A Handlebar Conundrum

In our bicycle-centered household, I have been dubbed the "Handlebar Queen." The title has come well-earned I would say, as I don't think there's a bike I've owned that hasn't had multiple handlebar changes upon arrival or after a few quick test spins. In part, I am fascinated by different handlebars and the way they can change ride quality, but on the whole most changes take place to try and alleviate hand issues.

When this handlebar switching started years ago, I started to think that there was only one type of handlebar that would work for me, but as I quickly learned, the bicycle itself was a huge factor in what actually worked and more importantly what did not. I was never really able to determine what factors led to a better position for me without changing the way the bicycle rode, but I continued to experiment with handlebars.

As handlebar queen, one would think I'd be an expert by now on what works and what doesn't for me personally, but I still struggle with finding the right fit any time a new bike arrives.  So, it shouldn't be surprising that after riding the Rodriguez for a bit, it was time to experiment with these handlebars as well. I have to say, playing with handlebars on this bike was more than just an effort to get my hands in a proper position to eliminate pain, but I'll get into that as we go along.

When the Rodriguez arrived, it came equipped with a fairly standard drop bar. The builder had recommended a compact FSA K-wing bar, but I couldn't bring myself to drop the $300 USD that it would cost. That's a lot of money to spend on a handlebar, I thought, and I just couldn't justify the expenditure at the time.

*Image from FSA
FSA K-wing Compact

Of course, this recommendation came knowing that I have a lot of hand issues when riding which stem from injuries off the bike. Over the years, these injuries seem to be getting worse instead of better, so any time something will help my hands while riding I should probably take note.

After riding on the standard drop bars for a number of rides, I was still experiencing hand pain and I wanted to attempt to figure out a way to alleviate this as much as possible. Perhaps I needed to pursue the FSA bar that had been recommended. So, I started a second-hand search to find a set that wouldn't cost so much.

As luck would have it, a set turned up on eBay for less than 1/6 the price of new, so I figured it was worth a shot. Everything was set up on the new handlebars and I set off to test these, believing that they were the answer to my pain.

I very quickly discovered that I really did not like these handlebars. After several rides of trying to get used to them, I was beyond annoyed and decided that they needed to come off. Even with the pain I was experiencing with the regular drops, it was not nearly what was happening with these new handlebars.

So, back we went to the original drops.

Then, one day as I was out on a ride, I made the realization that perhaps another recommendation that had been made by the builder was one I should pursue. It had been suggested that I outfit the bike with bar-end shifters, but I had fought this as I am not fond of using them with drop bars. Instead, I pushed for brifters, but was now coming to the realization that having bar-end shifters would likely help my hands as it would force me to move them regularly for shifting purposes. With brifters, I tend to sit in the hoods the majority of the time, but when using bar-ends, I am forced to regularly change position.

This meant another purchase of Campagnolo-compatible bar-end shifters as the bar ends we have would not work - at least not without a lot of experimentation. While the bike's drivetrain is a mix, the rear derailleur is Campagnolo and thus the shifters would have to work with this set up (unless, of course, I wanted to replace the back end of the drivetrain - which I did not).

*Image from Velo-Orange

I was happy to discover an option in Dia-Compe, at which point the brifters were replaced with bar-ends and separate brakes on the tops.

Then, a new problem arose. Being short and wide is not really a good combination for road bicycles. With a shorter top tube needed for proper riding it creates a situation in which I am crammed into a space that feels too small when standing at a stop over the bike. This isn't specific to this bike, but really any bike with a shorter top tube. Since a lot of my weight is carried in my lower body, I was struggling to mount and dismount the bike without jamming my thigh into the bar-ends.

While I can endure the pain of such happenings (after all, bruises will heal), being a less-than-coordinated individual does not combine well with abrupt shifts that were taking place while stopped.  As I'd start to pedal off at signals and stop signs, the chain would suddenly shift and throw me off balance. This really started to unnerve me. I began worrying every time I had to start or stop and that's certainly no way to encourage a person to ride.

*Image from Bike Touring News
Nitto Grand Randonneur

The next experiment was to try my old Nitto Randonneur bars from the A. Homer Hilsen. I did well with these handlebars on that bike after a ride the necessitated using them, and it had been set up with bar-end shifters, so perhaps this would be the solution. They are a bit wider at the bottom too, so it would give me more room to start and stop without having the interruption of my thighs jamming into the bar-ends.

