I have no complaints about my 06 Bianchi Castro Valley Commuter, I am just not psyched to ride it… I have been lucky and for now can bring my bike in the office so I have been riding my cross bike, mountain bike or single speed in lately.
Which prompted me to try and sell the Castro Valley. But I’m lazy and don’t want to ship it. And I don’t want to give it away…
Then I got to thinking about the other 8 months of the year when it rains or snows here so I guess a commuter makes sense…
So I decided to change it slightly, put on a set of Nitto Promenade bars, which I got from speedgoat.com.
I wanted to use my ultegra bar con, so I put it on a Paul’s Thumbie.
I like the way it works, but you kind of need to use it anyhow, since I don’t think there is room for a modern under the bar style XT mountain shifter.
While I was at it, I put on XTR V-Brakes, if you have to use mountain levers you might as well use V-Brakes, they are 1000x better than the Paul Touring’s I had on. They were nice brakes, but V-Brakes are the best canti brake ever… seriously don’t argue me on this.
I just put them on so I need a few more rides before I give the final verdict but they are nice. I should lower the stem and get rid of the cable hanger… I’ll do it.
View from the cockpit
The final version.
The only thing I’d note is that the flat parts that you put the levers on is really short. Those bolt on mtn grips over hang by about 20mm.