Wilmingtech

Just a story to share, how one simple project leads to a whole new cockpit...

I have been using a Rokform pro mount to hold my phone on my rides. I only bought the one mount and had been switching it between bikes. As spring came on I found myself switching up my rides a bit more. Changing the mount from one bike to the other and having to pull the stem cap and moving the mount to the other bike everytime I wanted to go for a ride quickly got annoying.

Looking at other handlebar mounts available in the market I found the F3cycling out front mount and I went ahead and bought one to put on my road bike. When the mount came in I realized the mount wouldn't work with the Zipp stem that came on my road bike (the bolts on the stem are like 5mm apart). So I had to find a new stem for my road bike.

In the search for the new stem, I saw that Star Bike had the Deda Superzero aluminum handlebars on sale for $65. I had been wanting bars on my gravel bike with a wider top and had been eyeing the superzero bars, So my relentless thoughts lead to a new stem and handlebars for the gravel bike, I'll move the 120mm stem over to the road bike with the gravel bars for now (as the Road stem is 110mm but the reach on the bars is 85mm, Gravel stem was 120mm but the reach on the bars was 75mm) and while I am at it, I will just replace all the brake and shifter cables as they are cheap enough and we can knock all this out with one swoop.

Bars come in, swap out the gravel bars, move everything over to the road bike, trim in all the cables and go for a ride on the road bike before I tape everything up. Reach is a little longer than what I thought it would be. Back to the online shopping mall. Stay on target...stay on target...all I really need is a short stem for the road bike. Thats what I am after. I find a Deda stem for $24. But I found a coupon and it I order over $100 I get $20 off. So I figure I will just take a look around to see if there is anything I can find to make it worth it. And indeed I do. Vision Metron 4d carbon bars for $120.00. Plus the 20$ off makes it 100$ for a pair of solid carbon bars. Sold.

I wait... (Overseas shipping again) it's been over 4 weeks now between work, finding time and waiting for packages to come in from overseas. Finally the carbon bars and new stem come in and it's time to get this all together. Take all the cables apart and start rerunning the housing through the internal routing on the handlebars, making sure everything fits nice and clean and the housing comes up short. Not by much but enough that it's not going to work with the internal routing on the handlebars. And I do not have enough housing to do both sides of derailleur and brake cables. So back to the online shopping mall.

Now waiting for housing to arrive.

Can't wait to see what's next

-Sean

Wildwood 

Forethought can be priceless - and a timesaver.

With the proliferation of bike accessories, and a lack of standards in components the task of 'knowing what one needs' can be a big challenge. And my guess is that it will only get worse. That's the price of proprietary design.

Troul 

Story of my life for many things.

Sometimes it's totally acceptable, while other times..... not the case. Mostly not favorable..

Phil_gretz

When on-line retailers have wet dreams, they're dreaming of the OP...