How Many Bars on the Appaloosa?

[Erik]

As of last night, I have officially swapped the bars and stem on my 2017 Appaloosa...a lot.  I've never been like this with other bikes, but for some reason I get restless with my Riv set-ups and keep messing around with new configurations every few months.  In five years, I've gone through the following: 

• Choco-norm (original build from Riv)
  
• Original moustache (from an old Bridgestone build)
  
• Bullmoose
  
• Bosco Bullmoose (because I rode Grant's Appaloosa with these bars and loved them)
  
• Albatross (because they are lovely and feel good)
  
• Spank Flare (because I wanted to try drops when I switched the Appaloosa from primarily road to off-road use.  First drops for me since 1991 on my RB-2)
  
• Jones H-Loop (these stayed on for almost a year! I only took them off to move them to my Atlantis)
  
• Albatross again
  
• Billie (wanted a longer grip area than I had on the albatross)
  

And now a Choco-moose (because I rode by headquarters in Walnut Creek yesterday and impulsively bought them after looking a Blue Lug customer builds the night before)

It's taken a LOT of Newbaums to make all these swaps!  I took the bike out for a long-ish ride on the new bars today with lots of climbing and descents and some good flats. The hand positions were really comfortable and the height of the grips and other positions were perfect.  And they are stout!  The Billie's were good, but I found them to be too flexible for me.  I'm a bigger guy and on a 110 Nitto stem there was just too much movement when I was on the grips.    

Anyway, each of the set-ups had things I loved and things I didn't love.  The Albatross bars were great when I was running bar-end shifters, but the hand space felt too crowded when I swapped out to inboard Silver 2 shifters.  But they were beautiful and really comfortable with the bar end shifters.  The Spank drops were fantastic with a 30mm Discord stem, but I swapped them out after a bad accident last year that broke my hand (another rider ran into me head on when my hand was on the hood. It took the full force of the impact) and I need a flatter bar during the rehab process and I wanted a hand position that was more protected. The Jones bar was perfect for that purpose.  The Bosco Bullmoose bars were great when I was commuting on the bike everyday before the pandemic, but I didn't like the bulkiness for other types of riding.  And on and on. 

I think I've got a good set up now and I'm hoping I leave it alone for a while, but I'm wondering if it took other folks as much experimenting to get the right results with bar / stem combos on their bikes.  Or is this just part of the fun? Do you have any set ups that you've stayed with for long periods of time?  

I'd love to hear other's stories about restless swapping of parts!  

[Nick Payne]

I just used my standard Nitto drop bar on my Appaloosa, with a shorter stem than on my other bikes because it has a longer top tube. Brake levers in their normal location, wrapped the bars, haven't changed anything since:

Nick

[Bones]

I did the same thing to my Appaloosas: boscomoose, bullmoose, chocomoose, choco, albatross, billie. All of them worked great on this bike. At the end of the day I always come back to the chocomoose though. There is something magical about those bars, at least for me. Great hand positions. I love how they are inverted. And yes, they are tougher and stiffer than other bars 'n stems. They work great with bar end shifters or thumbies. One thing I discovered is that although I think the silver shifters are the best, the clamp is not so great for inboard thumbies. The microshift shifters with paul levers have a nice low profile and don't interrupt your hand positions. With respect to the Newbaums, yes I have used a shameful amount for bar swaps over the years. At some point I just started slipping oury grips on the end and leaving the forward grip areas permanently taped. Bike looks great!

Bones

[Roberta]

Same here for the choco moose bars on this bike. I switched to albatross to lighten the build, but went back to the perfect  bars for this bike—choco moose. 

[J Imler]

+1 choco moose

[Erik]

Were the choco moose bars original equipment on the first round of Appaloosas?  

[Johnny Alien]

Yep!

https://rivbike.tumblr.com/post/135532314029/the-joe-appaloosa-saga-its-a-new-bike

[Andrew Turner]

Yeah I'm a handlebar fiend. The first bar I became obsessed with was the Albatross with bar-end shifters. Truly a perfect cockpit. The second handlebar obsession was the Nitto B135 in the 45cm flavor... but then I discovered my preference for shorter reach, which led me to my third and maybe-latest favorite: Ritchey's Butano handlebar. Another perfect one: it's ridiculously comfortable with just a single layer of Green Grips cotton bar tape. HOWEVER. I'm waiting on a new pair of Albatross bars to come in the mail from Riv, so I'm going back to the beginning to see how that feels.

Going from drops to alt-bars is the biggest swap for me because it usually means I've completely changed the intention of the build from an endurance-focused bike (drops) to a fun, smell the roses, better-all-terrain bike (alt-bars). It's on like a 1.5-2 year rotation it seems. I romanticize spending all day on the saddle, try it, get progressively more bored for the next year and a half, then revert and/or graduate to Albatross bars until I get sick of the headwind on a paved ride in another year and a half!   

