Funny Chopped Drops
 

Hey,

I was looking through that thread with track bikes in Tokyo and I notice a lot of guys are riding weird cut bars (or do they buy them like that). They are drops cut like half way. Not short enough to be bullhorn-like, but long enough to where it would hit the frame if turn far enough. What is the point of doing that? It kinda takes the point out of having drops on your bike if you cut the last quarter off. Right???

http://nathaniel.typepad.com/photos/bikes/img_1347.jpg

style.

I think I remember someone saying that nobody rides in the drops in japan, so they cut them like that for style mostly.

damn, and i thought pokemon was stylish.

but no barspins then... :(

this has been covered before. i remember the reason that they did this was so they could still ride on the tops, but not hit their knees on the bars during skids. that and people copying each other. i've seen it done in the US now, too.

wicked style.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2392/...ccd693a967.jpg

that's dumb

i concur.

I do the same. my frame is a little small for me, so i chopped the drops first b/ci never use them, and also bc i don't want my knee hitting on the way up.

Why exactly do you think they are dumb?

They're dumb because the ends point down, giving you effectively one and a half good hand positions. You can't use the "horns" like bullhorns because the position is awful. Why not just flip them and use them like bullhorns? You get more hand positions, the more aggressive position of the bullhorn, and your knees don't hit.

nah... i get a few hand positions.

i can get down in an aero tuck and i jam my thumbs up and back into the tubes. this way i can point my fingers straight out in front to split the wind and attain an even more aero profile, and the usual fixed gear - zen - connectedness feeling through the drivetrain is multiplied ten fold because my thumbs become one with the tubing.

i can also hold the stem, the flats, the shoulders, the bottom part or the top part of the tubing, and i can cross my hands left over right, effectively doubling the number of hand positions.

try that with regular chop and flops... it doesn't work nearly as well.

in that first picture, what kind of bars were those?

It's a piratical joke that track people played on the gullible public, but then it caught on......

Track drops have exactly one good hand position... in the drops. Cutting them reduces that number to zero. I'm still not sure whether these or sub 40cm cut off flat bar/risers win the title of worst bar ever.

When i ride in the drops, I ride in the hooks. So I could possibly ride that setup in a somewhat aero way, though I would have left another couple centimeters on the bars. That said, it's a great way of getting rid of unnecessary weight so you can run an arrospok.

****** status

dollar status

those bars basically have no usable hand positions. Stupid.

dollar status.

i say flop and chop...idn why the didnt do the flop part though. maybe the just got lazy

We made fun of these more than a year ago.
People dont usually even run these anymore.

well i think those bars are too short to give you the bull horns. I know when i cut mine, i intent was for them to be used as bull horns. However, when i started using them turned out to be too short. As for position, you can ride them the same way you would drops, the only position you are lacking is the aero position. You can still hold next to the step, by the turn, and if you need to put get out of the seat and pull off the ends.

It works out well .They are much better then risers or straight bars. Also i'm sure people using them aren't doing so on long trips, so they serve their purpose. I won't call it dumb, just something they did, and its not the worse thing to do other there.

http://brownshc.com/images/spicket.jpg
maybe they confused handlebars with a high VELOCITY spicket.

Hey,

I tried it out on my experiment bike with Nitto B105 (25.4mm)

http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b3...i/KC280110.jpg

I kinda like it. It gives me a new standing position. And, it looks cute from a far. Too bad this bar seems to really dislike my stem; it started to make funny noise, so I took it off immediately. Probably B105 is designed specifically for their Technomic or something.

T