Road bike with flatbars



widgetr

New Member
Jul 16, 2010
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I need a lighter weight bike....I would love a carbon fiber and want good compnents..but I need the flatbar............can anyone help me thanks widget
 
I just bought the Giant Rapid 3. This is an entry-level flat-bar road bike.

You may want to look at Giant Rapid 0 or Scott Speedster S20 FB
 
widgetr said:
I need a lighter weight bike....I would love a carbon fiber and want good compnents..but I need the flatbar............can anyone help me thanks widget
WHY do you "need a lighter bike"?

What is your budget?

How many times are you going to ask this question?

FYI. Initially, just add $200+ to whichever CF Road bike fits your budget & which strikes your fancy, then resell the shifters which come with the bike on eBay.
 
Glad someone posted about flatbar bikes. My wife is interested in a road bike and is looking for one with a flatbar.

I've looked all over and the few I've seen don't seem to be much lighter than her MTB that she's been riding on the roads (with hybrid tires).

How do these bikes like the Giant Rapid perform? I haven't had the opportunity to ride one, but from the way they look, to me, they just look like mountain bikes with road tires. Is the gearing different on these bikes than on a MTB? We can't justify spending money on something that's not much of an improvement over what she has.

Yesterday we looked at bikes for her, but none of them had the flatbars;

Fuji Finest 2.0, 3.0
Schwinn Fastback
Scattante R330
 
widgetr said:
I need a lighter weight bike....I would love a carbon fiber and want good compnents..but I need the flatbar............can anyone help me thanks widget

Why do you need a flat bar?
 
GT Fanatic said:
Glad someone posted about flatbar bikes. My wife is interested in a road bike and is looking for one with a flatbar.

I've looked all over and the few I've seen don't seem to be much lighter than her MTB that she's been riding on the roads (with hybrid tires).

How do these bikes like the Giant Rapid perform? I haven't had the opportunity to ride one, but from the way they look, to me, they just look like mountain bikes with road tires. Is the gearing different on these bikes than on a MTB? We can't justify spending money on something that's not much of an improvement over what she has.

Yesterday we looked at bikes for her, but none of them had the flatbars;

Fuji Finest 2.0, 3.0
Schwinn Fastback.
Scattante R330
Many bike I have lookewd at are heavy..I looked at carbon road and convert bars but get good components cost 500..I recently learned of a full carbon cannondale quicke carbon 1or 2 bike that has triple that I want plus light weight..check it out....I can not road bike with bar because it hurts my neck. I do not like the brakes
 
widgetr said:
Many bike I have lookewd at are heavy..I looked at carbon road and convert bars but get good components cost 500..I recently learned of a full carbon cannondale quicke carbon 1or 2 bike that has triple that I want plus light weight..check it out....I can not road bike with bar because it hurts my neck. I do not like the brakes

Proper fit on a bike is much more important that bike weight.
 
widgetr said:
GT Fanatic said:
Glad someone posted about flatbar bikes. My wife is interested in a road bike and is looking for one with a flatbar.

I've looked all over and the few I've seen don't seem to be much lighter than her MTB that she's been riding on the roads (with hybrid tires).

How do these bikes like the Giant Rapid perform? I haven't had the opportunity to ride one, but from the way they look, to me, they just look like mountain bikes with road tires. Is the gearing different on these bikes than on a MTB? We can't justify spending money on something that's not much of an improvement over what she has.

Yesterday we looked at bikes for her, but none of them had the flatbars;

Fuji Finest 2.0, 3.0
Schwinn Fastback.
Scattante R330
Many bike I have lookewd at are heavy..I looked at carbon road and convert bars but get good components cost 500..I recently learned of a full carbon cannondale quicke carbon 1or 2 bike that has triple that I want plus light weight..check it out....I can not road bike with bar because it hurts my neck. I do not like the brakes

I've noticed the same thing. The problem we're running into is that she doesn't want to spend a ton of money on a bicycle. While I can certainly appreciate where she's coming from, it's hard to get a good, lighter bike for dirt-cheap. She doesn't want to spend more than $300-$400 on a bike. I wish her the best of luck, unless she buys used or finds some seriously good sale at some bike shop.

It helps that I have about $260 in credit built up at Performance Bicycle, but even with that credit, it's still going to be tough to find something...
 
