I’m planning on putting some Albatross bars on my new ride:
And in my obessive tendency to over analyze things, I found some good site with reviews and pictures of Albatross setups:
and Russ’s great writeup on his brakes and bars. I’ll be following his lead with the bar-end shifters as well.
There’s also a post on the now defunct Velvet Foghorn about The Albatross Handlebar FanClub.
And since i wasn’t sure, AllenG from an older bikeforum post, photographed the differences between the Nitto North Road and the Albatross:
(ack, it seems the original website was deleted, and so here are the Google cached images, in a much smaller size)
North Road on top of a Mary
Albatross on top of a mary
Comparing the difference in rise and width between the North Road and the Albatross. The Albatross is in the foreground.
I would go with the Nort Road, i’ve been thinking the same thing to change the handlebars on my bike. Or better yet buy both and ride with them for a week and see how you feel with both =)
I ended up with the Albatross bars and like them a lot. I got my wife the Nitto all-rounders, which are much smaller, but makes sense for her and her bike’s size.
I’m late joining this conversation, but wanted to add that Zoom make a knock-off of the Albatross (or at least, I think it is) which I picked up at my LBS for a lousy CDN$15.00. Do you know what that is in USD? It’s 48 cents. Anyway, I love them. LOVE THEM! I feel a little silly sitting all upright after years on drops and flat bars but, damn, they’re nice. Oh, and I’m elderly. Did I mention that? And as you get old, your back starts to hurt and this helps a lot. I did the Grant Peterson cloth tape, twine, and amber shellac thing and added a brass universal sound bell and the bars look great! People actually stop me and ask me about them. Anyway, I just thought I’d mention that if you weren’t sure and wanted to try these out but didn’t want to drop a wad of dough, you could look for the Zoom knock-offs. I would now spend the money on real Albatross bars, but I didn’t know before. The end.