And went back to drops.
These are the 46cm Nitto Noodle Bars.
A beautiful set of bars with a unique shape. They curve back towards you slightly. Lots of comfortable hand positions.
And I got to take my shot at wrapping my bars with cork and hemp twine and adding shellac over it all.
4 coats of amber shellac over the natural cork bar tape. It came out even richer looking than the original bars that Rivendell did.
I just couldn't get comfortable on the moustache bars, these are going to work out much better for me.
If anyone wants an almost new set of moustache bars for half price, lemme know!


Before:


After:





Oh, and I also changed the shifting from indexed to friction. All i had to do was turn the dial on the barend shifter and wallah! Quiet and smooth shifting with no need to tweak the derrailleur to death.
If you don't wear headphones, i'd recommend you give this a try sometime.

Nice job on the bar tape. The bike looks really nice either way. How does the shellaced cork tape feel? Slippery at all?

How do you get those tires to look so clean?
I have the same tire, and mine always look grundgy.

Thanks.
The cork is great. Not slippery (but i always use gloves, so maybe if you don't and you sweat it might be a little?) and it has nice cushion to it.
Lots of people actually wrap cork first, and then a real tight wrap of cloth tape on top.

Well there is less than 400 miles on them and they haven't seen hard rain yet, just a few puddles, some wet grass, and a tiny bit of mud. They'll probably dirty up in time.

Awww, but I really liked the moustache bars. Though I've got Noodles on my faux Rivendell and they're great drops. Eh, either way a beautiful bike.

Good work, I'm going to drink a Guinness now.

Why'd you make the change?

Either way, beautiful!

I'd take those Mustaches but I just settled on North Roads for my Trek 520

Brilliant!

Nice job on the bike. I just bought a pair of on-one mungo bars last week. Shame I would have loved to same a few$

Like i said briefly in my original post, i had a hard time finding a comfortable hand position. I don't like my seat 2 inches above the bars, but i do like some lean. So my hands hold some of my weight and it just wasn't comfortable for me personally.

That's an absolutely beautiful bike which I've seen on here before. Both bars look great. A credit to you.

Daft question perhaps........would the original bars not work in reverse. ie. thrust forward rather than back as another option?

Thanks.

Ummmm... my best guess would be that the curved portion where the brake levers are mounted would interfere with your knee during the upstroke.