Whee! New trekking bar, tape, and mirror arrived in mail today.
 

Despite being shipped over a 3 day period, from all corners of the US, all my order arrived at the same time!

I've replaced my riser bar with the XLC Trekking bar, put on the brakes and shifters, and adjusted it all for my hands, before tightening it all down, then wrapped it in cork tap (with the unneeded shifter cover tape strips used as my gel padding).

I forthwith discovered that, despite not changing cable lengths, my brakes and deraileurs were out of whack in various ways. That caught me by surprise. The rear brakes especially. I had to de-lopside-ify it as well as tighten it up. I did my best, trying to adjust the deraileurs, but I think I'll spend my future budget on having the LBS wizard perform his magic on them to adjust them properly.

After doing all this, I thought: "Wait! Shouldn't I have posted a question in the mechanics section, about anything I should need to know beforehand?", so now I've belatedly done that as well! ;)

All in all, it went surprisingly well, even for a mechanophobe such as myself. The trekking bar I put on riser-style with the near-stem angle pointing up, rather than drops-style, and I placed the brakes/shifters far enough outboard that I can finger-brake with my hands on the outer bend of the bars.

I am filled with excitement and trepidation. Excitement with my new more comfortable bar, and trepidation over my mechanical ineptitude which may come back to bite me in a tender place...

How did the cable lengths work out? Can you turn the handlebar completely side-to-side without the cable housings pulling tight?

Pictures???

I had trekking bars mounted the way you describe on my grocery-getter, until moving them to another bike this past weekend. The issue I had with that way of mounting them, (and maybe my angle was more extreme than yours), was that it was hard to get any use of the low (far) part of the bars at all.

I now have them mounted almost level, but with the near part just a little bit lower than the far part, and I'm liking that a lot so far.

Quite the opposite, actually, I have very curvy cables now.

Alas, I have not entered the digital photography age. I could buy a cheap camera, or bicycle parts, so I chose my bike! I'll try to get a photo from a friend I know who is a camera nut.

I'm not going to be using the far bars much, but I have enough tilt in the bar to cancel out most of the "wrong way" tilt that would make my wrists uncomfortable, and it's just about perfect if I rest my arms on the near bar while grasping the far bar, for that occasional "I can't believe it's not aero!" posture.

AT LAST! PICTURES!

I finally borrowed someone's old clunker camera, and cludged my way into taking these low-res pictures, so you can at least get the idea of what I've done with my bicycle.

Without further ado:
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=256029

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=256030

Nice looking bike, just one ? what the heck is that on the rear?

That's my ersatz bicycle rack bag. it's a canvas carry-bag with a corrugated plastic bottom. I "installed" velcro cable-ties on the bottom to attach it to the rack. It's lightweight, yet holds a huge volume of stuff. I only take it off and use the panniers when I have two or more bags of groceries to cart home.

There are two other bikes sitting around the house, but one isn't my size (A Raleigh with 26" wheels, which was my nephew's), and the other is my old '70's era AMF Pursuit, which is sitting in the shed collecting mud-daubers nests. The tires are rotted, and it's chain is rusted into a single unit! :)

Okay, I've fiddled about with the camera, and gotten higher quality settings, so I'll add an addendum:

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=256141

You can see how bent the cables are in this shot.
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=256142

And here, you can see the disaster that comes from using electrical tape that is nearly as old as the bike itself. I'll need to redo this before it comes apart completely.
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=256143http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=256144

If anyone has any little tips or tricks to using electrical ( or other ) tape, I'd be very happy to listen ( and possibly ignore ) your advice! ;)