dschad

Hi all,

I became interested in so-called alt-bars as I have been fine-tuning my new winter bike. I came across the VO Crazy Bars, which seemed really interesting and the measurements were pretty close to what I thought I wanted....close, but not perfect. In my reading, I discovered that the VO Seine bars are the VO Crazy Bars without the Crazy, which would allow me to space the horns a bit wider than the 420 of the CBs by using the old bar-ends from my mtn bike.

One question I couldn't find a good answer or picture to was what people did about brakes on the horns, so I am posting this up to show what I did, and then to rave about my experience thus far. So, here we have what I did:


The bar ends are for 22.2 mm, and they fit past the bends, which are at 420mm. I have mine out a bit further at 450mm. There are angles at play in the bars and bar-ends, but at 450 they are spaced comfortable for me and end up being at a good wrist angle. After riding the initial setup a bit, I decided that brakes on the horns would be very nice. Fortunately I had some interrupter brake levers, so I put them on and it looks fairly clean with both sets. Very nice to have the ability to brake on the horns, which I have found to be my primary riding position (similar to my drop bar brake hoods):



I will cover them with tape at some point, but it is currently mitten weather, so I don't need the padding at the moment. Note that I used a bit of gasket material to get the interrupter brakes to fit on the bar-end. The levers are for 23.8mm bars, but they are plenty sturdy with the material in place.

My $0.10 review: love 'em. I went from drops to these, where I would ride 85% of the time on the hoods and occasionally with my finger-tips on the straight top of the bars or corners, but these latter two weren't very comfortable riding positions. So one and a half positions. The CBs bars give me four comfortable, useful, riding positions. The lower horns have the same feeling as on the drop bar hoods; the upper horns the same, but stretched out a bit more; the swept-bar ends are for super-upright, looking around ****-eating grin cruising (esp. when going down long hills), and finally palms on top of the shifter area is a pretty upright comfy position too. Out of the seat on the horns feels really powerful and very comfortable for climbing. Overall, they are really great.

The only thing I need to figure out now is the shifters. I think I'd like them on the horns, probably rotating concentric to the bar-end plug (not a bar-end shifter (up/down)). This is going to require some development as I don't think there is anything off-the-shelf which will fit.

Anyway, hope this is useful for someone else considering making the change.

MarcusT

If you're looking for opinions. I do not believe your brake set up is safe. I understand which riding position you normally use, but when it comes to sudden braking, the natural body movement is to go back. So, say your hands are where your shifters are and you need to suddenly brake, it is not instinctive to move forward, and to risk an olly.
Just my view

Small cog

I don't think you can tease us with just a glimpse of a fillet brazed frame, how about a photo of the complete bike?

Duragrouch

Hard to see, but I think there are brake levers in all hand positions; One set on the outer handles, and one set on the bar ends ("horns"), which he said are interrupter (mid-cable) levers. I don't know if the inners are being used as mids or just end of cable. Usually, the cables run from standard brake levers to mids, then from there to the brakes. Virtually all mid levers are short pull, as they are designed for the top inboard position on drop bars, so designed for road caliper brakes. I use one mid on my long-pull V-brakes, for the front brake only, out on the end of my clip-on aero bar, between the left (flat-bar) lever and the front brake, that way I have emergency braking on the aero without shifting hands. My wheels are very true so I can adjust the pads close enough so that the mid lever won't bottom out when braking. It's also nice when holding the bike in place at a sloped stoplight, as the mid lever only takes half the effort as the regular levers on V-brakes.

