Drop Bar Cannondale Bad Boy with Hydro brakes
Thought it might be time to breath life back into this thread.
When I lived in NYC the standard bars were fine (if limited in position) but now that I live in PDX my riding is less stressful and so I can afford to finally do a drop bar conversion. There was a bike I saw once (here?) that had a set of drops with white tape and I loved it so that became my inspiration. I'd planned on modding the stock levers to be like cross brakes but when I stopped by Universal Cycles to look for a stem I found that Hope had released their conversion kit. I always liked Hope brakes and the kit seemed very sano and so I went for it. The stem is too long right now and I haven't wrapped bars in forever so that didn't go well but overall I'm very pleased with the conversion and I like the look.
The cranks came off my mountain bike and I ditched the granny as I never use it. I keep thinking about replacing them with something more road or cross oriented but for now they work fine. I might look into having them powder coated or anodized black.
I had to machine and weld a new bracket for the Hope master cylinder and it doesn't really lock into position but the cables keep it centered. I'll weld a tab or put a pin in it later.
Since the majority of my riding is taking my daughter to daycare in a trailer I really wanted and needed to keep the hydraulic discs for their power. Here's the rear caliper and that silver thing is the hitch to the trailer.
I love the way campy's ergo levers shift and went with a set I found on ebay. The cable from the hoods to the master is short and there's no sponginess - just very solid powerful stopping.
I used a
Jtek Shiftmate adapter and I can't tell you how happy I am with it. It converted the Campy 10 speed shifters to work with the Shimano SLX 9 speed rear derailleur perfectly. I'm still surprised at how well it works and how well the bike shifts. Once I get my shorter stem I think the fit will be perfect.
I needed a new saddle so I just kept the white theme going with it and a set of new tires which I think really help to show off the Solo front end. I will probably have to put fenders back on as we're not through with spring here but for now I like to just look at it like this. It's certainly got the bad boy look but it's also different which I like so I'm very happy with the way it turned out.
Gregor