[MNwild]

The original bars were a bit off, but I figured I'd get used to them. WRONG! After two weeks commuting, I had tendonitis in my shoulder. Just tapping the shoulder blade lightly with a toothbrush was painful. After two months of no riding, plus the prescribed 12 ibuprofin per day "to get the swelling under control," I decided that the stock bars had to go.

 

[MNwild]

Some things I learned:

• the front brake hose runs into the fork leg, up through the fork and out the top(!), into the stem, through the bars, and out the bars to the brake lever.
• 
  
• the rear brake hose, headlight wire and display wire run through the battery area and frame, up the front of the head tube, through a cavity in the stem spacers, and into the stem, then through the bars and out.
• the headlight wire is permanently fastened to the headlight. There is nothing to unplug at the front end.

Some steps for disassembly:

• loosen the bolts on the grips, and slide them off. Slide the left grip straight off without twisting, to avoid damaging the Brose display wire (which is not replaceable, apart from the display).
• use a 2mm hex to loosen a bolt up inside the tiny hole on the underside of the display’s mounting ring
• slide the display towards the end of the handlebar. This gives slack on its wire.
• reach inside the handlebar end and pull-out the wire. The plug for the Brose display will come out. I had to hold it gently with a pliers to pull the connectors straight apart (no twisting).

 

[MNwild]

The brake hoses are routed through the stem and handlebars, so I didn’t see a way to pull them out, without cutting off the olive. For each side:

• There is a black “nut-looking” plastic cover over the actual silver-looking nut. Just slide it down the brake line with a pliers.
• Loosen the hydraulic brake hose connector with an 8mm wrench.
• Remove the brake lever assembly from the bars and set it aside (with the open connector pointed ”up” to minimize drainage).
• Note: this is mineral oil, not DOT3 brake fluid. You can clean it up with alcohol on a paper towel (especially the brake rotors).
• I cut the hose about 2mm below the old olive, because I needed to preserve every mm of brake hose. The old barb inside is not very long.
• The hoses were not quite long enough, so to make a bit extra length, I pulled the front brake hose out of the fork. This also meant that it wasn’t in the way when it came time to tighten the headset.
• I removed all but one of the old stem spacers, and put-on ”normal” stem spacers. They gave enough height for the hoses to feed away from the fork without getting pinched under the new stem.
• I put the new stem on, and clamped the new bars.
• For each brake lever, I put it on the new bars, and used new Tektro olives and barbs to reconnect the cut ends of the brake hose to the brake lever assemblies.
• Then I did a “lever bleed.”
• Note that I needed to supply a new headset cover from the parts bin. In a pinch, you can borrow one from your other bike just to tighten the stem.

 

[MNwild]

I did not see a practical way to unhook the headlamp. It looks like the wire is permanently attached to the headlamp, and feeds in through the stem and down through the frame. Maybe there is a connector hidden somewhere? Let me know!

Since I planned to relocate the headlight anyways, I just cut the wires about 4cm behind the headlamp. They are color-coded black/red, so you don’t need to label them. I plan to add a front basket, and mount the headlamp on the front of that, so I will need to splice the wiring anyways.

For test rides, I am using a Busch & Mueller ixon iQ Premium. It’s not as bright, but it’s a good light. The bike probably looks less cool. Serial1 obviously put lots of custom parts design work into hiding all those cables. But as it was, it was not rideable by me, so it was either change it or sell it.

 

[JoeG]

Looks like you did a nice job to me and appears you will be more comfortable riding. My buddy would like this mod as he complains about the riding position all the time. Definitely a lot of custom pieces to hide all the wires and lines.
I‘d like to see another picture from the side showing the wires/lines coming out of the head tube.