As well as being the bit of the bike that you hold onto, the handlebars in many ways also hold the rest of the bike together. Without the handlebars, you've got nothing to put the brake and shift levers on, and without them you'll have trouble both moving and stopping.
I've got black Cinelli Vai XL shallow drop handlebars. For those of you who have only ever ridden hybrids or mountain bikes, they're the loopy-type bars which are often the most recognisable feature of a road bike. The fact they're shallow drop bars means they're not quite as loopy as some, while the XL indicates that the centre of the bar, which is clamped by the stem, has a larger circumference than the standard Cinelli Vai handlebars. In fact, it perfectly fits my Cinelli Vai XL stem!
Following the instructions which came with the stem and the bars, I whipped out my torque wrench and tightened the bars in the stem to the recommended level.
All good, part one done. Now, for the levers. I've got Shimano Tiagra STI levers. Operating them is simple enough, but fitting them was slightly tricky.
You can't see it on the picture I linked to there, but the black covering for the "body" of the levers is actually rubber, and when you pull it back you see a metal ring. The idea is that you slip the ring onto the end of your handlebar, and slide it up the curvy bit of the bar until it reaches the top.
In theory it's very simple, but in practice it took me a little while. There's a little screw hidden under another part of the rubber cover, which loosens and tightens the ring. Obviously, to slide the lever into position without scratching the bar, the ring has to be sufficiently loose to move freely. Once it's in the correct position (find what's most comfortable for you by sitting on the bike and adjusting) you then need to tighten it nice and firmly in order to make sure the lever doesn't move around when you're riding.
(Side note: Naturally, I didn't tighten one of the rings enough, so one of my levers does slide around a bit. But not much. And it just all adds to the charm of the machine, I think. Why don't I just tighten it up now? I'll deal with that another day.)
With the levers in place, you're now all nice and ready to feed the cables into them, but before that you need to fit the bits that the other ends of the cable attach to ...
You can't see it on the picture I linked to there, but the black covering for the "body" of the levers is actually rubber, and when you pull it back you see a metal ring. The idea is that you slip the ring onto the end of your handlebar, and slide it up the curvy bit of the bar until it reaches the top.
In theory it's very simple, but in practice it took me a little while. There's a little screw hidden under another part of the rubber cover, which loosens and tightens the ring. Obviously, to slide the lever into position without scratching the bar, the ring has to be sufficiently loose to move freely. Once it's in the correct position (find what's most comfortable for you by sitting on the bike and adjusting) you then need to tighten it nice and firmly in order to make sure the lever doesn't move around when you're riding.
(Side note: Naturally, I didn't tighten one of the rings enough, so one of my levers does slide around a bit. But not much. And it just all adds to the charm of the machine, I think. Why don't I just tighten it up now? I'll deal with that another day.)
With the levers in place, you're now all nice and ready to feed the cables into them, but before that you need to fit the bits that the other ends of the cable attach to ...
No comments:
Post a Comment