Regular Readers will know that minimalism isn’t my middle name. It’s Neil: after Neil Armstrong, who walked on the moon a few weeks before I was introduced to Earth in the master bedroom of a dormer bungalow.
Why Buy a Topeak BarXTender?
I was struggling to mount my phone mount a couple of weeks ago. I blogged about it here. As a result, Jon came up with the idea of me getting the BarXtender. You should buy one of these (at about £15 online) if:
- You’ve already got too much schizzle on your handlebars; or
- Your handlbars have too much girth for your lights and mounts.
How Do I Fit The Topeak BarXTender?
The unit is a clever bit of engineering. It’s built to fit up the biggest handlebar or headset, and can be rotated so it will fit front-facing or left/right-facing tubes. It also has a bar that be moved around it’s axis for finer adjustment once you’ve got the unit clamped to your bike.
The clamp part of the BarXtender contains a “belt” type metal strip which is held by an allen bolt. You just adjust the belt strip to slightly larger than the diameter of your tube, then insert the obligatory rubber strip to stop your tube being scratched and tighten the allen bolt. The belt is drawn upwards into the clamp housing and feels nice & strong when attached.
Next, simply screw the top half of the unit onto the clamp part, then adjust the rotation of the actual bar to suit yourself.
How Does It Look?
I much prefer my cockpit now that the BarXTender’s on. One person (mentioning no names) commented that I’m just missing a kettle on my bike now, but I think it makes the handlebars a lot tidier, and safer, than they were before.
What do you think?
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