RiceAWay

Aaron, without examining the bike itself I would guess that you have the preload on the fork headset too high. If you lift the front fork and tilt the bike one way and the other, the front wheel should fall back and forth smoothly. Also another possibility is that the preload on the headset bearing is too low. Hold the front brake on and push the bike back and forth. There should be NO clicking. The headset preload in either case would make the bike dangerous to ride and is the most easily improperly set adjustment by beginners. You loosen up the stem and then loosen the preload on the top cap Allen head screw and then you tighten it only until it stops clicking when you hold the front brake on and push forward and pull back. There should be no more play without overtightening. You then make sure the stem is facing dead forward and tighten the locking screws. You have to do this immediately. If you ride the bike with the preload too high a crash is a likely result.

RiceAWay

Believe me, a bicycle is pretty tolerant to changes in rake and trail and that is nothing to worry about.

RiceAWay

Actually a frame is a frame and a fork is a fork and it takes MASSIVE changes to notice much of a difference.

aaronM46

My stem is backward? What do you mean?

Thanks

aaronM46

This all seems to be correct. I used spacers to get the pre-load correct with the bolt being torqued correctly. Spins nicely with no play at all.

smd4

Looks to me like you did a great job first time around (with the understanding that I only have pics and your descriptions). Just from pictures, you may be a natural bike mechanic. I think some folks here may just be a bit envious/jealous/had their sense of superiority questioned. I’m sure you have stuff to learn but you made a great start.

Ironfish653

Yes, like swapping a suspension fork for conventional-length road fork. That’s pretty significant.

Produces exactly the result the OP is experiencing.

aaronM46

I will tell you that I love it, other than the damn bars!! My new ones should come today. I rode 5 miles yesterday with my hands laying flat on top of the brake levers to keep my hands in a decent position. Why would anyone choose to ride with their wrists swept in like that? I am miserable until I get new bars and can actually enjoy riding. The forks are great. I like the angle. I am still confused about the person that said my stem was backwards. What?

aaronM46

Thank You. I am a natural learner by feel and experience and I grasp things nearly immediately. I spent three hours today on a twin-engine boat practicing throttle steering. This is where you delicately engage one engine in forwards and one in reverse so that the vessel spins on its axis without moving forward or backward. I went out today to do this just to practice and learn. I challenged myself and went out in the ocean in the rough seas with high winds and practiced until my hands were sore. The current, swells, and wind all push the boat around in differing manners. Shutting out all of the noise and just feeling the boat and engines. The movement of the seas, the compass turning, the horizon, the wind, feeling the boat move in the current, etc. It is like a dance with nature and you have to feel it and react. THAT is how I learn and live my life.

Ironfish653

Bars can be tricky to get right, especially when you’re picking them out from a catalog, and you have to guess how they’ll fit.

Hard to say from the pictures, but it looks like you’ve got your bar installed so that the ends of the grips sweep up; most of the time, that sort of bar is installed so it’s flat across the top, but sweeps back towards the rider.

There’s a lot of things, like how high or close you have your bars set, that would also contribute to what sort of width / sweep works best for you. Also, everyone has different preferences and physiology; that’s why there are so many different handlebar shapes out there

aaronM46

It is the backsweep angle on these bars that are bothering my wrists. They force me to turn my wrists inwards. I have wide shoulders and need a bar with very little backsweep angle. Yes, I have turned them down more from what you see in the pictures which helps some but the bars just aren't wide enough and that backsweep angle is not good. I should have new bars today so I will see what I think. They are 800mm which I think is going to be too wide but I will try them out and cut until I am happy. No cutting until I am absolutely positive that it is what I want. I figure I can just keep moving the handgrips and controls inward until I find the right balance with a little bar sticking out until it is just right and then I can cut. I am going out offshore fishing today and tomorrow so I may not get the bars installed until Sunday or Monday.

EDIT: Oh and yes, I don't have a big bike store near me to go look at parts and things. We have a few small bike shops but they are mom-and-pop stores that cater to retirees and their beach cruisers and tricycles. They looked at me funny when I asked if they had a 9-speed chain in stock. I pretty much have to get everything delivered or drive an hour down to Myrtle Beach to a bike store that still doesn't cater to younger active people.

Ironfish653

Wider bars may indeed work better for you; in general, the higher and/or closer to you the bars are, the wider the bars usually are; particularly if you’re aiming for a more upright riding position.
By the way the saddle and the bars appear in the pictures, that seems like what you’re trying to accomplish.

smd4

My son has wide bars on his MTB. Feels totally bizzar to me. I have way less control with my arms three feet across in front of me. I'll take my 64-40 Cinelli Giro d'Italias any day.

genejockey 

When I looked at your bars, what struck me was not "backsweep", but rather that the ends of the bars swept UP, which I would think would cause you to overpronate your wrists.

smd4

Definitely. I'm not getting how such bars would cause his wrists to rotate inwards.

genejockey 

I was thinking more downwards than inwards, and that made me think of the line from "The Seven Year Itch" - "Inwardly, downwardly! Pulsating, striving!"

But then, people have told me I'm strange.

smd4

I know what you're saying, and I agree. In the shop, we'd have those bars set up dead level. He says he lowered the bars, but he also said the bars make his wrists turn "inward." I just can't visualize how that works.

PhilFo 

The bars appear to be rotated up (like a V) in the photos, when they need to be rotated about 70 degrees so the sweep points at the saddle, not the sky. That's why the OP's wrists are rotating inwards.

wheelreason

Winner, winner, chicken dinner...

smd4

I suggested he fix the angle of the bars on the first page.

I’ll have the chicken to go, thanks.

Ironfish653

Ugh. 40cm bars feel like I’m doing “diamond” push-ups. 45cm Cowchippers are my go-to bars for the road bikes.

I’ve done some single track portages with my Bridgestone when it still had the Sakae Road Champions on it; no thanks, not anymore. If I’m going off-piste, I’ll use the widest bars that’ll fit between the trees.

aaronM46 : here’s my “Kruizer” with a 790mm moto bar, for reference


That, and this bike is the antithesis of what SMD4 considers a bicycle to be, though it does have rim brakes

smd4

No, I think it’s a great bike— if you’re a kid. If I had to ride that I’d be piste off too.

RiceAWay

The default position of a suspension fork is the same as a road fork. So unless you're compressed or rebounding past zero, the rake and trail are pretty much the same. If you completely turned a fork like that around the bike would still be ridable. High wheelers had no rake or trail. but the vertical head tube and the bends in the fork blades. Do not think that a bicycle is a complicated machine. While modern bicycles handle slightly better it is not by a lot. Italian builders tried everything possible to improve bicycles and the difference can hardly be felt. The French had large rake and trail and the bikes handled a bit more smoothly but Dutch commuter bikes have the same geometry.

I was riding bikes before the Repack gang developed real MTB's and the only improvement in the ride was suspension and that came at the expense of weight. There is a little local bump that is 20% and with a normal road bike I could never get more than 3/4th of the way up it and would have to push the rest of the way up. I got a Trek HiFi (or whoever (Bontrager?) built it before Trek) and made it to the top. But this was only because it was heavy as hell and had a long wheelbase so that I could stand on the pedals without the front wheel coming up.

So there is very small differences in geometry of any bicycle and it is only because with this geometry you can ride with no hands for a short distance. Please don't come back and say that you could descend Le Alpe du Huez with no hands.

RiceAWay

That looks like a Bridgestone MB series converted to look like a BMX. They did come with flat bars.

chaadster

how much rubbish…