Jon, First of all, congratulations on your double Sam purchase. If you and your wife have not completely fallen in love with the bikes already... you will! I bought my orange canti-Sam new-to-me on craigslist. It came with Albatross bars wrapped with leather Brooks tape (cream-colored... or so I thought), bar end shifters and Paul mountain levers (https://www.flickr.com/photos/129545862@N03/16372487184/in/dateposted-public/). Felt great for cruising around unracing but I found that I was riding the fronts of the bars a lot seeking a little more aggressive riding position. I also noticed that the bar end shifters occasionally hit my knees if I wasn't careful. I had once had mustache bars on a Surly Cross Check and loved them. This lead me to bite the bullet and buy Albastache bars. It was a decent sized investment. The Albastache purchase required buying a new 26.0 stem that is 3cm shorter than the Albatross stem, new road levers (bummed to let go of the Pauls) and new cables. Roughly $250. Final assessment... totally worth it! I love this set up (https://www.flickr.com/photos/129545862@N03/24621117222/in/dateposted-public/ and https://www.flickr.com/photos/129545862@N03/17290439362/in/dateposted-public/)! It doesn't provide as upright position as the Albatross does but it does provide enough for me. I love the more aggressive riding position that gives me all the forward lean I want from a bar (less than drops).
I've kept the Albatross bars, Paul levers and 25.4 stem in case I ever want to change things up again but the Albastache is here to stay for the foreseeable future. Even better than my old mustache bars. Great on road, great on trails. The only other bars I'd consider now are the Choco Norm which seems to provide the forward position as well as a more upright position than the Albastache. I'd probably have to use thumbies so my knees don't hit bar ends. As for the leather tape, I removed the creme-colored Brooks tape only to find out it was burgundy tape that had faded! I transferred my honey Brooks tape from another bike to match my saddle. This is the third bike I've had this tape on. It has held up beautifully and has even been torn in a crash. Since it only cut it halfway through, I reinforced it with Gorilla tape underneath and rewrapped it in the other direction so the cut was covered. Still going strong for 6 or 7 years and comfy. I just use saddle goop on it occassionally (http://www.rivbike.com/product-p/goo13-big.htm). Enjoy your Sams. John On Friday, June 24, 2016 at 3:28:59 AM UTC-7, Jon Craig wrote: > > How many out there installed a 'stache bar (Mous or Alba!) on their Sam? > Did you keep the existing bar-end shifters? Or move them to the stem or > downtube? I'd love to see pics of different setups - and more importantly > hear about how well they worked out and what you like/liked and/or > don't/didn't like about it. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
