Handlebar and wheel combos

[Tiberius]

I'm looking for a donor/starter bike for my next conversion.

For various reasons, I seem to have a collection of hub motors already built into 26" wheels - I've got a selection of front and rear. I also want drop handlebars with the combined gear and brake levers.

This is turning out to be more difficult than I thought. All the drop handlebar bikes I can find are 700C wheel size. Easy, you would think, get a 26" wheel bike and change the handlebars. The trouble with that is that just the gear/brake levers themselves look like costing £120, so with the bars and accessories its creeping up to £200. For £230 you can get a complete bike with them on.

So it looks like what I need to do is to buy a 26" wheel bike with flat bars and a 700C wheel bike with drops and re-arrange them. This is crazy, one of the aims of the exercise is to reduce the pile of bicycle bits and increase the number of working bikes.

Ideas, anyone? Or bids for a parts bin 700C, flat bar bike.

Nick

 

[flecc]

Try the discounters Nick, CycleKing and their related company in the North, Hawk Cycles. They have all manner of bikes from kids through to adult sizes and might have drop handlebar 26" wheel models.

I think they must be produced for smaller people, since there are at least two 20" wheel drop handlebar bikes produced for 10/11 year old cycle racing enthusiasts.
.

 

[torrent99]

You might try this....

Home Made Drop Bolts for Bicycle Brakes

No guarantees...

 

[Tiberius]

Try the discounters Nick, CycleKing and their related company in the North, Hawk Cycles. They have all manner of bikes from kids through to adult sizes and might have drop handlebar 26" wheel models.

I think they must be produced for smaller people, since there are at least two 20" wheel drop handlebar bikes produced for 10/11 year old cycle racing enthusiasts.
.

Thanks flecc, I'll keep looking. I used to have that combination when I was a kid so I'm surprised to find it so rare now.

Nick

 

[flecc]

Thanks flecc, I'll keep looking. I used to have that combination when I was a kid so I'm surprised to find it so rare now.

Nick

When I entered the trade in 1950, 26" wheels was the norm for drop bar bikes in the UK Nick, larger wheels very much a rarity. Mind you, my height of just over 5' 6" was average then, but now I'm very much a shorty. People are just eating and growing too much these days.
.

 

[frank9755]

You need to get a second hand Raleigh Arena from eBay! I got one when I was about 13 and have fond memories of it. I see them now and again and think about buying one purely for sentimental reasons - they do come up.

I don't think that is the best option though. It depends what type of shifters you want. If you are looking for STIs rather than down tube shifters, which I think would be the best choice, it is worth looking at eBay for second hand ones. I bought a pair of old 7-speed RSX STIs for £13 + postage the other week (which I've used to update an old Dawes Galaxy). 8-speed Sora ones seem to go for about £30-40.

What throttle arrangement are you planning for drops? My wife is wanting drops put on bike, so we may be able to compare notes...

Frank

 

[Tiberius]

Hi Frank,

I haven't really sorted out how to do the throttle, but getting the brakes and gears combined seems to be a necessary step along the way. I'm just amazed at the price of the STI shifters for drops - the manufacturers selling complete bikes with them on can't be paying those prices.

Vague ideas I am working on for the throttle include - and remember these are not thought through yet....

• Using the front gear shifter and only having rear gears
• A combined brake/throttle control - one way to slow down, the other to speed up
• A mouth throttle (don't laugh, its been done on powered hang gliders)
• A finger throttle clipped to one hand
• A throttle built into a glove

And various schemes with no throttle....

• ESP - an advanced variation on the crank sensor
• A switch instead of a throttle - cancelled by touching the brakes
• Cruise control - nudged up and down by a two directional brake lever.

Nick

 

[flecc]

As the saying goes, there's more than one way to kill the cat, so how about an unconventional way of achieving the drops position without throttle and brake complications.

How?

These, upside down

Worth a try for £9.99
.

 

[frank9755]

Hi Frank,

I haven't really sorted out how to do the throttle, but getting the brakes and gears combined seems to be a necessary step along the way. I'm just amazed at the price of the STI shifters for drops - the manufacturers selling complete bikes with them on can't be paying those prices.

They are expensive.

I'm sure that manufacturers get bulk discounts but I suspect they still pay a fair bit for them because they are a good product and there is only really one competitor, Campagnolo. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Shimano made more money than all of the major bike manufacturers combined - they really do seem to be the microsoft of the bike industry.

They seem to operate on a similar model to microsoft, which is to keep charging more for the upgrade. The problem is that there are only so many gears that anyone wants, and they will struggle to charge more for 11, then 12 speed cassettes.

You do need STIs though for any half decent conversion because they are good, and once you've used them there is no going back to anything else. If you look out on eBay for some second hand ones you see them going for reasonable prices, usually someone selling off the 7 or 8 speed because they have upgraded to a 9 or 10.

Vague ideas I am working on for the throttle include - and remember these are not thought through yet....

• Using the front gear shifter and only having rear gears
• A combined brake/throttle control - one way to slow down, the other to speed up
• A mouth throttle (don't laugh, its been done on powered hang gliders)
• A finger throttle clipped to one hand
• A throttle built into a glove

And various schemes with no throttle....

• ESP - an advanced variation on the crank sensor
• A switch instead of a throttle - cancelled by touching the brakes
• Cruise control - nudged up and down by a two directional brake lever.

Nick

Some interesting ideas, most of which would be an improvement on a standard twist throttle. Your electronics skills mean you can probably get those ideas to work! The set-up I've got on my Tongxin-Marin works well, is very simple to set up, and would also translate to drop bars:

I said I'd post something on the throttle arrangements I'd decided to try out on this bike when I had had the chance to test them. I've now tested them and am very happy that they work well - in fact better than other electric bikes I've ridden.

The arrangement is pretty simple. A thumb throttle with the spring removed so that it stays open, and an extra cut-out switch on the handlebars.

I've never much liked having to hold open a throttle when riding a bike for two reasons:
1. a pain in the wrist with too much work for the right hand to do
2. hard to regulate the amount of power

I much prefer a pedelec operation. With my Wisper, before the pedelec fix came to light, I got round this by taping open the throttle and using the throttle on-off switch that the first 905se bikes had to kick in the power when I had got the bike going.

However, this set up, and indeed the pedelec on the Wisper and other non-Panasonic bikes, just gives you two options: some power or none, so that is not ideal either.

My current set-up seems better than any I've tried before in that it offers lack of wrist strain, much improved ability to fine tune the amount of power (important because it is critical to getting longer range) and reasonable degree of safety, with four off switches on the handlebars (throttle + power switch + 2 brake cut-outs. It certainly makes the bike more pleasant and economical to ride than in its original configuration (thumb throttle with spring but no other switches or brake cut-outs) at the start of this thread!

When planning the set-up, I thought that I would use the power switch more, keeping the throttle at the same level and switching it on and off as required (a bit like my old method for the Wisper, or, indeed, the Cytronx). Actually it is nicer to use the throttle. Nevertheless the extra power switch is handy to give confidence the bike is safe when I stop.

I connected the switch by putting it in parallel with the brake cut-outs. This was a very easy way to put a power switch on the handlebars, and I'm surprised that more bikes don't use this set-up.

The only thing I would do to improve the set-up, which would also make it comply with EU legislation, would be to wire in an additional switch via a pedal motion sensor.

Good luck!

Frank