Bought a cheap Charge Scourer from Wiggle as I thought it would be a cheap base for a SS/dropbar something or other experiment.

I’ve on-one bullhorns that I have been hankering over using. It comes with mechanical disc brakes with shonky levers and Acera sifters. The pic is the only way they will go together.

How ridiculous is this set-up? There’s precious little hand room in the ‘normal, flat bar’ position even for my delicate lady-esk hands. What would the CHEAPEST more sensible shifter option be? Is the lever position ridiculous too? Don’t want to spend on this as it’s just me fann.ying around, trying something out.

Thanks in advance for advice.

Looks dreadful and a bit more prone to damage but can’t see why it wouldn’t work OK.

Personally, I’d be looking for a neater solution.

Pretty stupid. Flat bullhorns (ones that don’t turn up at the ends) put quite a lot of stress on the wrists, I would imagine that lever position would make it even worse.

At what point did you think that look ok? People will point and laugh, with good cause.

“Haha look at the man on the bike with the weird bars and the sore wrists”

You could at least get a solution that routes the cables under the bar tape, like some proper TT brake levers

Singlespeed and lose the shifters, fixed and lose the brakes.

ANd you still get to use the silly bars 😉

Turn the brakes round, at the very least.

You could possibly fix it with a shorter stem, but… actually, just take the bars off and sell them to a hipster. Look at the picture above, and imagine where your centre of gravity is when riding with the original bars. Then where it would be riding on the horns of those bars you’ve fitted. Now go and get the bullhorns off your bike, take them somewhere safe and set fire to them.

Unless your torso is way too long for the frame, that’s going to be super-uncomfortable. Stop thinking about which bars you *want* for it, and start thinking about which ones are going to be the most comfortable. With bullhorns, you’ll have a position like Graeme Obree’s – fine if you only ride track, not so good if you’re riding anywhere else. As this bike was specced with a flat bar, and you’re using the existing stem, your hand position on the horns will be a good 6-8″ further forward than the designers originally intended. Not good.

As a general note – look at the numbers for a drop bar bike and numbers for a flat bar hybrid like the one you have there. The TT length, forward centre and headtube length are the key numbers here – and you’ll find they tend to be a little different.

a) mis-aligned, gappy flooring..
b) sticky-outy, wonky mudguard..
c) daft as a brush brake lever placement. When you go round right hand corners, does your back brake come on?

There is no gear lever option if you want road type STIs on a normal set of bullhorns, as you’ve got cable discs that require a v-brake lever..

Just get some normal bars on there and some bar ends!

You could possibly fix it with a shorter stem, but… actually, just take the bars off and sell them to a hipster. Look at the picture above, and imagine where your centre of gravity is when riding with the original bars. Then where it would be riding on the horns of those bars you’ve fitted. Now go and get the bullhorns off your bike, take them somewhere safe and set fire to them.

Unless your torso is way too long for the frame, that’s going to be super-uncomfortable. Stop thinking about which bars you *want* for it, and start thinking about which ones are going to be the most comfortable. With bullhorns, you’ll have a position like Graeme Obree’s – fine if you only ride track, not so good if you’re riding anywhere else. As this bike was specced with a flat bar, and you’re using the existing stem, your hand position on the horns will be a good 6-8″ further forward than the designers originally intended. Not good.

As a general note – look at the numbers for a drop bar bike and numbers for a flat bar hybrid like the one you have there. The TT length, forward centre and headtube length are the key numbers here – and you’ll find they tend to be a little different.

Great point… unfortunately your completely wrong.

Its not your fault tho, your expecting Chrage to have designed the bike for flat bars, when infact they have just taken a stock road frame and fitted flat bars. The effective TT on the Large is only 575mm FFS! Thats cramped even with drop bars or bull horns.

To the OP, bull horns are a weird proposition, most people hate them for their looks before they even realise they are uncomfortable. If you like them great, but you’ll not find many willing (or able) to give you support in setting them up.

Stato, if that’s the case, then let’s say drop bars, levers and bar end shifters or second hand brifters for a decent bike (and for £520, I might go there myself) – if they’re selling a road bike with flat bars but the measurement for drops, then it’s a bargain.

I still think the bullhorns are a mistake, though.

Oh dear. 😯

Whisky & service revolver time

Crikey. just checked the geommetry as Stato suggested – it’s a road bike with a flat bar, in’t it? 😯

Just to clarify, this setup would be a temp solution using the existing components and cheap bars in order to determine if i could get on with a drop bar set up (never ridden a road bike) and then determine what parts minimally i would need to change, or if drop bars were possible at all (i was guessing that it was possible on the scourer, and it sounds like it is)

Edit: so, if the suggestion is just to buy drop bars then that’s what I’ll do, but the world of road bike components is new to me

Well enough people out there putting drop bars on mtb’s to think some (many) might be happy with a short hybrid, but yeah, its wrong in my eye’s. Looked at getting one myself but at 6ft4 id need an XL as their large is too short for my tastes.

this setup would be a temp solution using the existing components and cheap bars in order to determine if i could get on with a drop bar set up

I’m not quite sure how it’s going to do that given they’re not drop bars, and don’t really have any of the hand positions you’d get with those. Unfortunately I don’t think there is a really cheap solution to trying out drop bars properly starting from where you are – not with what appears to be your definition of really cheap – surely you’d have been better off buying a cheap drop bar bike if you wanted to try out drop bars?

I have a pair of drop bars you can have for a song if you want to give them a shot. small, not 31.8, clamp.

I opened this thread trying to bare to in mind that I run Mary Bars upside down on my rigid so I shouldn’t really be one to criticise….

However that looks terrible and twice as uncomfortable. 😐