GT Fanatic said:
Thanks for the heads up. It doesn't look like a bad bike for the money. The only thing that concerns me is that it's an 8spd bike. Is that going to have a large effect on hillclimbs, because we do quite a few of them here in WV.

the bike is a cannondale carbon quick 2 and it has a triple I believe it is a 52-39-30

Cannondale | Quick Carbon Féminine 2

My bike that I have now weights about 35 pounds and I have looked at a aluminum and some carbon on it but it still weights about 26...I figure that if i am going to get another bike to have for 20 years to find the lightest weight bike....I can not use drop bars because of my back and carpel tunnel in my hands... I looked at getting a road and then getting components on it but it was going to be around 500 ( with the good components)..hope to hear widget
 
widgetr said:
the bike is a cannondale carbon quick 2 and it has a triple I believe it is a 52-39-30

Cannondale | Quick Carbon Féminine 2

My bike that I have now weights about 35 pounds and I have looked at a aluminum and some carbon on it but it still weights about 26...I figure that if i am going to get another bike to have for 20 years to find the lightest weight bike....I can not use drop bars because of my back and carpel tunnel in my hands... I looked at getting a road and then getting components on it but it was going to be around 500 ( with the good components)..hope to hear widget

Thanks for the info. I'll suggest this bike to her...
 
widgetr said:
I looked at getting a road and then getting components on it but it was going to be around 500 ( with the good components)
WHERE do you live -- the Principality of Monaco?

WHAT are you currently riding which weighs 35 lbs. -- is it a Full Suspension MTB?

HOW did you express your interest in "good components."

As I indicated before, it should only cost $200 (or, less) to convert a Road bike from one with DROP BARS to one with FLAT BARS unless you indicated that you wanted Carbon Fibre bars + Carbon Fibre stem + XTR components.

Just how light did you want your new bike to be?

What is your TOTAL budget for your desired bike?

BTW. I would think that you should be able to buy a very nice Road bike with an aluminum frame which weighs less than 20 lbs.
 
alfeng said:
WHERE do you live -- the Principality of Monaco?

WHAT are you currently riding which weighs 35 lbs. -- is it a Full Suspension MTB?

HOW did you express your interest in "good components."

As I indicated before, it should only cost $200 (or, less) to convert a Road bike from one with DROP BARS to one with FLAT BARS unless you indicated that you wanted Carbon Fibre bars + Carbon Fibre stem + XTR components.

Just how light did you want your new bike to be?

What is your TOTAL budget for your desired bike?

BTW. I would think that you should be able to buy a very nice Road bike with an aluminum frame which weighs less than 20 lbs.

when I was reading on some of the forums online...somesone said that it was going to cost around 300 then 200 for labor........................I would like to find something used then weight around 20 would be great...I would like to keep the cost around 1000 thanks
 
widgetr said:
when I was reading on some of the forums online...somesone said that it was going to cost around 300 then 200 for labor........................I would like to find something used then weight around 20 would be great...I would like to keep the cost around 1000 thanks
IMO, working on a bike doesn't take much more mechanical skill than is necessary to change a light bulb ... unscrew the old bulb, screw in the new bulb. The only other things you will need are a modest amount of knowledge + the proper tools -- both can be readily acquired.

To convert a typical Shimano equipped Road bike, you will either need Shimano's FLAT BAR Road shifters + (apparently) a different front derailleur or a set of Shimano MTB shifters (presuming the bike has Shimano derailleurs). I don't know what the combined cost is ... MTB shifters would cost less than the Flat Bar shifters, but, it has been pointed out that the MTB front derailleurs have a sigfnificantly different pull rate ... I don't know if that's true (one of these days I'll check it out).

Regardless, whatever Shimano's Flat Bar shifters cost, you will be able to recoup all-or-more-than the cost when you re-sell the Road shifters which are on the bike (presuming that they are Tiagra-or-better).

The base JAMIS Coda is a Flat Bar, steel framed bike with reasonably good components ... while it weighs 24 lbs., that's not as porky as it sounds. It could be made lighter by changing some of the "stock" components which are on the bike with better components.

I believe that the higher end JAMIS Coda models have alloy frames, so they should be a couple of pounds lighter.

FWIW. You could cobble something together, yourself, if you took an alloy OR Carbon Fiber Hardtail frame, added a Carbon Fiber ROAD fork, and then the varioius parts you wanted. Any MTB frame can handle a 700c wheel.

