Hi and welcome to Pure Fix TV. I'm Amanda and today it's time to handle it.
We're in the shop with George, expert mechanic and writer. What's up George?
Hey, one of the questions we get the most are what are the different types of handlebars and is one better than the other?
Well generally there's three types of handlebars and there's multiple variations of each of them.
First, riser bars. This one is made to keep you in a more upright position on your bicycle and it also gives you the opportunity to hold it wider.
Therefore you have more control and more leverage on the bike when you're pulling it up and down.
That is the reason why they use these for BMX bikes, for mountain bikes and for fixed gear freestyle bikes.
Second we have the bullhorn. This gives you two riding positions.
If you're casually riding you can ride on the front of the bar like this or if you want to get a little bit more aggressive and cut the wind
then you can come up to the front of the bar and it's a really good position for riding aggressively in the street or climbing hills.
Third we have the drop bars. These are used on road bikes, touring bikes, cross bikes and track bikes as a standard.
This gives you three positions. You can ride on the top of the bar when you're just relaxing.
You can come down to the midsection or you can ride in the drops.
Riding in the drops gives you a more aerodynamic, low drag position so you can cut through the wind or draft somebody more efficiently.
So would you mind showing us how to install handlebars on this bike?
No problem. First you have the faceplate off of the stem and you take your bars and you put the faceplate on
and you want to start inserting the screws loosely. Keep in mind you don't want to tighten any of the bolts all the way down.
Now you want to make sure your bars are in the center of the stem.
Grab the correct size allen key and you start to tighten them slowly little by little on each.
Again I'm doing this in a start pattern so we can keep equal tension across the bars
because if the stem is tightened more on one side or the other there's a potential problem of it cracking.
So now that we have a kind of snug we can put the handlebars in a position of your liking.
Typically if you're putting them on for somebody you want the bottom part of the drop bar to be parallel to the ground.
Once you find your position you take your four allen key and you start to tighten.
Alright so once you think you've got the bolts all tensioned correctly do a double check and make sure they're all where you want them to be.
And that's all there is to it and you're ready to ride.
Thank you so much George.
Welcome Amanda.
Alright thanks to George for stopping by. If you guys have any questions or things you want to see on the show
hit us up on Twitter at Pure Fix TV or find us on Facebook. Until next time I'll see you in the streets.