[Friend]

I used to ride with the Albatross but the bends in the bars were uncomfortable when I wanted to put my hands in a more forwards position.  I switched to Bosco bars and love them but I am ridiculously upright.  I can lean forwards and rest my elbows on by bar grips, with my hands in the center of the bar.  I can hardly stand and pedal though, as my hands will basically be at my hips.  I'l like to switch and am considering the choco-moose based off this thread.

[Max S]

Resurrecting an old thread, as I'm lazily pondering an Appaloosa with a ChocoMoose set-up (if I can find one). How's the toe overlap on this with ~50 mm tire? 42 mm tire? Folks who are ~6' tall, what size frame are you riding? Drop-bar or BullMoose or ChocoMoose?

- Max "who can't stop tinkering" in A2

[Bones]

6'1" with long legs (92pbh). I had a 62 Appaloosa and currently have a 60 Appaloosa. I've never had toe overlap on either. I've used 38's on up to 57's (and 50's with fenders). I would size the frame based on your riding style. If you are thinking drops or either moose and you don't like the bars very upright, I would probably size down. The mooses have a lot of rise built in and you may be limited on how far down you can push them. Not an issue if you want them more upright. Also, in my experience, the Appaloosa prefers tires 50mm+.

Bones

[Tim Bantham]

I'm 6'1" (93 PBH) and ride a 2TT 62. I currently have just about maxed it out with 2.25 Thunderburts and have zero overlap. I also wanted to comment on bar swapping. I started with Albatross bars with bar ends. Didn't feel like I had enough hand positions. Moved to Billie's which were excellent. I currently have the Jones Loop Bar with a 31.8 clamp stem. This bar stem combo did a great job of stiffening the front end but I never liked the way they look. I had a desire to return to a traditional Riv aesthetic and will put the Billie's back on. I had sold my Billie bars to a fellow forum member who lives locally. Fortunately for me he has been gracious enough to sell them back to me! This time when I reinstall the Billie's I am going to Paul Thumbies and will try my Fabio's chest on the bars to see how I like that set up. This to me is one of the joys of riding a Rivendell. Always lots of options as to how you set them up.

[Stephen]

I'm 6'2, 92-93 pbh. I ride one of the newer 60cm appaloosa's. I have the 55mm reneherse knobby fleecer ridge, no toe overlap problems at all. I've only run the bike so far with two setups - losco's on a 11cm tallux, and a the riv bull moose. I really like both depending on my mood or situation. The bullmoose is great when I'm riding more rough off road stuff, and I feel like it allows a more aggressive position. Even with the rise I can have them set up level with my saddle height, maybe even a little lower than. I recently got a pair of bosco's I'd like to try out for an even more laidback position than the losco's. The chocomooses look awesome to me, maybe one day I'll snag a pair. I'd love to try all the riv handlebars out on that bike, just trying to resist the urge to empty my bank account for a pair of each...

[Kevin]

I've gone through enough cockpits (8?) to wonder if I should just move on from the bike. Would be interested to see/hear if people have had success with drop bars on the newer Appaloosas. I've got mine to where the measurements suggest they should be comfortable and still it feels a little long.

[brendonoid]

Kevin,

It honestly does sound like you might not be getting on with the frame, or that it isn't going to do what you want it to.

I certainly wouldn't want a drop bar on an Appaloosa. They are way too long. I am also at the point in my life where I don't get on with drop bars much at all. So my opinion is pretty worthless.

8 cockpits with no success is a lot though.

[Ken Yokanovich]

I recently considered switching my Appaloosa over to drop bars. That is, until I did some measurements to compare to my 6 other bikes with drop bars. Off the top of my head, I cannot recall the exact measurements, but I would have had to use a 5cm stem to get the bars into a desired position on the Appaloosa. I previously tried and did not like Choco-Moose, currently using and very-much-enjoy the Bosco bars.

60cm Appaloosa, saddle height 765mm as pictured

[Brian Turner]

These are some really, really nice Appaloosa setups. Erik, I really love the look of those Jones bars on yours in the photo from earlier in the thread! And Ken, that's one of the nicest, most practical Appaloosa builds I've seen yet. So much inspiration!

-Brian

[Eric Marth]

I recently swapped out my Billie bars, Nitto face-plater stem, Paul canti-levers and Silver 2 bar end shifters. The new bars are some of Dr. Ron's Orthopaedic Back Bars, reverse-mounted Suntour Power Thumb Shifters (a revelation), the same Paul levers and a Nitto Technomic stem. 

The Billies were on there for about a year, I really enjoyed them. No complaints about the Ortho Bars so far, I really like the thumb shifting. One thing I miss is the grip position ahead of the levers I had with the Billie bars which I used on long climbs. With the thumb shifters where they are I don't have that same grip area. 