Prowler 

When I converted my mtn bike to drop bars I mounted the thumb shifters in the drops, oriented in the vertical plane. My fingers move the levers up and down. That has worked very well for me. Consider mounting your “thumbies” on the bar ends (horns) between the hb clamp and the curved section, under the horn. You ride with your hands on that straight section with your fingers hanging down so the thumb shifter lever is right there.

dschad

I'm not fully sure I see the concern. It is true that when riding with hands on the shifters/at the intersection of the bars/bar-ends there are no brakes at finger reach. This is like hands on the horizontals at the top of standard drops (without the second set of levers), and probably not the place when riding in crowded/surprising conditions. But should things go bad, you can move back to grab the primary brakes or forward to the mid-cable's. In the pic above hopefully it is clear - the levers at the ends are standard (vintage Deore DX which are quite strong), with the secondaries at the ends of the extensions. Note the white cable housing (in the near frame) which goes from the main lever to the little lever, then switches to black housing to the rear brake. An, as per international convention, the front brake cable housing is a completely different color combination.

The bike has canti's and these mid-cable brakes are listed as suitable for them. They are good, certainly for modulating, but definitely not as strong as the primary levers.

Can't resist the opportunity to show it off:


It's a prototype/work in progress. I wanted a short reach, tall stack bike that fits 26x2.3is tires. The whole story is here: https://www.bikeforums.net/23116763-post1.html

It started as a 21" Shogun 500 from the mid 80s. Once I get it dialed in, I think I'm gonna build it for real, although the next step is a fork which can support a front fender. I changed the rake, and lost my fork. Bummer.

That sounds like something to try, and should be pretty easy. I'll give it a shot, thanks for the suggestion.

RB1-luvr

I dig the bike and the mods.

Tourist in MSN

I am not sure how this works. Can you share a photo with us?

dschad

I took his suggestion to mean:





which testing suggests is pretty good. Not sure if it will interfere with my hands to much. There is a pointy thing in the shifter which might need to be cut back.

Better quality shifters might be more comfortable. I'm thinking the ones that reuse down tube levers.

Will report back after my ride...

Tourist in MSN

He said he is doing that in the drops. I was not sure if he was trying to do something like Kelly Takeoffs which I think have been out of production for many years.
https://www.kellybike.com/product/ta...t-lever-mount/

Prowler 

Yup sort of like that. Mine route the cables forward which then sweep back to the head tube. Sort of like the classic cable routing for bar end shifters. Reminds me of an old Ducati dustbin fairing. My levers are outboard of the drops, just where my fingers are. Experiment a bit to see what might feel comfortable.



This is the bike and the setup that I used for my only gravel imperial century back a couple of years ago. 50.5 miles north on the D&L trail then turn right around (on single track in the woods) and ride back to the car. These worked a peach the whole way.

dschad

I think that making up something like the Kelly Takeoffs are in my future. If you are looking for near-brake shifters, I don't know if you are aware of Gevenalle levers/shifters. These seem like a nice idea - I was going to go this route until I decided that Crazy was a better route for me.

Another option similar to what we have been talking about are the Dia compe ENE wing shifters:

which are very expensive.

That looks good...having them on the outside with the clean cable routing makes sense. The cables were a bit of an issue in my hasty routing - as they are oriented the cable loops back toward me, then flips around back to the bosses. When standing, the cable was hitting my thighs, and it's a long trip to the derailleur. That was the biggest problem, otherwise it worked pretty well, although I wasn't able to freely dangle my thumb with the shifter in there.

I might try flipping them to the outside, but feel like that isn't going to be too great for the long throw friction, although it might work well with indexed.

In the long run, I think I'm going to get make up a down-tube lever mount and play around with the orientation and position. Somewhere there is going to be the perfect balance of out-of-the-way and easily accessible.

veganbikes

I would want shifting in the extensions as well but the main place is in the normal position on a flat bar. Luckily my newest bike which was the owner of the shops bike before he passed is now running AXS so I have been able to run shifters in all 3 positions (both extensions on the crazy bar and one of the right side as this is a 1x12 set up) I need to modify the bars or re-route because these are the wired version and I haven't had the chance to route them under the grips which I already had installed and are a pain to install and remove but adding holes to the bar would be sketchy just to route into the blip box.

Tourist in MSN

V brake noodles are great for changing cable routing. For example on my bike with a twist grip shifter for a Rohloff hub, I wanted the cables to be routed forward, not to the sides. Sprayed the noodles black first. You can see how the noodles feed into the shifter on the bar end. This type of shifter uses two cables.



