My experience was different and I may have been lucky with no problems
at all.
A lady touring sport rider already a customer came into the shop with her
arm in a sling.
She got her arm caught in a car door closing and tore her arm up most
nastily.
Her arm was healed and with therapy was starting to come around but she was
about 3" short on reach with her bad arm.
Much like the old fabled longshoreman with their bale hooks and one shorter
arm of occupational injury.
So, after thinking a little I decided to go to my favorite machine shop and
have piece made that was standard length on one side and about 2" closer on
the other.
This piece fit in the stem and gave me a double length insert that had about
2-1/2" of peg sticking out on each side.
I then cut a bar in half and had the inside smoothed out to match the pegs
with a nice snug not quite tight press fit.
I glued it in place after testing it and the lady picked up her bike and
started her comeback.
It took about a year for the arm to feel strong and flexy again.
We removed the custom therapy fitment and the lady is still riding today 10
years later, fit and happy!
Take your chances, use the best and strongest materials and the rest is up
to you.
The new tough alloy is so strong, I would be hard pressed to not trust the
job.
It worked for my customer.
Even though you may be bigger and stronger, get a shear and stress estimate
on the diameter and I'll bet you get a rupture before it could be made to
fail with lunging testing as in hard climbing for instance.
How many times have we seen pics of the Euros riding bikes with bars and
stems drilled through and a 5-6mm screw and nut holding the damn thing in
place?
Ted Ernst
Palos Verdes Estates
CA USA
> Has anyone either thought of or experimented with the concept of widening
> t
> he classic handlebars? I don't mean by a stretching process, but I mean
> a using a tubing cutter and center cut and then adding a central extension
> of either solid or heavy alloy tubing that would be step cut to fit inside
> the cut off bars and have a central section that would match the original
> c
> lamping section.
> I am considering experimentation with a addition of Permanent Lock-Tite
> and/or knurling the sections together. I have too often felt scrunch
> ed up on those old 39cm bars and miss some of the classic randonner curves
> of some of the old bars.
>
> Bruce Thomson Spokane WA 99204
> (509) 747 4314
> Masi3v4me@yahoo.com rapidfire10ring@hotmail.com
>
> =0A=0A=0A