First 50-miler of the year

Jones Bike Loop H-Bar

A week or so ago I changed out the handlebars on the 2011 Specialized Sirrus Elite. My intention was to dump the straight bar, which I found uncomfortable both due to reach and due to lack of hand positions. Since my goal this year is to get more comfortable in order to do some longer rides, I knew I needed to either deal with neck and shoulder pain from the road bike or get more comfortable on the hybrid bike.

On Saturday I decided to give it a good test, and I did the longest ride I've done in probably two years. I did 51 miles, all along the Madison County trail system. At first I thought this was going to be impossible because tornadoes in the area had brought down many trees and power lines along the trails. But MCT was very effective in getting everything cleaned up and open. So I started early at the parking lot on Wanda Road near South Roxana, and rode into Edwardsville, then along the Nature trail to Horseshoe Lake park, and on out to Madison, Illinois, where the trail effectively ends. Then back, looping through Collinsville and Maryville before returning to Edwardsville and back to the trail head at Wanda.

My first thought at finishing the ride was that I could have ridden 50 more! I'm elated at how successful the new handlebars are at meeting my needs. I'm sure I'll have lots of rough rides and in time I may find that I need to do more tweaking. But after years of experimenting, I really feel like I've got a bike that works for me! And I've tried a lot of things to get to this point.

Next up: taping the handlebars. The Specialized Body Glove ergonomic grips are really good, and I find that I am most comfortable without gloves. But I need some cushioning and cover for the top part of the bar. So I'll be putting that on next weekend.

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Later the same week I did a 13 mile ride one afternoon after work. It was extremely windy. Was this even the same bike? I really struggled. I wondered if I would have done better on the road bike in dealing with the wind. Makes me wonder how bike tourists are able to do those long days into the wind, day after day sometimes.

Converting the Specialized Sirrus to Jones Loop H-Bars

Jones Bike Loop H-Bar

Sometime back I posted about my discomfort with the straight handlebar on my Specialized Sirrus hybrid bike. I experience problems with my neck and shoulders as well as my hands and wrists with this setup, and began researching alternative handlebars.

Raleigh DL-1 with shellacked cork grips


About the same time I started doing a bit more riding on my old 1974 Raleigh Tourist DL-1 with the swept back handlebars and the traditional "sit up and beg" posture. I found it comfortable for the majority of my riding, but too limiting for longer rides. But it did make me want to be able to sit up a little higher, not craning my neck so much. I'm much more interested in looking at the scenery than in trying to go faster.

I also think that the straight bar creates a problem for me because it of the length of my reach. There's almost no variability to your posture with a straight bar. You're stuck with the same reach all the time. Plus, I feel like my wrists want a bit of a curve back rather than having to hold them at a straight angle. To me, it feels a bit unnatural. And after two years of trying this style of handlebar, I think I should have adapted to it if I'm ever going to.

I finally settled on an alternative handlebar made by Jeff Jones Bicycles. The handlebar is called the Jones H-Bar. It comes in two models, a Loop H-Bar and a Cut H-Bar. I chose the Loop Bar because, according to the web site, "Shimano and SRAM under-bar trigger-shifters won't work" on the Cut bar. It also appears to me that the loop bar sweeps back further, which is part of what I'm trying to accomplish.



The combination of the loop and the swept back bars provides a lot of different hand positions. I'm also able to use my Body Glove ergonomic grips with this bar, which I like.

I got the bar on Friday and began installing it on Saturday, but ran into the problem of needing to replace the cables -- my existing cables and housing were too short to fit the new bar. And that really complicated things, because the Specialized Sirrus has internally routed cables. I've never dealt with that. After talking to the folks at the bike shop, they convinced me that changing cables in a bike with internal routing was beyond my abilities.

So I ended up taking the bike in to have them install the handlebars and do the setup. It turned out to cost a lot more than I wanted to spend, and I'm not too happy about it. Never say never, they say. And don't burn your bridges behind you. But I don't think I'll be using that bike shop much anymore unless I'm completely out of alternatives. I already do most of my own maintenance and repairs, and I will learn how to change out the internally routed cables the next time it needs to be done.

Specialized Sirrus Elite with Jones Loop H-Bar


I finally got in a couple of test rides on the bike and I am happy overall with the new setup. The bars are not swept back quite as far as I'd imagined, and my hands and wrists still had discomfort. But I had plenty of options for changing my hand positions, so that more than compensates. And I'm surprised at how you can get into a kind of "aero" position much more effectively than I'd have guessed.

The weight and balance of the bike is a little different, I feel, but I should soon adapt to that. Hopefully these will be the handlebars that get me through my first century ride. Whether it's a metric century (100 kilometers) or 100 mile century, we will wait and see!

Here's a link showing a video/animation of the many hand positions and variations using the Jones H-Bars: http://www.jonesbikes.com/images/stories/document-images/hbar_positions_anim.gif