>>1503827It's quite straight forward
I don't approve of 'modifying' a bike that bears servicing or actually upgrading though. You could put your effort into overhauling the bearings and getting nice brake pads and tyres etc instead or atleast first and actually improve the bike.
anyway:
flat bars will be 25.4 mm, road bars are 26 mm
so you need a mtb quill stem, or to shim the bar with strips cut from a can (that actually works fine).
you need to recable the brakes and get flat bar brake levers. Ones from old mtbs with Cantilever brakes have the same pull ratio. V-brakes don't. An alternative to flat bars are alt bars like butterfly which can use drop-bar brake levers. Basically if they have enough of a curve for the lever to sit around.
You can just leave the shifting if downtube shifters but reaching for it will suck ass compared to from drop bars so cabling some thumbies is good. 7/8/9 speed road and mtb shifting parts all have the same pull though. Atleast on the rear shifting.
and well i did it in pic related for a laugh (90s bike) and i kind of hate it. It sucks for riding fast and it also sucks for city riding because you can't filter traffic as easily but it is kinda fun and comfy for just knocking about on.
