Fitting Butterfly Bars - My Experiences

[sea lion]

In response to a few comments/observations:

The normal position (ie back section of the BB bars) leaves your hands significantly wider apart the the tops of drop bars. I actually tried cyclocross levers on the drops before changing, but found my hands too close together. If you want figures, the inside of my hands are approx 8" apart on the top of drops, and 11" apart on the butterflies.

The normal BB position is futher back than the tops of drops, however, on a galaxy there are 50mm of risers, I ditched 40mm of these and angled the stem up so the normal position on the butterfly bars is a bit lower. As a matter of interest I initially bought a 130mm stem after measuring the origonal position of the drops. In use I found this was too much of a stretch and changed it for a 110mm stem.

I chose foam grips to try them out, my wife's bike has normal tape. Don't think it makes much difference really.

[Russcoles]

I use butterfly bars on my Dawes Kingpin:


I find that angling the bars down gives you knees more room and gives more contrast between riding positions (very upright for in traffic and more aerodynamic for cruising along). As an added bonus to having the bars this way, the brake levers make very comfortable wrist supports.