I swapped out the Riv-issued Deore front and rear derailers for an Arabesque front and an XTR M952 rear. 

[Danny]

Eric, how's the flex with the Ortho/Technomic combo? Guessing your FacePlater is a 25.4 clamp and that's why you went to the new stem, but maybe you needed a longer extension as well?

-Danny

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[Erik]

I thought the reach wasn’t too bad when I ran drops, but I had them set up on a 50mm and then 30mm stem and had them up pretty high.  You can see the drops with yellow tape in my first post.  I changed them out because I got into an accident the broke my hand and wanted a new set up with different hand positions and wanted the feeling of my hand being protected.  The Jones H-loop was perfect for that purpose as I could hold the close side of the loop and my hand was behind the outer loop reducing the chance I was going to smack my hand on something.  Or have another rider run into me again and break it.  The drops would not have worked for my desired riding position with a longer stem.  

[Eric Marth]

Hi Danny — Yes, I went with the Technomic for proper clamp diameter as the Orthos are 26.0. I went with a 12cm stem. My face-plater was an 11cm. 

I wish the Orthos were 25.4 as others have mentioned. I haven't had any trouble yet with the bars slipping. The bars have a lot of flex. I haven't ridden any trails with them yet and I'm not a rowdy rider. Harder riders have said they "flex like a Rock Shock." 

They are so wide I have to sort of wiggle the bike to get it in and out of my shed doorway. 

[Eric Marth]

Thanks, also, Danny for the inspiring pics a while back of your reverse mounted Suntour Power Thumb shifters. I'm loving them set up that way. I got mine off a 1985 MB-3 but used they are significantly cheaper than Silver 2s and thumb mounts. 

[Kevin]

Yeah, I started with Soma Oxfords and Jones and I think one of the Crust sweeper options before deciding I couldn't handle more than 45 minutes or so in that position. Since then it's just been gradually shortening my stem and switching to marginally shorter reach drop bars. Have landed on the Salsa Cowbell with a 50mm stem.

[Danny]

Eric, thanks for the stem/bar rundown, very helpful info for me. I'm currently running a 110mm FacePlater w/ Billies on my Appaloosa, but I've got the itch to try something different.

And glad to hear my photos encouraged you try out the Suntour thumbies. I still have them on a couple of bikes and they're working out really well (and their affordability is a big plus!). I do really like the Riv thumb mount for the fine tuning of the cable exit angle. I've been considering attempting to mod one of my Suntour thumbies with additional detent holes in the perch base to mimic the Riv mount's adjustability. If I do, I'll start a thread on the bobs list for that project.

-Danny

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[Ryan M.]

That's a lot of bar swaps...lol. I'm glad you found one you like. 

I went through a few different setups on my Appaloosa too. Started with the Chocomoose bars and thought those came back a little too much for me on this bike. Then I went to the regular Bullmoose bar which was too short of a reach for me but I did use that setup for a season. That bar is living on my Frank Jones Sr single speed now. Then I tried a Nitto Noodle which I really didn't like on this bike and since then I've sworn off all drop bars. I'm just getting too old for that bending over stuff.  I ended up going with the tried and true Albatross bar with a decently longish Nitto stem. I only have one shifter on the bar setup and it's an XT index thing I took off a mountain bike and I use a pair of Paul Component brake levers with some slip on rubber grips. The setup does everything well enough that I don't plan on changing it anytime soon. Front ring is changed by hand now. Eventually I will stick a friction shifting setup on the bike using some Paul Thumbies or something. 

I guess changing around setups is part of the fun for me. 

[larson....@gmail.com]

I have only had my Appaloosa since Spring (my first Rivendell), but have stayed with and come to really like Billie bars for my riding, which is all types of roads with a little dirt. I had my doubts to begin with - the sweep was more than I’ve ridden before, as I like Jones loop bars. Also, the flex of the bar made me keep checking to see if the bars were slipping in the stem. After getting used to this I think that is one reason I find these bars quite comfortable. I ride with my hands on the front curves 2/3rds of the time, and like the grip position for downhills and anytime I need to be shifting/braking frequently, as well as to change body position on the bike. I feel like I can bend my elbows if there is a headwind, and the front curves work well for climbing. I have the handlebars approx. level with the seat. 

I have ridden the Billie bars about 1000 miles now and are quite happy with them. This fall when I May put bigger tires on for more off-road riding and am curious to try the bullmoose bars to make the Appaloosa an All Terrain Bike.

[David Hays]

I’m actually continuing to enjoy Nitto Dirt Drop bars on my 2019 Appaloosa.

David Hays

Buffalo, New York

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[David Hays]

Sorry. Forgot to resize.

David Hays