Original Bar Swap

Ready to change-up your riding position? Swapping bars can make a big difference to your posture, performance, and help keep your hands happy for miles. In today's post, we'll walk through swapping the stock riser bars for a pair of bullhorns (but the same process will work for drops, pursuits, or whatever your new-bar-of-choice). Let's get wrenching!

Remove the Brake Lever

First up, we need to pull the brake lever from the old bars so we can still stop once we've got the new ones installed! Grab your 4mm allen and give the bolt on the bottom of the brake lever enough counter-clockwise turns to come free.

You can just let the lever hang from the cable for now.

And now we can get to the bars!

Remove the Bars

On the stem's faceplate you'll find four 4mm bolts. Again, get counter-clockwise with those puppies until the faceplate comes free and liberates that old pair of handlebars.

Toss the old bars into your parts pile, but be sure to keep the faceplate and bolts close so you don't have to look all over for them in the next step.

Install New Bars

Now we're cooking! Grab your new bars, center them in the stem, and pop the faceplate back on there. Give the bolts a turn or two each so the faceplate stays put, but nothing's actually tight yet.

Use your 4mm allen to tighten the bolts back up and clamp the bars in the stem. Alternate between opposite bolts and give them each a turn at a time to get everything tightened up evenly (you don't want to over-tighten any of the bolts as that could pinch and damage the bars).

And once all four bolts are tight, your bars are installed!

Re-Install Brake Lever

The last thing left to do is get the brake lever back on there and we'll be road-ready again! Get the lever where you'd like it and then use your 4mm allen to tighten the bolt on the bottom until it's snug.

Roll on!

And we're done! Give the bars a shake to make sure everything's secure, test the brake lever to make sure everything's still engaging, and then hit the road for a test ride!

Wherever you head, your hands will be happy. And we'll see you out there.