Thanks for posting the photo of the ENE shifters. Interesting.

dschad

Electric shifting - that's cheating!

Good tip on the noodles, thanks.

Your setup got me looking at Rohloff/internal geared hubs....after the horrific amount of sand and salt in my drive-train from the snow clearing, I'm thinking next year I'll be sporting an IGH. Probably a Shimano, but boy does that make sense. It looks like you are in snow country also, any negatives about an igh in winter?

Tourist in MSN

IGH systems use lubricants. Lower budget ones have grease, higher end ones like the Rohloff have oil that should be changed annually. In cold weather, lubricants can get more viscous.

I would not be surprised if in really cold weather that grease could be an issued for ease of shifting, and rolling resistance. I suspect it would have to be REALLY cold before grease causes pawls to get sticky, so I suspect that would not be an issue.

Rohloff suggests in very cold weather that you can use a less viscous mix of oils, but I have never ridden the bike below about 20 degrees (F), and I had no problems at all with using the hub in cold weather with normal (summer) oil.

Decades ago I used a vintage Sturmy Archer three speed hub in winter a lot, no problems. But those vintage hubs had a hole in the hub shell to drip in oil on occasion, thus no viscous grease in the hub.

Cycling cold air to warm air, especially if the warm air is very humid could theoretically allow condensation to form which could cause corrosion, but I do not think that is any worse than riding a bike in occasional rain. That said, Rohloff has warned that condensation of water inside the hub is one reason to perform annual oil changes.

A neighbor is a bike mechanic at a bike shop on a major university campus. He was telling me a few years ago that in spring that year they were replacing an unusually large number of bike chains. I am not sure if that year had more frequent road salt usage or not, but he was saying when a bike came into the shop that needed a new chain, to save time they were using big heavy duty bolt cutters to remove the chains because they were dealing with so many chains that year. That of course is not unique to IGH drive, but it does raise the question of belt drive instead of chain. I am content with chain drive, and I prefer it because for riding around near home I use a 44T chainring, but when touring I use a 36T chainring to obtain a lower gearing range (and adding or removing 4 chain links with a second quick link). If you are going to commute on a bike in winter, I would plan on a chain replacement in spring if you are in an area where road salt is used. I have not done that but there were a few years when I put a worn out chain on my Rohoff bike in fall and discarded it in spring. I am retired, no commuting, only occasional riding in winter.

Shifter cables may have more friction in winter, but that also is not unique to IGH. The higher end IGH units like Rohloff or Pinion bikes use two shifter cables, not one. One cable for upshift and one for downshift. Those systems have the indexing in the hub, thus a sticky or out of adjustment cable is not a problem as that does not impair the indexing. But a single cable hub, the indexing is in the shifter and a sticky cable in winter could be a bigger problem for shifting.

My Rohloff bike was built to use a Rohloff hub, it has an eccentric bottom bracket for chain adjustment. Putting an IGH on a frame that was not designed for it means you need to figure out how you want to do chain adjustment.

I have a sprocket and chainring that both have an even number of teeth. This article explains how half of your teeth wear differently with a single speed or IGH hub.
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/chain-life.html

I am careful to mark my sprocket and chainring to make sure I always put the chain on with the same teeth used for outer chain links or inner chain links. IGH chains can wear much further than the common 0.5 or 0.75 percent elongation point for chain replacement. I do not change chains until well beyond 1 percent elongation. But I suspect less than one out of 10 IGH users bother with marking teeth to make sure that chains go on the same way as before. But if you are a former bike mechanic, you think about that sort of thing.

Good luck.

dschad

Thanks for the great feedback. I am really intrigued by this as I think it will really help with the problem of grit. If the temps stay below freezing things aren't too bad, but the up and down around that mark can get messy for sure. Thinking about my recent setup, I had just decided that I will need two sets of components - the winter junk which will grind itself into oblivion and probably not be terribly responsive, and the fair-weather components/chain which will be my performance setup. IGH is probably a better solution and the Shimano hubs are definitely at a low-risk price. That said, my reading suggests that these hubs may not be optionally geared, and you need to be careful how small of a chain ring you put on. That said, I'm not an aggressive rider, so probably not a real issue.


