Show me your weird and wonderful bars & shifters combos please

My bad back and chubby gunt are not ideal for using my drops on my cx bike. Whilst riding yesterday I thought of maybe using bull bars…. Will look ugly as an on one lurcher but would be comfy….

Show me your crimes against bike fashion please

Blimey, I should’ve asked this on the ctc forum

there was a big discussion about midge bars on cx bikes the other day. have you considered them?

there’s probably a ‘help me make my bike plug ugly’ sub-forum on bikeradar.

Butterfly bars are the way forward in this area, I believe.

or maybe some h-bars or j-bars?

I take it you’ve tried a riser stem of some sort? Have a look at the bar setup on a Salsa Vaya

Will search that one out Alfa, cheers

Midge bars…I’m still experimenting with bar angle and lever positions

That’s similar to how mine looks now!

Also thinking if I ditch the drops it frees up some room for attaching stuff to the bars for bivvying

Remember that changing the bar position too much could make the top tube length all wrong for you.

Are you talking about new levers too then, or hoping to still use the STIs?

Want to keep costs down so using existing stis

oooh goodie… a thread for me!

That’s gonna limit what sort of bars you can use then. I’m not sure how they would fare with the levers parallel to the ground (though I’m sure someone must have tried it). Of course, if it’s Road BBys you are using, then a change of lever could mean new brakes too. Could get expensive.

Can’t see STIs working on flat bars

seems to me you’re trying too hard to make a cross bike fit you – why not a mtb (with skinny cross wheels if you really want) ?

If I use a bull bar style then if you imagine camp freddies set up (without the drops) the stis would be in a similar position (well vertical to the ground instead of the 45′ angle above)

Like Teej did ?

here

Oh dear god!

I take it you’ve tried a riser stem of some sort? Have a look at the bar setup on a Salsa Vaya

My Kaffenback is set up a bit like that. I always assumed I was doing it wrong. 🙂