TenGrainBread 

Looks good. I always thought a randonneur-style bar with flat ramps would be the best intro to drop bars for a flat bar rider though.

non-fixie 

Thanks. To actually ride in the drops the randonneur (or "randnner" as Sakae likes to call them) style might be more comfortable, but those tend to be quite narrow on the top. I've test-fitted quite a few bars, and this Motobecane-branded set came out best: wide, shallow, fairly flat ramps and not ergo.

We'll see how it goes.

TenGrainBread 

That's a good point. They do tend to be narrow. The only one I know of offered in the wide width is the Compass/Rene Herse one, but very expensive.

JaccoW

Just wanted to add something that u/Boitameuh on R e d d i t showed me in his post "Mid 80s Méral. Doesn't belong to bike porn apparently..."

The reborn Meral brand by Cyfac with a modernised frame with Columbus Zona tubing, disc brake mounts and all the frame mounts you could want.
€1590 for the frameset though. Cycles Meral - Francette

non-fixie 

Update.

Mrs non-fixie likes the Méral, but not the drop bars I'd mounted. However, she does like the setup I created on her RIH, so after some thinking and talking I decided to change a few bits.

Surprisingly, she said that she preferred down tube shifters to brifters. She also said that she liked the feel of the drop bars, but didn't feel comfortable with the brakes, so this is what I came up with.

I replaced the stem (with a shorter one, as this seemed to be the core of the problem), the bars, the tape and - most importantly - the levers.



This is my first build with safety levers, as they seemed to be the best compromise, for now at least. I have a big box full of them and spent an afternoon finding the best. I ended up with these Shimanos. They had the best fit to the bars and decidedly less flex than the others I tried.




I am beginning to take a liking to them. They came with hoods, the black grips feel nice and also make them less conspicuous. The also work better than I anticipated.

Test ride planned for tomorrow. Looking forward to hearing what the boss thinks.

juvela

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Those levers look most excellent.

They are a Shimano model have not worked with (probably too new ).

Another extension lever which is better than DiaCompe for ridgidity (although I'm sure not so nice as this) is the CLB with its triangular cross section.

Mrs. non-fixie sure is fortunate so have such a terrific cycle mechanic right under her own roof!

All best to La Triumverata.

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non-fixie 

Thank you.

WRT La Triumverata, they like bike building too. This time they made me take twice as as much time as necessary. The dog by just being in the way all the time and the cats by running off with MY pieces of bar tape ...

juvela

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Drinka -

Drives one nuts when they always have to be right there where one is working. A person is focused on their work at the kitchen sink or workbench as the case may be and Mr./Ms canine has to be exactly underfoot. And oh if a tail or paw is stepped on they experience such emotional pain and give the look of "But I love you; how could you do this to me!"

If you were using a cotton twill there was probably something in the adhesive equipe effe e effe found irresistable...

Once had a customer who complained about the aroma of her newly applied Tressostar. She said it reminded her of a medicine she had to take as a child...and hated.

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non-fixie 

We went on a 70k test ride today, and I'm glad (relieved might be a better word) to be able to report that mrs non-fixie is very happy with the current setup. "It's finished", she declared.