Originally Posted by
MLux
Yeah, I actually rode with my friend this weekend (he has a Trek520) and when he stood out of the saddle, the experience was similar. His knees were quite close to the bars as well. I suppose what threw me was that I felt I could not lean forward much on the bars, I almost had to be standing upright. But that of course has to do with my stem length more than anything else.
Still deciding what the right move is but might go ahead and swap the stem. It does require swapping the entire handlebar though because the current handlebar is actually too wide (the literal diameter of the bar) to fit into the original stem. So, it'll be a good learning experience. I've swapped stems before many times but never uninstalled and reinstalled bar end shifters! Either way, I'll keep you all posted on how things turn out with this bike... or another!
gotcha, I thought you were meaning the actual width of the bars, from side to side. Ya, there are generally two different bar diameters, the old standard 26mm, and the "new" oversize 31.8mm, which is not new now and pretty much standard on most bars now. In our household, we have a mix of old and new bar bikes, so as you'll see if you keep being into bikes for decades, most of us have accumulated stems of various length, angles, and yes, diameter.
I don't have that many, but as I've fixed up old bikes for family members for beater bikes, or even just when doing what you're faced with--fixing a fit issue, you end up with extras and they are handy to keep for some fixup project or whatever.
A recent example--on my wifes touring bike a few years ago, I changed the bars to "trekking or butterfly" bars, and they have the older 26mm, clamp area, but I luckily had one the right length in my parts box, so it worked out perfectly. In fact, thinking back, when I bought the bars, the store had some old demo 26mm stems that they pretty much never use anymore so they gave me a few different lengths for a low price and one of them worked fine.
Ive never done bar end shifters either, but I'm sure its fairly straightforward. If you do it, check out youtube vids for the easiest techniques for putting bartape back on properly with the cable jutting out the side (and to make sure you get tape direction right so it doesnt loosen)
Park tools (really good bike tool company) have a whole pile of really really well made bike mechanic videos, well lit, great camera work, and very good explaining from the Park tool video dude.
Highly recommend them for learning stuff and understanding the concepts of taking apart and putting back together.