It’s been a few weeks since I swapped the bars on both my Eriksen and the Kona for some On-One Fleegle Pros, and I think I’m ready to report my findings.

First, what’s a Fleegle?  The Fleegle Pro (and Fleegle non-Pro) are flat bars with a very comfy 15° back sweep.  The Fleegle Pro is about 660mm wide and the non-Pro is roughly 720mm.  Prior to the Fleegle Pro, the Eriksen was sporting a custom 615mm Ti flat bar from Kent (Eriksen), and the Kona had a 635mm Easton low-rise EA50.

My primary reason for swapping over to the Fleegles was for 1) a wider bar, and 2) something with a bit more sweep.  The Fleegle is both of these.  However, the Fleegle isn’t a riser (if anything, it may have a slight drop), so I had to make some changes to the Kona.

The Kona had a Thomson 90mm/5° rise stem, but to get the Fleegle up to the right height I swapped it for a Thomson 90mm/15° rise.  I swapped the Thomson 110mm/5° rise stem on the Eriken for the Thomson 90mm/5° rise stem off of the Kona to accomodate for the extra bar width.  The 110mm Thomson joins another 120mm Thomson in my stockpile of 25.4 stems.  All of these stems are the endangered Thomson Elite 25.4, which are apparently worth their weight in gold.

Anyway, riding both bikes/bars has been nice.  The change on the Kona wasn’t dramatic, but the extra width is nice, and the extra sweep is very comfy.  The Eriksen handles much more like the Kona (29er) than it used to, and that’s a good thing.  The shorter stem and wider bars really work well.  On the down side, setting the stem straight ahead with these bars is tricky.  The bars are very curvy/bent, so setting them straight takes some patience.

In addition to the Fleegle Pros, I also got a 720mm Fleegle.  It’s a bit wide, but I may try it on the Kona at some point.  Overall, 6.3 out of 6.5 stars (-0.2 stars for not being available as a riser).

I’ve been building up a pile of parts for the new build.  Above you see a free Surly Karate Monkey fork and some flashy cork Ergon grips I picked up in Melrose, SA.  In the next photos you’ll see a mix of parts I had in my garage and several used parts I’ve found.  Highlights include an almost new crank, very new-ish hydro brakes, $20 tires and the saddle, seat post, pedals and chain from the M2.

So if you haven’t guessed, I’m bulding another bike.  This time it will be a fully-rigid singlespeed 29er built from as many used parts as I can find.  Over the next several post I’ll share the build process and show the (hopefully) nice used parts going into the bike.

First, I found this “used” Kona Unit 29er frame at a very reasonable price.  The frame is butted steel, has nice-looking sliders and came with both singlespeed and geared dropouts.  The frame looks new and has perfect paint.  Not a bad start.