My Favorite Gravel Bike Upgrade | GRX Flat Bars

The GRX line is Shimano's take on drivetrains for gravel bikes. Earlier this year I bought a Salsa Cutthroat, a drop bar mountain bike, and while I was excited to give drops a shot again, my plans quickly changed. In this video, I talk about what components I used to convert my GRX 600 and 810 bike from drops to Jones Loop H-Bars with flat bar components.

Components In This Video:

Budget Parts I Recommend:

Basic Maintenance Tools I Recommend:

[dd]

The half click your experiencing on the Front Shifter is the trim function. The trim allows you to make small adjustments to the front derailleur that will eliminate chain rub, but not cause a full shift into another chain ring. Normally happens at the extremes of the chain rings when cross chaining.

[matt..]

If you have GRX400 2x10, those levers use the same pull as Tiagra 4700 levers, and Shimano makes flat-bar shifters for those too (SL-4700).

[manabiker]

Good info, I have a 2017 Specialized Sequoia, 700x42 tires, dropbar bike, with RS505 shifter/brake combo, 2x11 speed 105 derailleurs, I like the 2x on gravel, after a few years the rear shifter gave out, I changed to Flat Bars, it was a easy change like explained above, Shimano makes a shifter that is compadable with Shimano road derailleurs, worked great on my 105 derailleurs, so that was easy, I bought some shimano brake levers, and my local bike shop put them on, and bled them, using the 105 calipers that came on the bike, that was a few years ago, I wish I had done it sooner, I feel more at home with the flat bars, and the brakes/shifter combo has a MTB feel, good for trail or gravel, didn't use the drops anyway. I've got over 8000 miles on this bike now, half the miles with drops, the other half with flatbars, not going back..

[MrJob]

I have a 30 year old mtb. And it rocks no shocks big tires great shifting and gear range. Marin Eldridge grade tange steel mtb tubing double butted. Great bike

[rc]

Great work mate! Going to try to do the same with my Cannondale Topstone 1

[billydeewilliams]

I recently swapped my 2022 Trek Checkpoint ALR to a flat bar. Started with the stock Bontrager drops, switched to the Curve Remlaw, which is, as the marketing materials say, the flat bar for drop bar bikes. It doesn't greatly effect the aggressive position over the head tube (particularly after I lengthened the stem from 90 to 130 to account for the difference in 'reach' between the bars), which isn't what I was looking for. I just really don't ever know where to put my hands on drop bars, and no position is particularly comfortable, and I love the new Ergon GA3. I also vastly prefer flat bar levers to drop bar brifters (goes double for the goofy dropper lever they gave me for the drops, lol).

I swapped out the stock GRX groupset for a full SRAM GX 1x12 groupset, 32t front, 10-50t rear. I almost never used the top like three gears of the GRX, but I might yet get a bigger chain ring. Got Hope RX4+ flat mount calipers front and rear, attached to Shimano SLX levers. Too bad the max rotor size is 160, which hugely limits the braking power even with a 4 piston gravel caliper.

My suspension stem (120; my 130 Salsa stem was maybe a tad long) just arrived today, hugely looking forward to trying it out, and the bar needs cutting down to about 770 from 800. But generally, so far, the change has been a dream. The Checkpoint was already one of my favorite bikes, and now it's definitely second to none except my e-bike.

Once my brand new Mezcal 44mm wear out, I'm going to get a ZIPP XPLR wheelset so I can put some real MTB tires on there. I was thinking about getting a gravel fork, but honestly (and aside from the expense) that would make the bike too similar to my XC/trail HT, and with the suspension stem and cush core front and rear, there's no point.

[ShootingTheBreeze]

I'm running a regular Deore shifter on my Dura Ace 10 speed without issues on tune at all. I converted my Blue Nx7 into a flat bar. Hits every gear just fine. I really like the bars you have on that bike.

[ETphonesHOME]

FYI the half clicks you're mentioning on your left shifter are the trim feature for your front derailleur so the chain doesn't rub.

[bunnyhaven]

Nice! I did the same thing except I moved to bb7's with speed dial levers and then grabbed 2x10 thumbing, I can run them in friction and index. Kept the grx 400 front and rear derailleur, threw on a mtb double and an 11-40 cassette and haven't had a single compatibility issue

[FigarosStuff]

Thank you. I have this exact bike and want to change to the Jones Bar. Hopefully I can get mine working like yours.

[donnyo]

Shimano actually make a flat bar GRX brake lever - you try and find one for sale though! Glad to hear you had no real issues converting to flat bar though.

[bunsoybee]

tnx. for the longest time wanted to use my grx 2x11 in flat bar.

[elesan_cc]

Thank you for this video, man. Really helpful since I'm looking to convert my GRX to flatbar also.

If you don't mind, can you share links to the specific barb, the olive, and the compression nuts that you mentioned, please?

I'm also looking to use the M6100 brake levers.

[teamvergs]

Thanks for this! Question tho, i wanted to convert my GRX 1 x12 to flat bar. For shifting I might put MTB rear mech and shifter. For brakes you talked about the correct hose, barbs and olive - do you know what should I get for my deore/MT6100 levers to go on to my grx brake calipers? Thank you in advance!

[shanefrechette]

I run flat bars on my niner RLT9 and use GRX cranks and all XT components, I ride it like a mountain bike.

[RobertJones-lj]

Wanting to move my Ribble ALe to flats and it looks like the same set up with GRX 400 2x10 gearing. Looking to use the Deore brakes and the Tiagra 4700 shifters. Only issue potentially is the length of the current brake tubes.

[Mr.MagicGreen]

hi! Very good idea!! Do these switches fit the rd rx812 switch?

[louiseneiiendam]

super video how do the cuttie ride with the jones bar ?? microshift have made a serie where the dropbar and flatbar shifters will work with the same derailleur. So if the build is from frameset and up this could be way to go....happy trails from scandinavia

[bobulatorul]

Could you have done the same switch if you had a road bike using 105 or ultegra groupsets (as opposed to GRX). I want to buy a road bike with either 105/Ultegra and want to switch to flat bars for more comfort…bike shop I went to told me it’s impossible because break lever and shifter all integrated etc.

[JPHET]

I have a road bike with Shimano 105 11-speed components. I want to do the same thing for flat bar. Do I need 11 speed Shimano speed rapid fire shift levers ?