Mtn Bike Commuters: dropbar ends (New product - worth using?)
 

http://endless-innovations.com/products/products.html#

http://endless-innovations.com/image...oadEnd1GSM.jpg
http://endless-innovations.com/image...RoadEndsLG.jpg



I figured that other commuters who use mountain bikes might be interested to know about this option.

I really wanted to buy some Road Ends about a year ago. Unfortunately the company that made them had sold-out of them as they prepared to make a better version. I wanted a more aero position on my commuter mountain bike, but didn't want to spend big bucks on a drop-bar conversion.

I finally got an email (one year later!) that the new ones are ready to be sold. They are now 6061 aluminum. Much better looking and lighter, too. And cheap enough ($20).

Potential downsides/issues:
1) No access to your brake levers while in the "drops".
2) You'd need your reach to be long enough to be in the drops on your mountain bike. They would probably work for me, as my mountain bike bars are about the same reach and height as the tops of my drop bars on my roadie.
3) You'd probably want to "chop" your handlebars to make them narrower so you could ride comfortably in the drops. Fortunately, cheap flat bars can be had for $10 which you wouldn't feel bad cutting to 44cm or so.


Potential Good Things:
1) Aero position for fighting headwinds and general speed increase (with slicks, you'd truly be no slower than an entry-level road bike).
2) Only $20, which is cheaper than buying a road bike for commuting if you currently have a MTB.

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm advertising for them. These may be complete crap - I haven't used them yet. They are an interesting idea though. Similar to Newk Barends. The guy who made those died, so that was another option that disappeared. As far as I know, no one else makes a similar product at the moment.


Here's an old post. This dude eventually did the full drop-bar conversion for significant money (that may say something about how effective the road ends were - the new versions look less goofy and sturdier than these old ones though...)

Road Ends: http://www.cyclingforums.com/t-195911-15-1.html

It's nothing new, just a different clamp arraingment.

I saw drop bar ends for ATBs over a year ago online and thought they were cool, but never wanted them. For 40-60 bucks you can get full on drop bars for mountain bikes and set it up with brifters and hood brakes, would be much better in my opinion, but wouldn't work with my pogies :(

I'd flip 'em over and use 'em as clamp-on bum bars. :D Ya know, because my bike isn't goofy enough looking already.


Seriously though, I wouldn't use them unless I had a higher rise stem because I think it would be uncomfortable to be in a drop-bar position with where my setup is at now. The main drawback is not being able to get to the brakes fast enough.

Ha ha. If you look a little deeper into what you'd need to do for the conversion, you'll see that $40 - 60 is a pipe dream. :)

There's a reason I almost bought these: You cannot get brifters, bars, compatible front derailleur, new brakes (road levers don't have enough pull for v-brakes) and bar tape for less than $150 new. And that's with some savvy shopping. You could probably pull it off for about $100 (shipped) if you shopped on ebay for about a month, but that would give me an ulcer.

So yeah, I'd spend $20 on these things OR put that $150 as a down payment on an actual road or cross bike. The conversion just isn't worth the hassle or cost. You end up with an overly heavy mountain bike with drop bars and a hole in your pocket where your money used to be!

I would never have believed how many things needed to be replaced just to add drop bars if I didn't do the research at the time!

You are right - it's not a newly invented idea. However, it's new in that for the past year a product like this could not be bought (see original post - sold out or dead guy as sole producer). I even looked on ebay.

Now I have an actual road bike that I can use for commutes - so the appeal of these has waned. I still use my MTB for about 50% of my commuting though - especially in foul weather. Might consider these for a little performance boost on all those crazy windy days around here...

Dia-Compe 287V levers were designed for operating V-brakes. I'd go with bar-con shifter also, elimate the front derailleur issues and cost less than brifters (which you can't use anyway with the v's). Still a costly conversion all round.

I did the conversion, with the cheapskate internet scrounging:
Ritchey road handlebars from performance, $40
Bar-end shifters from ebay, $43
Dia-comp 287 brake levers from ebay, $26

With shipping, new cables, bar tape, and other sundries I probably spent close to $200 by the time I was done.

I just said that the drop bars made for ATBs was 40-60 bucks. I never said ANYTHING about the price for any of the other things for the conversion. But I did say that I'd put the brakes on the hood, and II'm sure my cantilever brake levers will fit there.
But like I said, my post was not about the cost of doing a full conversion, just the cost of the bars themselves.

Sitting here thinking about it. I bet *I* could put drop bars on my ATB for less than $100.00 easily.
$50.00 bucks for the drop bars
Use my existing grip shifters and cantilever brake levers
cut the bar
slide the shifters in place
reweld the bar
attach the brake levers
run the cables
tape the bar
hit the road

I work in a machine shop so I can do super duper things like that :P
hrmm... I have an old Schwinn Crosscut in my shed, maybe I'll do this in the future, it was going to be a project bike anyhow and this seems like a pretty interesting project.
Though not having brake levers in the drops would kinda suck....

I apologize for misinterpreting your reply. Wish I had access to a machine shop! It's funny that your method of doing this cheaply is pretty much how the GMC Denali road bike keeps the price down by splicing the gripshifts into the road bars.

If you were splicing, dicing, and welding anyway - why not rig a new clamp for the brake levers so they'd sit in the drops? It would require a bit of ingenuity, but it could probably be done...

Yep, my $150 estimate was probably optimistic. Main point is that it's an expensive conversion. I wasn't going to do it on my low-end commuter mountain bike. On a better bike it would be a fun conversion. Like a 26" road bike that you could take off-roading. $20 for the Road Ends was tempting, though I'm sure I would have been disappointed with them compared to drop bars. Lack of brake access would be scary on quick downhill descents...

Actually my idea of doing it that way did come from CigTechs post about the Denali. I am giving some consideration to getting one of those... maybe.
No need to apologize though.
I never thought about ridding up the brakes to work on the drops. This is definately something to think about though. I would so love to have a one_of_a_kind bike but don't know enough about bikes in general to figure things out.
I have all winter to think though, and my job gives me LOTS of time to think...

... and further thinking
You said that road style brake levers do't give enough pull for canti brakes. What about other types of brakes (V or disc)?
Like I said, I don't know much about the workings of somethings, I'm just a shop rat :p

You definitely don't get enough pull for Canti or V-brakes. I presume that bikes with disk brakes use the same levers and expect similar cable pull. If you can crush people's hands with your grip, you might be able to use normal road levers, but you'd have far less mechanical advantage. Road brakes are designed to operate effectively with less cable pull.

Diacompe makes road-sized levers specifically designed to work with longer pull brakes. People use them on cross bikes. You can also get pulley-type converters (travel agents). You won't make your $100 price point if you buy either of these!

The only problem is the road bars are 1/8" bigger diameter than ATB bars. You'd have to figure out some way to enlarge the shifters and brake levers.

It's like road bikes and mountain bikes come from different planets.

But I have seen drop bars made for ATB stem clamps. from Triathelete.com I think.

Nitto used to make some. They are pretty hard to find these days. However, road stems are relatively cheap to buy and come in "oversized" proportions since many road bikes now use the 1 1/8" headtube size.

Right. But both sizes taper away from the stem clamp. MTB standard for the stem clamp is one inch, which you can get in road (or 26 mm which is close enough). Where the brakes and shifters go is 7/8". On the road bar, it's 15/16".

It looks like you could mount brake levers on those add-on drops. It might look a little hokey, but if you used some cross-type interupter levers in place of your standard brake levers, you could have drops with brakes on your MTB for relatively little money (although still close to $100 and it would be fugly at best).