I still have a lot of research to do, but thanks for the great start with all your comments!

Tourist in MSN

I am always happy to help someone that appreciates it.

veganbikes

it works a treat though. Highly recommend it. I went for the Zirbel shifter and wow it is such a minimal shifter but really feels nice and shifts well. I never really thought I would be running SRAM anyway but Shimano XT Di2 is not out yet in 12 speed for non-STePS stuff and I didn't want to wait another year or two years or however long they are going to take for it it come out and while 11 speed is fine they use different wires and I don't want to deal with that hassle of making sure I am getting the older wires and having an older system that I am buying new right now. The SRAM aside from a few quirks is actually quite nice and easy to use.

Duragrouch

We need lower cost stainless steel chains, darnit.

Chain indexing and even cogs: I read the link, interesting! I had thought the exact opposite, that odd-tooth sprockets are better to constantly even-out wear, but I ride a derailleur bike so it doesn't matter. But I had no idea that all the stretch happens on the outer-plate-links, not the inner, but I have to think about that, as even the inners use rollers and those could be displaced forward or back by wear of the inner swaged shoulders that they rest on.

Cold lube: I had been fascinated with Alfine 11 conversions of Bromptons (Scottish shop makes a new 135mm OLD triangle), until I read that the Alfine 11 does not use pawls, but rather roller friction, like an overrunning clutch. I have concerns about any transmission that uses smooth, lubricated, metal-to-metal friction, be it automotive CVTs, NuVinci/Enviolo hubs, or rollers. Some have reported slippage on Alfine 11 when climbing out of the saddle. But I mention this, because this might be worse (or better) with the lube at higher viscocity. Traditional auto automatic tranmissions have metal-to-metal clutches, and they mostly work, but can wear out. Modern dual clutch transmissions are different, having a clutch friction material against metal, with the better ones in an oil bath for a "wet clutch".

With the small amount of lube used by an IGH hub, and synthetic oils with little viscosity change over a very wide temperature range, being on the market for nearly 50 years now, one would think one would exist for IGH hubs, and not be cost prohibitive for annual changes. Synthetic 75W-90 gear lube is common. But having high shear stability to prevent lube breakdown, and also being "slippery", low friction, may be at odds with a lubed setup where you need to transmit shear force between parts, i.e., not slippery, while still lubricating other parts of the transmission.

EDIT: On another thread, someone said they had encountered an IGH lubed with automatic transmission fluid, and it swelled a plastic nut or seal enough to disengage from the threads and leaked. I also now remembered issues of compatibility with rubbery seals and such with synthetic oils. So I would qualify what I said above about that, and go by the hub manufacturer's recommendations.

Tourist in MSN

I have been working on bikes for decades, only one season as a bike mechanic, the rest of that time on my own and on friends bikes. But that article was a real enlightenment, I would have assumed every link had the same elongation. But I read that before I bought my Rohloff hub 11 years ago, so I marked my cog so I could always put an outer plate link on that tooth when I first started using that hub. Rohloff hubs come stock from the factory with a 16 tooth cog, but other sizes are available. Thorn (the manufacturer of my heavy touring bike) fits 17T cogs to new bikes they sell, but I suspect that they do that so that every tooth wears the same. I have the 16T cog on my Thorn because I bought the frame and Rohloff hub separately. The photo is of my rear cog on my Rohloff several years ago before I flipped the cog. You can see really easily which tooth had the chain inner plate links because of the wear on the side of the tooth. That tooth also had a lot more wear than the adjacent teeth on the part of the teeth where the chain roller wear is. Disregard the yellow paint, I put that on it so it was easier to see which teeth I wanted to put the outer plate links on, the notch I cut in one tooth was difficult to see when the notch was filled with grime. But, if you change your chains promptly at 0.5 or 0.75 percent elongation, you likely have more even wear on all teeth. I run my chains on this bike well past 1.0 percent elongation, thus there is a bigger difference in how much wear there is on the different teeth because the outer plate links are much longer before I change chains.




