

take care,

Jester

Drop bars commonly come in 26 mm and 31.8 mm. MTB bars usually come in 25.4 mm. Often, you can put a 26mm bar in a 25.4 mm stem, depending on the design of the stem. If not, it's not a big deal to replace the stem. Alternately, there are road bars available with a 25.4 mm diameter.

What is a big deal is figuring out what to do with your brake levers and shifters. With drop bars you have to use road style shifters and brake levers. Road levers and MTB brakes don't work together so you may have to replace your brakes as well.

Unless you have a source for cheap parts and labor, replacing handlebars, stem, brakes, cabling, brake levers, and shifters could approach the cost of a good entry-level road bike.

Not a daft idea at all. Mountain bike + drop handlebars = one cool bike, in my opinion.

As for the stem, 1 1/8 inch is standard for both road and mountain steerer tubes these days. But the handlebar clamp is a different size for drops than for a flat bar. You'll want a road bike stem that fits the drop bars you want - 26.0 or 31.8, for example.

Think about where you want the handlebars to be before you buy the stem -- I've found that a short, hi-rise stem works best, but it really depends upon the geometry of your bike and the position you like to be in when you ride. Get whatever width you are comfortable with. Some people get wider bars for riding off road, but I don't think it's necessary.

If you have an old mountain bike with a threaded headset and quill stem, check out www.rivbike.com for a stem called the "dirt drop stem". Or, you could get a threadless stem and an adaptor.

For brake levers and shifters, I like to use regular (non-integrated) brake levers and bar-end shifters. It's cheaper than buying sti integrated levers, and you can switch the bar-ends to friction if the indexing doesn't work out just right. Cane Creek just came out with a nice set of non-integrated road brake levers that are shaped like Campy Ergo's. www.harriscyclery.com has all this stuff.

Another thing you might need to do is, if you have v-brakes, get a "rollamijig", which is a little pulley that sits on top of the brakes and decreases the amount of cable pulled by the brake lever. Either that or it increases it, I can't remember - but if your brakes are impossible to adjust with the road levers, the rollamajig solves the problem.

Good luck!

Here's my Kona Fire Mountain with Drop bars, works great for touring and commuting.

-Marcus.