Cyclokairos

*excessive admiration of handlebars not Shakespeare.

When I had delusions of grimpeur, I rode a Gios Carbon V-107. It came to me via my grandfather in-law who mentored many up and coming Catalan cyclists, Josep Jufre included. The Gios was one of Jufre’s bikes from his time at Relax-Gam, where finishing fourteenth at La Vuelta earned him a spot at an incarnation of the Belgian Lotto team.

A typical pro bike, the stem was slammed and with the stirrer tube cut as short as possible, no scope for raising the bars (except for an unsightly flipping of the stem). I was fine on the hoods but riding on (in?) the drops was a rare occurrence. The hoods pretty much segued from the ramps horizontally without any dip and this set-up was the one I became accustomed to. The Pinarello and The Black Bike have a similar arrangement, but The Green Bike, with older style brake levers, not brifters, doesn’t.

The bars are all higher than on the Gios and riding in the drops is doable, particularly with The Black and Green Bikes. But on The Black Bike the drops are far from horizontal and displeasing to my eye.

The position of the branding on The Black Bike’s handlebars (Velo Orange’s Nouveau Randonneur) suggests I have them rotated too far up.

Time to tinker. Rotating the ‘VO – Grand Cru’ livery to be facing straight ahead would bring the drops to the horizontal, but what about the hoods? The brifters would certainly have to moved further up the hooks to approach my preference for horizontal hoods. What would the junction with the ramps look like? Too much of an angle to look the part? Too much of an angle to be comfortable?

No issue. The improved aesthetic box is ticked and with the hoods of the 105 brifters being so big, most of my hand is still on them, just rear of the palm on the ramps. The feel is little different to the previous set-up. Plus with the drops being horizontal it does feel better riding there; their considerable length makes them very easy to reach. The ‘VO – Grand Cru’ livery is now facing straight ahead too but ‘Shimano’ on the hoods is slightly on the diagonal – should it be horizontal? Looking at pictures of other set-ups shows all manner of brifter positioning.

Am I there, what else to change? I think I’m close, a silver headset the only thing springing to mind.