I've got a cheap gravel bike, that does get some usage. Its a Charge Plug, I got it for £100 2 years ago, and have spent £150 on new tyres/chain/cassette/rings since, so it's certainly paid its way. The mechanical disc brakes on it are awful, I reckon my road bike rim brakes are better. On a quick ride today, I didnt use the drops once, and thought that I cannot remember the last time I used the drops. Now, swapping the bars out for some straight bars would be quite cheap, and I can upgrade the brakes to those 4 pot hydraulics on the PSA thread, then would only need a 2xfront shifter and a 10 sp rear shifter to buy, for what, around £40 on ebay.
What do you reckon - doable?
The only doubt I have is that I ride 'on the hoods', but fitting say, some Ergon style grips with bar ends would help with positioning.
The tricky bit will be finding flat bar shifters with the same cable pull ratio as the brifters you're replacing. What mechs. have you got?
Some Shimano road groupsets (like Tiagra I think) had flat bar shifter options.
Yes, it's Tiagra front and rear.
Fit some inner bar ends on the flat bars. It gives a position that's really close to being in the hoods.
I got some for about a fiber off Amazon and they're great.
Worth bearing in mind that you’re reducing reach by 50-70mm, so you’ve got the choice of a more upright position or fitting a slightly longer position.
As said, Shimano made flat bar levers for Tiagra - Tiagra has different actuation ratios in comparison to most Shimano road stuff and MTB shifters post 9 speed
I've rarely used the drops on my drop bar bikes of the last ten years, but regularly use the hoods, not so often while getting my forearms parallel to the ground these days for the aero gains.
Be careful with replacement bits for a flat bar 10-speed drivetrain, modern Tiagra uses 11-speed cable adjustment..
I think that it's Tiagra 4700 flat bar shifters you'd be after (perhaps someone can confirm). They seem quite pricey new (around £100 a pair) & eBay prices are highish also.
They were pricey when I look at them a while back (they'll work with GRX400 2x10 and I was toying with the idea of putting a flat bar on my gravel bike).
You could try a Wanted add in the classifieds here in case anyone has a set laying around.
Be careful buying though as it looks like there are 3x10 versions too.
Aliexpress seem to have them really cheap but I've never bought from them and I've no idea if they'd be genuine.
ALIEXPRESS.COM Well, yes, I've only bought a couple of small items off Aliexpress, but today have splashed out £23 for a pair of 10 sp Tiagra shifters. Whether they are genuine is another thing. 3 x 10 would be fine anyway, just use the stop screws to limit the front movement. If it comes to it, I could just fit a MTB rear mech, and use a suitable shifter, but then I'd be tempted to go 1x, and suddenly the price has gone up well over £100 for what is, in effect, a less than £100 bike.
Thanks all.
I don't think I've ever felt the ride on my drop bar gravel bike would be worse if it was flat bar. Quite the reverse, when coming down sketchy trails. My son rides a Boardman flat bar gravel bike - similar to the drop bar one, but it's longer, and it's absolutely fine wherever we go together.
I use my drops quite a bit, especially on fast technical descents where I use them to brace off in case my speed stalls on something or I need to brake hard (I don't feel a hood grip is secure enough) but if you never use yours then yes your plan is sound.
I swapped to flat bars on my commuter/gravel/canal-cross bike a while ago, funnily enough also a charge plug, but being the single speed version made the process a bit easier.
I was never using the drops, but also just never got on with drop bars in general. Chucked some 38mm rise bars on, chopped to 740mm and haven’t looked back! Not quite as aero, but I was never going anywhere too quickly anyway.
I think that it's Tiagra 4700
it is worth being certain, 4600 and earlier will be old “2:1” cable pull, 4700 would be new road pull ~1.4:1 not cross compatible with MTB dynasis.
There were flat bar shifters for both flavours of cable pull. You might be better off going for a more recent bargain group Advent(X), CUES or just 2nd hand bits of ebay?
As for going flat bar, Yeah people do it all the time, you’re basically trying to achieve a comfortable MTB/hybrid type bike position right? So consider stem length/flip, headset spacers and bar rise to achieve a position you like.
