Originally Posted by
goatalope
Any body put a flat bar on a gravel bike? Would like to see pictures.
For context... Here in central Pennsylvania, a lot of the "gravel roads" are fire roads. The main fire roads are pretty well maintained, but its easy to branch off and it'll quickly turn into more like ATV paths (often with rocky or muddy sections). I often would like the control of flat bars, but don't typically need suspension. So I'm thinking either a flat bar gravel bike or a rigid mountain bike. But so many mountain bikes are solely 1x now, which I find limiting.
So anyways, I keep picturing a Trek Checkpoint (or something similar) with a little longer stem and 690-720 wide flat bars. Anybody have an example? Thanks!
As someone who contemplated going the other direction (drop bar on a Trek FX S6) the best decision I made was to abandon that idea, re-sell the bike (through Pro's Closet, in case you're like me and don't want to do the eBay/CL/OfferUp thing) and buy a Revolt. I got tons of advice on this forum (and other cycling enthusiasts) to not convert due to the geometry of the frame not really meant to support the bar conversion. They were right. The geometry of the Revolt is completely different from the FX S6. I would have spent hundreds on the new bar, new shifters and brake levers (or in my case going from those to brifters), bleed the brakes, and installation costs and still come up with a result that was nowhere near what I wanted in a drop bar gravel bike.
Since you're preference is for a flat bar, and 1X is the main limited to MTBs for you, I'd focus more on trying to find the MTB that allows a 2X if that's really the gearing that you want, or at least allows enough clearance for the addition of a 2X. If the frame supports added gearing it's a much less drastic conversion than changing from drop to flat bars. Full disclosure: I don't MTB so I have no idea if what I'm recommending is possible, but I could swear I've seen MTBs with 2X on the roads...
EDIT: here are some pics for comparison. Apologies as I didn't take them in the same locale and from the same angle, but hopefully it's illustrative as to why I chose not to convert the FX to drop bar. The pics may not do the difference justice, but as you know, just a cm or two difference here and there on the major touch-points, as well as stack and reach measurements, can be the difference from something that is comfortable to ride for 30 minutes vs. 3-4 hours or more at a time.