Something just felt off about these handlebars and after a quick spin around the neighborhood on the Rodriguez, I decided to remove them. After this brief trial, another standard drop bar that was much wider overall than the originals was put on the bike. This, we assumed, would provide the thigh clearance I need but still offer the hand positions to move around.

With this alteration, the bike felt a bit twitchy on the front end, which is something I hadn't expected at all. Additionally, I felt as though my hands were too far apart and I started thinking that perhaps I needed to go to my standby or default handlebar: the Albatross bar.

Nitto Albatross bars set up on the Hillborne

So, off came those handlebars and on went a backup set of Albatross turned upside down as is the set up on the Hillborne. This configuration was even worse with the twitch-factor on the front end and they were very quickly removed.

All of the changes were beginning to send me into a tailspin. It was all too familiar as I've gone through this multiple times with bikes while attempting to find the right set up. Maybe I'm just not meant to ride a road bike, I thought. It is very difficult to maintain positivity when everything seems to go awry.

*Image from On One
On One Midge

I am not a quitter though, so I kept looking for possible solutions. One day, as I was browsing the net, I was reminded of another possibility: a set of On-One Midge handlebars. Perhaps this was the solution?

The problem was finding them in the US. The few places I could locate them were in the UK and the shipping costs alone were not worth the effort to try them. But, I soon learned that there is a somewhat close facsimile available with more ease here in the US: Origin8's Gary bar.

*Image from Origin8
Origin8 Gary 2

These handlebars seemed to be a combination of a rando bar and a drop bar, with wider ends, so perhaps they would be the combination I needed. As I quickly discovered, these handlebars had the same problem as my upside down Albatross bars (which should've been obvious had I really thought it through) in that they were too wide to keep the front end of the bike stable. I was also struggling to use the bar end shifters because every time I'd reach down to shift, the entire bike would shimmy out of control, particularly at any sort of speed.

I was giving up now. I couldn't believe that handlebars and shifters were going to be the demise of the Rodriguez in my life. I began to think that this just wasn't going to work. I love my pedaling position on the Rodriguez, but if I couldn't find something to work for the upper half of my body, we were going to have to part ways.

I started lamenting the decision to sell the A. Homer Hilsen, upset that I let it go and wondering why I had to be so concerned with the weight when it actually seemed to serve me well. Really, it had met my needs splendidly, but I had been wrapped up in the idea that I needed to travel faster and because we were in a tough spot with an unexpected and expensive ER visit, I let it go. In retrospect, it was a horrible idea.

As I sat contemplating my decisions, Sam was off thinking up another idea. When he came in holding two bar end extensions like these, I must've looked a little perplexed. His plan was to attach these to the drop bars, kind of like a mini-aero bar set up. He explained that he'd attach the extensions and put the bar end shifters at the end, keeping them away from my legs and hopefully this would make them easier to reach and eliminate the twitch that develops with wide handlebars.

This poor handlebar tape has been wrapped and unwrapped so many times.

From the photo, you can see it was a slightly odd look, but I was willing to give it a try. The set up was an interesting one, and while in some ways it made things better, I still found it an odd position to be in for shifting, since I cannot actually rest on the additional short stubs as one would with true aero bars. Additionally, wrapping the bars created its own snag, and while I would've got over the messy factor, it was very bulky and the set up was just not working properly for my needs.

Now what?

With all of the switching taking place, nothing was feeling right any longer. Even things that sort of worked initially felt strange now - and how could they not? I wasn't giving myself very long to adjust to anything and instead continued to do changes pretty quickly looking for the solution.

I decided that I had to pick something and just stick with it for awhile in order to make a true evaluation, but which one? Since I hadn't really given the Randonneur bars a fair shot, and they'd worked well in the past, these were the pick.

Now, the Randonneur's haven't been on the bike long at this point (a couple of weeks), and I've been riding other bikes because of current Seattle-like weather, so it's not really fair to make a judgment call as to whether or not these will be the answer.

However, I've realized that nothing is going to work if I don't allow time and riding to take place. Although some of the handlebars had several rides to determine whether or not they would work, I realize that there were also a number that were just quick switches without really allowing an opportunity for true testing. With some, there was good reason, but with others, perhaps they just needed a few more rides to see if I would or could adjust.

