Hi Peter,
A few notes to follow up Dan's earlier post on randonneur bars, and the Rohloff shifter on a T-bar.
1) Bars & brake levers: I have fitted my 2013 Raven with VO Grand Cru randonneur bars, the widest VO offer, 50 cms centre-to-centre at the flared drops. To these, I've fitted Tektro RL520 levers, as recommended by Thorn Cycles. Have attached a photo below of my setup.
This combination works very well for me. Some of the main points--I recognize that my measurements/requirements may differ from yours, of course:
> My default riding position for my hands is on the upper & outer part of the curve of the rando bars, a few cms back of the hoods. My bars measure 45 cms outside-to-outside at that point. I have wide shoulders, and found other bars brought my hands closer together than was comfortable. I have also inserted gel pads on the bars underneath my Cinelli Gel bar tape, not so much because I want to damp out road buzz (my Marathon Supremes are pretty good at that), but because I find "fat" bars easier to hold for long distances than skinny ones.
> When I ride with my hands in my efault position, I can slide them forward to the hoods for braking. From the back of the hoods, I can easily reach the tops of my Tektro levers with my index & middle finger, and find this is enough for most of my braking. I have oddly-sized hands: I take a Large glove, as I have a large palm, but my fingers are more like Medium.
> These are the additional measurements on my bars. (No idea if these are "compact"):
(i) vertical drop of 14 cms from the top of the bars immediately behind the hoods to the top of the flared drops below
(ii) from the same point, a vertical line downwards immediately behind the hoods, it's 6.5 cms to the back side of the mid-point of the forward curve of the drops -- right about where the red Bike-Brake band sits in the photo below
(iii) there's 5 cms of straight fore-and-aft bar exiting the upper-outer curve of the backs, to the back of the hoods
> I have my bars mounted higher than the nose of my saddle -- enough that my hands in my default position are 110 mm above the sitzplatz on my Brooks. The upwards bend of the rando bars contributes to this of course. A little to my surprise, I've found that, because the bars are relatively high, I often ride in the drops just to change position--they're accessible, and comfortable. Of course, braking is easy from this position. On other bikes with other bars, I used the drops only in headwinds.
2) Positioning the Rohloff shifter: My shifter is on a Thorn T-bar with a 55mm reach. That placement is fine for me. This year, however, I've changed the alignment slightly. Originally, I aligned the T-bar so that the cross, and hence the shifter, was at 90 degrees to the fore-and-aft axis of the bike. Over the winter, I angled the cross of the T-bar slightly backwards by about 12-15 degrees ("East-Southeast", as it were). See the other photo below -- the asymmetry looks odd, but it's deliberate. This allows me to make an end-on "doorknob" grip of the shifter more easily, as the shifter now aligns better with the angle of my hand and wrist. (Previously, my wide shoulders created a problem -- I had to scrunch my elbow into my side and cock my wrist slightly to the right, to grip the shifter from behind, in the V of my thumb.) Not a big change, but it already feels more comfortable -- "home ergonomics", you might say :-)
Hope this is helpful -- good luck!
John
