How to Adjust Cyclocross Bike Handlebar Controls Easy Guide

So when you’re setting up your handlebars for a cyclocross bike, you want to make sure that you have your hoods high enough and rotated front enough back that when you’re riding. You know, they’re easy to access and they put your elbows in a nice sort of up controlled position instead of having to drop down or anything to get into your hoods. You also want to make sure that it’s easy enough to actuate the brake levers when you’re on the top.

Usually, you know, and for a long time, you know, road bikes have always been designed for the brakes to work the best from the drops, you know? That’s, you know, obviously you have the most leverage down there and everything. But you want to make sure that it’s easy enough to get, you know, leverage on the top so your brakes work the best on your cyclocross bike. You also want to also make sure it’s easy to reach the shifters. On this particular bike, these are campy shifters, so you have an upshift lever here and a downshift lever here. So that’s, you know, the hood is a pretty good place to reach that.

A lot of riders also like to have a secondary pair of brake levers that are mounted up here on the hoods. This bike, this particular rider doesn’t use those levers, but, you know, having an additional place where you can brake and really get some leverage up here on the top of the handlebars helps a lot, especially in, like, rougher conditions and stuff like that, because bringing your, you know, bringing your hands farther back, you know, is going to make the bike handle a little bit better. There’s going to be – you’re going to have a little bit more leverage over the front wheel to be able to but, yeah So, you know, probably set up your hoods a little bit higher, roll it a little farther back. Don’t worry too much about how much you have the hooks of your handlebars rolled.

They don’t necessarily have to be horizontal with the ground for cross because you’re hardly ever down here. And then, you know, just play around, you know, bring out your Allen wrench and tweak things around till your bike feels comfortable and stable in the rough and, you know, efficient enough on the road.