I also understand that there are other factors that could be affecting my hands (tires are one of these possibilities), and while the pedal position is great on this bike, I need to get my hands settled in order to get everything dialed in properly. Things are coming along, so hopefully the set up is on its way to being great. I'm looking forward to a summer full of long rides that are (at least relatively) pain free.

Re-Learning What I Thought I Knew: I CAN Ride Drop Bars!

In the summer of 2009, my darling Sam picked up a road bike for me from a Craigslist ad. At the time, I had been riding upright/city style bikes and enjoying my slow pace around town. When I started daydreaming about long rides for exercise, touring, and so on, Sam decided to take matters into his own hands and found me a mid-70s Raleigh Super Course to try out, rather than spending hundreds or even thousands on something that, potentially, I may not have ever touched. When he brought it home my initial reaction was split: I was thrilled at the opportunity to ride a road bike (I hadn't been on one since childhood), but I was terrified of the position on the bike and the handlebars. Surprisingly, things went pretty well... except, that is, for the drop bars.

The bike was large for me, so we chucked it up to sizing issues and moved on down the road to the next choice. Even though the bike that followed was sized properly for me, I just couldn't seem to make any kind of drop bar work. I tried a variety of them, but every time I would be in so much pain, that I'd end up not riding for a week or more. I had tried classic style (code: old) drop bars, noodle bars, randonneur bars, but nothing seemed to help me find a position that worked. Ultimately, I gave up on the idea and just started looking for an alternative. The one that worked best for me was the albatross handlebar, and so, for the last couple of years, that has been my go-to choice for any bicycle - even road bikes. I've done just fine with them and travelled well enough that I came to the realization that every bike I'd ever own would have these bars. I even have a "spare" set -"just in case." Sick, I know.

The "usual" bicycle for long or organized rides

Still, I couldn't help but have some drop bar envy when I'd see folks pedaling by. In reality, there are simply more hand positions on this type of handlebar, and knowing that I do have hand/wrist issues to contend with, I stubbornly kept trying to make some kind of drop bar work for me. After each attempt and subsequent failure, I would return the set up to the albatross bar and let out a huge sigh. "I guess this is just what I'm destined to ride," I'd constantly try to reassure myself. I had switched out the handlebars on the newer Homer bicycle at least half a dozen times, convinced that I could make the drop bars happen. With my last attempt I told Sam, "Let's just put them on and leave them for an extended period of time and see what happens. I'll start riding them on short trips and just see if it's all in my head, or if there's some possible way to make these work." And so, we did. We set up the Homer with the randonneur bars, and I figured I'd slowly allow myself to try them out without the pressure of having to do a long distance ride.

Ah, but fate had other plans. The evening before my recent Venus de Miles ride, we had an incident with the Hillborne which left me without a saddle/seatpost. As we desperately tried to figure out how to resolve the problem so late on the eve prior to the ride, Sam and I looked at each other already knowing what this meant: I'd be riding the dreaded drop bars on an unfamiliar bike for the 51 mile ride the following morning.

"I'm a big girl," I said, trying to reassure the slightly-flustered Sam that I would manage this on a bike I wasn't completely used to riding. "It will all be okay, I promise." After having joked just days prior that this would happen, I honestly didn't expect it to actually be coming about (talk about speaking things into existence). Frankly, I was terrified that I would get 10-15 miles in to the ride and not be able to finish because of hand pain, but I wasn't about to worry Sam with such thoughts. We took a few minutes and did our best to get the Homer set up in a manner that would keep me as comfortable as possible, and while doing so, the handlebar stem was dropped significantly lower than it had been. I took it for a quick ride down the street and said, "Well, I think it's as good as it's going to get with the time we have."

In the morning, we agreed that Sam would come out and meet me at or near the first refill station/rest stop in case there were any problems.  When he arrived to meet up about 11 miles into the ride, I was doing great. "My hands don't hurt at all," I proclaimed with glee. "We'll see what happens as time wears on, but I'm really doing fine." We were both in a bit of shock knowing my history with this type of handlebar, but I wasn't going to fight it. We decided to meet up again close to the half way point, and off I went to continue the ride.

To make a long story short(er), I made it to the end of the ride (including the ride to and from the starting/ending point) and I wasn't dying or in extreme pain. There was a bit of fatigue, though that was to be expected as it was a longer distance than I typically ride, but I survived and even rode again the following day and rest of the week.

