Modifying my bike 3

To help my body, as gyms have been shut so much in the last year, I am modifying my mountain bike. I have not been able to ride a bike without massive neck and back pain for quite some time. When I bought the bike about 5 years ago, I could. This shows my body is in decline due to fibromyalgia, and I don’t like it. What I need is to make the front much higher, like an old lady style bike (think basket with a tiny terrier dog in, and the frame all in dull pastel colours) with those huge curved bars. But being super tall, ladies bikes are too short, and I don’t want a new bike, I want MINE. Sticking big BMX or twee female handlebars on would have made it rather unique, quirky is good because it’s rather hard for a bike thief to flog on unnoticed. 🤪

A local bike shop had previously told me it was impossible to do what I wanted, but I have a friend who runs a bike repair shop so picked his brains. My second idea wasn’t dangerous or impossible, it’s just rarely done as it looks a bit ugly – Extend the posts, and keep it mostly stock. Sadly he’s not local to Gloucester, the shop is down in Chard Somerset, or I would have just hired him to do the work. On his advice I bought a handlebar post extension from eBay that will increase the handlebar height by about 10 to 12cm.

Sadly this increase is just too high for my brake and gears cables – so it’s off to Halfords tomorrow for new cables. I really was hoping that there would be enough slack cable for this, all I can say to that is bugger. It’s going to increase the price, but it’s super important to have working brakes on a bike, so I’ll have to pay up I suppose. 😂

What I really wanted to do as my first choice, was modify the bike by swapping the standard boring mountain bike handlebar I have, for a BMX handlebar. After many attempts to find one to match the size of my bikes frame, I’ve discovered the tube diameter of BMX and mountain bike handlebars are different. A very annoying few millimetres! BMX are 22.2mm and mountain bikes are 25.4mm, meaning that I can’t simply swap them. It’s a shame, as I think it would give the bike a Chopper aesthetic, whilst still improving the angle of my back and neck whilst pedalling along. Why the heck can’t there just be a few standard sizes, across all types of bicycle, so parts are more swappable?

As soon as the cables are changed tomorrow, I should be able to get back on my bike. I’ll be going dead slow, and still wearing my yellow high viz helmet from years ago, but I need to do some from of exercise and walking just isn’t going to make enough of a difference to my lockdown wobbly bits. Just in time for spring, I’m not after some “bikini body” nonsense, I just want to feel like things are normal and get back outside.