I see from the variety of responses here that it has been done, and apparently deemed successful by several knowledgeable people. My thought on it is purely philosophical, and is parallel to my thoughts about double-sided hubs on single speed bikes. It seems like it would be cool to be able to switch things around on a whim, but it's probably just enough hassle that most people make the swap infrequently, if ever. As my bike fleet evolves, I certainly try to change things around to differentiate one bike from the other bikes or to test new products, but that happens maybe once or twice a year, but probably less often than that. In the good old days, when I just had one bike, an Atlantis, after my initial ill-fated mustache bar experiment, I tried the noodle and the albatross. Eventually, the noodle was deemed more comfortable and/or better most of the time and plenty tolerable the rest of the time, and the A-bar never went on that bike again. I doubt many riders are firmly divided about which bar is "better all around", so the path of least resistance is to settle into the setup that works well enough, and then leave it that way for a long-ish time. Some people like screwing around with the mechanical aspects of bikes more than they enjoy riding, and there's nothing wrong with that, so maybe the gee-whiz factor of the relatively quick cockpit swap is worth doing for that reason. Personally, I can't imagine getting ready to go on a ride and deciding I needed to swap handlebars before I take off. Anything that delays or adds to the hassle of just getting on and riding my bike is a detriment, in my opinion. I gave up clipless pedals and the need to change shoes because it was just one more thing to do before I could ride and smile.
A few years ago, I had a guy ask about setting up two DOS freewheels and two chainrings on a single-speed bike. He apparently planned to flip the wheel twice a day and switch chainrings/cogs at least as often to accommodate his alternating uphill and downhill commute. It didn't seem reasonable to me, and I said as much. He either didn't do it, or he didn't buy those parts from me, but my logic was the same. You can gut out the occasional sub-optimality on an otherwise generally appropriate bike without resorting to spending many minutes/hours wrenching on it. On Wednesday, May 18, 2011 3:41:46 PM UTC-5, Zack wrote: > > Hey All - > > I have a Sam on the way, and am strongly considering trying to set up > the davinci splitters so that I would be able to swap between Noodles > and Albatrosses (Albabtri?). I am going with bar end shifters and > canti brakes. > > I have heard varying reports on how difficult this is, and am > wondering if anyone that has done it can share some insight into > setting them up. > > How long did it take? > How did you do it? (particularly, how did you account for the added > complexity of needing to cut the cables for the two different setups) > Where did you make your cuts in the cable? > Did you have cantilever brakes? Does it change how I would do things? > > I would really appreciate some help/insight/instructions. I have > googled around and searched the groups, but most of what i have found > simply says "it's awesome to do this and be able to swap cockpits" but > haven't found anything that talks about how to actually do it. The > instructions I have found are all geared toward using the splitters > for the intended purpose of being a travel bike, so they aren't > concerned with the extra complexity of a different cockpit type. > > Thank you in advance for weighing in and helping me (and maybe others) > out. Appreciate it. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rbw-owners-bunch/-/5sxRC2bICt8J. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
