Peter Cole wrote:
> "Bluto" <
[email protected]> wrote in message
>
news:[email protected]...
Pietro Chisolmo scritta:
>>>Like I said to Sheldon, I'm not in love with 26mm...just would be nice to have stems...not road
>>>stems and MTB stems...
That's how it is for us, since we mostly sell ISO standard bars and stems, whether drop or upright.
The only thing standing in the way of this is the fact that some manufacturers persist in using the
old Italian national 26 mm size instead of the international ISO standard of
25.4 mm.
Chalo C wrote.
>>That *would* be nice, wouldn't it?
>>
>>It would also be nice to have one handlebar grip diameter, so that brake levers and shifters would
>>be interchangeable between different types of bars.
Not gonna happen, 'cause the levers need to curve toward the bars for drops, away from the bars for
straight bars.
Also, at present there's a laudable degree of standardization in handlbar diameter, and
introducing a new fatter MTB standard would benefit nobody, while a skinnier drop bar is an idea
whose time has gone.
Not everybody realizes it, but the prevailing 7/8" vs 15/16" sizing didn't originate as one size for
upright bars and t'other for drops. Rather, the 7/8" was for many years the standard size for steel
bars, and the 15/16" size was for aluminum bars.
You used to be able to buy both sizes of clamp bands for drop bar levers, and for the better quality
upright bar levers as well (Weinmann, Mafac...)
Steel drop bars went extinct in the 1980s, and 15/16" upright bars rather earlier than that (though
I still have a nice pair of 15/16" GB All Rounders that I like a lot.
> And a standard cable pull for both.
Also not gonna happen, unless you can de-invent "v-type" brakes. The long cable travel these use is
necessary because of the constraints of standard canti-boss placement and tire/fender clearance
requirements.
"V-type" brakes are so clearly superior to the old centerpull cantis that this is not going
to happen.
(Note, "v-type" brakes are superior only when used with straight-bar levers designed for them. I
strongly recommend against using them with drop bars. While there are ways to make them work, these
ways remove most of the advantages of the design, and performance is not so hot.)
Sheldon "To Everything There Is A Season" Brown +--------------------------------------------+
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