I know nothing about Shimano IGH hubs, never owned one and never worked on one, other than my sisters hub when I told her to take it to a bike shop. (Brand new bike from the bike manufacturer, had a frayed shift cable, and that shift cable was hanging up in the outer housing preventing proper indexing.)

Rohloff charges a lot of money for their oil. I do not know what is unique about it, but substituting other oils has caused problems in hubs. Years ago I bought the 250ml sized oil bottles, have several more years of oil left. Regarding wear, viscosity, etc., there is not a lot of energy applied to the gears in a bike IGH. I am sure that e-bike motors put much more wear on an IGH, but so far Rohloff has been happy to join the e-bike crowd. On my vintage Triumph motorcycles, I used 80 W 90 non-synthetic gear lube which worked well. I had 140 W 90 synthetic in my Jeep pickup truck differential. I am not sure the rating on the lube I had in my Land Rover differentials, but I specified synthetic to the shop that changed the lube. I never changed the lube in my F250 four speed tranny or differential, but I am quite sure that was non-synthetic heavy viscosity gear lube based on how stiff it was in cold weather. My point is that on these motor vehicles, the gears had to handle a lot more horsepower or wattage than a bicyclist can put out and those motor vehicles had to last for a lot more miles. On a bicycle, I would never want a high viscosity gear lube, too much rolling resistance. I had 170k miles on my Jeep pickup when it went to the scrap yard, not many bicycles get that much wear but that is common now for motor vehicles.

I am clueless about what is special about Rohloff oil but it has a very low viscosity. On another forum years ago, someone ran a chemical test on it but they used the kind of test you use to diagnose motor problems based on what metals were in the oil after the fact, and some lab tech wrote on the lab report that it looked like some other fluid, I do not recall what. But that test really was not the right kind of test for trying to figure out what it was, you would need to identify what is common in other lubes that is missing in the Rohloff oil. I will just keep using the proper oil for the hub.

Duragrouch

(above) I use synthetic when I can. I know that after I changed the manual trans fluid on my car (which used auto trans fluid) to a synthetic, the next fluid change 50,000 miles later the drained lube looked like new, clear red, no gray particles like the first change.

My '89 road race bike had an Unilide cassette (pre-hyperglide), teeth were just a bit twisted at the tip, no ramps, which it didn't need because not big jumps. No lockring, high cog is threaded. Anyway, after 15 years of use with the same cogs and chain (I never measured the stretch, not aware enough then) and tens of thousands of miles, I noticed wear on the cogs, but then just reversed them, which you could do on IG, and bought a new chain. Those cogs are still on that bike, it's retired in storage while I use my townie with panniers. I don't know if I can even get an UG 7 cassette any more. I'll have to look on amazon. Looks like not! I'd have to convert to hyperglide.

dschad

A bit of an update -
(a) I still really love the bar setup. Super comfortable for multiple positions.
(b) I wasn't too happy with my shifters, so I ordered some Dia Comp Ene Ciclo bar end shifters...I figured these would be the most flexible if I couldn't decide where to mount them. My thinking was that I could more easily make up a bracket/mount to customize where to put them. The expanding part is removable, so with a little fiddling they could be converted into thumbies, or have them run parallel to my extensions.

Anyway, I didn't really need to do much, as they fit into the bar ends (although they don't seat completely). I also ordered a couple of noodles (thanks Tourist in MSN for the idea) to simplify cable runs, and came up with:




It was getting pretty cramped with the extra brake levers, so the ends are the natural place...and easy to install. They seem to work fine when on the bar ends, but are pretty far away when on the swept back part of the bars. I haven't spent too much time with them, so I don't know if this is going to be an annoyance in the long run or not. Regardless of where they end up, the ENE shifters are very nice.