Perplexed by all of this, we attempted to figure out what had changed about the set up, but the only item we could definitively point to was the act of lowering the handlebar stem. While this had always seemed counter-intuitive to me (to lower the stem, thus putting greater pressure on my hands), it actually had the opposite effect. Rather than making the ride more painful, it actually made it easier and more pleasant. When I rode, I used my core muscles more frequently, which kept a great deal of the weight off of my hands. The stem is still high by roadie standards (it currently sits just a tad higher than the saddle), but lowering it seems to have solved the problems I was experiencing with drop bars in the past. The lesson? I'm not entirely sure, but I believe continuing to experiment and try different ways of setting up a bike is important. I may have driven poor Sam absolutely batty with my constant requests to change handlebars, stems, etc, but in the end, I think we've managed to find a way to make this set up work.

An Orange Swan

In a recent post, I talked about some small adjustments that would be made to the Hillborne. One of these is going to be a trial of some different style handlebars. In his current state, Tony looks a bit like a swan, I think.

Oh where, oh where have my handlebars gone?

It's both amusing and a little sad to see him without handlebars. As I've had time to ride this bike over the last several months, I've realized that perhaps the Nitto drops were just not the right style for me on this bicycle. I very rarely use the drops for their intended purpose (on a 20 mile ride, I most often spend less than 1/2 mile using the actual drop portion of the bars, if at all), so I've decided to give mustache bars a go on this bike. I was concerned that longer rides and touring might be difficult with the mustache style, but I've read about some individuals who utilize them for this very purpose. While I realize that reading about something doesn't necessarily make it true, I think it is definitely worth giving them a try in my situation. It took some deliberation and intense research to come to this decision, but I think there will still be enough hand positions for me to move around and avoid the pain and numbness that often occurs for me when riding on flat bar bicycles.

Handlebar tape on his saddle, Tony awaits the new mustache bars
As a side note - I swear, our home is not normally two-tones of paint on a single wall,
but I'm in the midst of a painting project that I've become quite lazy about completing.

I have found that while riding, at least for the most part, I want to keep my hands either on the hoods or on the flat part of the bar, so it just made sense to me to give this a go. I'm anxiously awaiting the arrival and forthcoming addition of the mustache bars to the Hillborne. While he's a bit crippled at the moment, he'll be back to working order within a couple of days, which will be just enough time for our recent snow drop to clear out and allow the two of us a good, long ride together.

Collective Consciousness

Perhaps I've spent too much time pondering this subject, but I cannot help notice how things seem to happen with or for others just about the time that I am pondering an idea, subject, or matter. For example, I was toying with the idea of obtaining or building a road-ish style bicycle several months ago, and while I was busy with the thought process, suddenly I am finding or becoming aware of so many others who are doing very similar builds. It's not just one person or in one location either. I am finding myself involved in conversations with individuals about bicycles, building bicycles and various types of riding just doing my business about town.

Then there was the whole debate about whether my hands could handle drop bars, and I find a post about this very topic. While I wanted desperately to try these, I was unsure of whether it would work, so it was nice to find someone else who had success with these handlebars, even if our issues aren't entirely the same.

In addition to realizing that there are so many ladies out in web-land who are keeping their fabulous city/cruiser style bicycles and donning lycra clothing to participate in long rides, I have had conversataions locally with women as well. One such chat occurred just the other day with a woman in her early 70s, who is wanting to start touring, despite just starting to ride about town for a few months now. I shared with her a few websites of individuals who are making much grander tours than either she or I have aspirations of completing, and she stated that being able to make it from one side of town to the other was her only hope at this juncture in time.

Throughout this process though my question has become: Is this really happening, or am I unconsciously seeking these people and places out? Is it possible that there is a collective consciousness and that we all become aware of things around the same time and begin to make changes in our lives, regardless of our location? I do believe that we are all connected, so perhaps this is just a part of that connection, and we are all realizing the benefits of riding our bicycles around the same time, or utilizing bikes for transportation. I haven't noticed ads for bicycles or a push for bicycle advocacy anymore than what is normally around, otherwise I'd likely pass this off as commercialism and advertising at its best.  It seems as though beings all across the globe are becoming aware of how quickly our planet needs to find alternative modes of getting around, and because the government seems to ignore the requests of the population for more mass transit systems, particularly to smaller cities within larger metropolitan areas, we are finding our own ways around it all.

While I cannot be certain that there is a collective awareness or consciousness, I like to believe that we are learning from the past and reaching conclusions that will bring positive results for the future.