garryg

Anybody using Denham bars? Likes or dislikes. I,m thinking of trying them out on my disc trucker. I rareky if ever ride in the drops and am looking for a bit more control when on the gravel loaded. Thanks

imi

Makes sense if you don’t use your drops. Same position as in the hoods plus a wider straight bar for more control on rough paths.

The reach when using the straight bar would be a bit short, I imagine, if converting from drops, but maybe not an issue.

Your Trucker has brifters, neh? Would you mount them on the Denhams or change brakes and gear levers? If so where would be the optimal placing?

Just my thoughts

garryg

i have barends,will switch to trigger shifters

veganbikes

LOVE THEM! Have had them since last May (ish) and they are awesome. Very comfortable and the "horns" are perfect as they are where I have my hands a lot of the time on drop bars (maybe a touch narrower than my chosen bars but not a complaint). I have about 1400 miles or so with them (I couldn't install them right at the start of owning the bike so not sure the exact mileage but at least 1400 miles on those bars)

Get the GC1 grips of course and I found that the ESI grips, while tougher to install, are quite comfortable on the "horns". I keep thinking maybe a more ergo set up of some sort would be cool but I haven't figured a good way to do it but I haven't had any discomfort or anything like that I just don't like round stuff and prefer an ergo profile.

My one gripe for you would be that they are not compatible with thumbies, so you couldn't swap your old bar ends to some Paul levers and make them work unless upside down but things might be odd in that position. However a trigger shifter is just fine in the end. In my usage I have an electronic shifter.

My general gripe is that Koga has no interest in selling them realistically or they want to keep them exclusive so people hunger for them more but we wanted to get them in the U.S. and they wouldn't sell to us as a shop. I am curious now to try the new Velo Orange Crazy bars as I think they said ok Koga and Alee we see you and we raise you 20mm. I hope it will be a somewhat on going war between them to make the bars ever so slightly better every few years. I think the 2nd gen of them looks really promising but no plans to get rid of the Denhams yet as they are so great.

I really cannot find anything I really dislike about them that I really dislike about them, occasionally yeah maybe a little wide in some situations and sometimes a bit narrow in some situations but in normal usage not a problem, when weaving through a car or trying to mount stuff towards the outside it can be less than ideal but I made it work and work well.

In terms of brake levers Avid Speed Dial 7s if you want cheap but good and Paul Levers if you want really good and super smooth (and MUSA) but they aren't cheap. Obviously if you are running road stuff then the SD7s aren't what you want but Paul makes levers for both that are great and for road stuff Shimano Tiagra levers are probably the best of that bunch (as you cannot find higher end stuff still in production from Shimano)

bigwies

veganbikes could you post a picture of your handlebars? I agree about getting the Ergon GC1 grips for the bars, but I would really like to see how the ESI grips look on the horns. I just did a drop to VO Crazy Bars conversion and was thinking about grips on the horns as one of my finishing touches.

garryg Take a look at this thread (https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/1...stop-bars.html) about my drop to alt bar conversion. My reason to start the project was the same as yours and I got lots of great feedback from the community on my project and it really helped me along the way.

veganbikes

Here you go hopefully these help. I am running Hope Grip Doctor plugs at the end of the GC1s and then eeBarKeeps at the ends of the ESI grips in case you were wondering. I think I had both from other projects and just decided to go with other stuff on those projects so they were perfect here.

mechanicmatt

I have one and use thumbshifters. It isn't easy to setup though. Have to angle them down some. Very comfortable ride. The new velo orange bars look very similar but with a small rise. I needed a 110-130 length stem to get comfortable.

veganbikes

How do you honestly like the thumbies in that set up? They are not far off from my Gevenalle levers in a sense but actual shifting ergonomics are a bit different since it is different bar .

mechanicmatt

I guess I should admit I am not much of a tourer, however I have ridden many miles with this bar including up the going to the sun road in glacier. It works fine. I think it would be an excellent setup if I could get some of those clamp style thumb mounts and mount them on the inside of the bullhorns. Then I think it would be super sweet. Because kind of a natural position other than at the ends of the bar and on the bullhorns, is in that crook between those two spots. Which kind of makes a nice third handlebar position. So if money was no object, and parts scarcity didn't exist, I might get some of those rivendale clamps, velo orange clamps, or Paul thumb shifter clamps and then you would be able to mount them on the inside. They are sort of advertised so that the inside of the bull horns is another position, but I found myself rarely using it and instead sort of used the three hand positions I described above.

All that said it rides just fine, I thought it was weird too but I am a bit thumb shifter obsessed and really don't want to use trigger or grip shift. I very very much like the bars though.

garryg

Thanks for the input, miracle of miracles i have some coming from the Netherlands. Shipped today.

veganbikes

It's cool I am kinda not much of a tourer these days anyway. I wish I looked at the weather more in advance I could have done a little short trip over the weekend.

Paul Thumbies are probably your easiest to get bet these days they are taking some time with stuff but they are U.S. production so at least you don't need to send them overseas and go through ports and customs and what not just wait to be created and shipped.

mechanicmatt

One, is that the end plugging of the bullhorns actually need caps or something a little more water tight like a cover plug, I've been in heavy rain with the bars and they can get water inside and then they loosened my grips at the handlebar ends. I ended up using lockon grips just to make sure it didn't happen again.

Two, use small width handlebar grips at the two ends and then you'll have room for your controls and have a bit of room for the third hand resting area where the bullhorns and handlebars meet.

One last odd thing about the bars are that the bullhorns uses road handlebar diameter tubing (like you could put barcons on there) vs normal MTB width tubing.

Again I love them but just wanted to share the oddities of them. I set them up too so that the bullhorns mimic the distance/location of road hoods that is was comfortable with, then everything sort of ended up in the natural positioning for me. Slight upward bend up of the bullhorns / downward of the handlebars as Alee suggests makes them darn comfortable.

skookum

I have them on my Tumbleweed Prospector. I like them. No issues. Rohloff shifter.