The attached picture is of a bike which I cobbled together with spare parts -- the frame is an unremarkable, alloy (Mongoose) Hardtail, the fork is CF. It weighs less than 20 lbs. ready-to-ride.

Flat bars & Flat Bar shifters would not weigh more than the Road bars & Road shifters.

Because my Mongoose frame is a MTB frame, it uses a top pull front derailleur (XT, in this case), so the front derailleur is compatible with MTB shifters as well as the Campagnolo Road shifters that I chose to use on the bike.

You could probably cobble the same thing together with either an alloy or CF frame (available via eBay from China) & build it up with a Flat Bar for between $800-to-$2000 ... the cost is dependent on how wise a shopper you choose to be.
 
alfeng said:
IMO, working on a bike doesn't take much more mechanical skill than is necessary to change a light bulb ... unscrew the old bulb, screw in the new bulb. The only other things you will need are a modest amount of knowledge + the proper tools -- both can be readily acquired.

To convert a typical Shimano equipped Road bike, you will either need Shimano's FLAT BAR Road shifters + (apparently) a different front derailleur or a set of Shimano MTB shifters (presuming the bike has Shimano derailleurs). I don't know what the combined cost is ... MTB shifters would cost less than the Flat Bar shifters, but, it has been pointed out that the MTB front derailleurs have a sigfnificantly different pull rate ... I don't know if that's true (one of these days I'll check it out).

Regardless, whatever Shimano's Flat Bar shifters cost, you will be able to recoup all-or-more-than the cost when you re-sell the Road shifters which are on the bike (presuming that they are Tiagra-or-better).

The base JAMIS Coda is a Flat Bar, steel framed bike with reasonably good components ... while it weighs 24 lbs., that's not as porky as it sounds. It could be made lighter by changing some of the "stock" components which are on the bike with better components.

I believe that the higher end JAMIS Coda models have alloy frames, so they should be a couple of pounds lighter.

FWIW. You could cobble something together, yourself, if you took an alloy OR Carbon Fiber Hardtail frame, added a Carbon Fiber ROAD fork, and then the varioius parts you wanted. Any MTB frame can handle a 700c wheel.

The attached picture is of a bike which I cobbled together with spare parts -- the frame is an unremarkable, alloy (Mongoose) Hardtail, the fork is CF. It weighs less than 20 lbs. ready-to-ride.

Flat bars & Flat Bar shifters would not weigh more than the Road bars & Road shifters.

Because my Mongoose frame is a MTB frame, it uses a top pull front derailleur (XT, in this case), so the front derailleur is compatible with MTB shifters as well as the Campagnolo Road shifters that I chose to use on the bike.

You could probably cobble the same thing together with either an alloy or CF frame (available via eBay from China) & build it up with a Flat Bar for between $800-to-$2000 ... the cost is dependent on how wise a shopper you choose to be.
it sounds simple but for me...I really dont think I could do it....i really would like to find something used....If I find a bike that I think might work could I send it to you and you help me through the conversion to flatbar...thanks widget
 
widgetr said:
it sounds simple but for me...I really dont think I could do it....i really would like to find something used....If I find a bike that I think might work could I send it to you and you help me through the conversion to flatbar...thanks widget
Yes, I (and, others) can certainly help you.

IMO. Unless a person has arthritis in their hands, almost anyone should be able to do what needs to be done is s/he chooses to.
 
alfeng said:
Yes, I (and, others) can certainly help you.

IMO. Unless a person has arthritis in their hands, almost anyone should be able to do what needs to be done is s/he chooses to.

I could do it but I have carpel tunnel in my hands which is hard for me to grip at times..so I probably will need to get someone to do it...widget
 
widgetr said:
I could do it but I have carpel tunnel in my hands which is hard for me to grip at times..so I probably will need to get someone to do it...widget
FYI. The principle tool you will probably need is a 5mm, long shaft (4+"), T-handle Allen wrench ...

You can use a 5mm box wrench (or, an adjustable wrench) which you would then sleeve onto the Allen wrench to provide a better handhold.

So, while carpal tunnel will certainly make the conversion more tedious, I don't think it will make the task insurmountable for you ...

Plus, if you have a buddy help you loosen-and-tighten the bolts, you can share a Pizza/whatever afterward!
 

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