Liberty Handlebar Upgrade

This may fly in the face to many who like the chopperesque look of the 2020 Rize Liberty, but for me, I wanted a more motocross inspired look, similar to the 2020 Rize Blade, but with suspension. I also wanted a bar going across the top so as to mount my phone, or camera. In my goal to achieve such a look and feel I opted to change out my Liberty's handlebars for a set of BMX handlebars that I had on hand. I may very well change these out when I find my perfect Liberty bars, but until then I'll test these out.

Here is what I came up with.

* If you are going to attempt upgrading your handlebars, be sure of the following... 

1. Make sure the handlebars you choose are the same diameter of thickness as the stock bars, or you will need to add shims, or replace the headset stem.
2. Make sure the handlebars are wide enough to fit all the controls

**(In all honesty, I found out the hard way about the tips mentioned above, as this is the second set of bars I used, as the first weren't wide enough for all the controls to fit on)

Step 1.

Starting on the throttle side,  I removed the grip, throttle, brake and ebike controller

Step 2.

I proceeded to remove the display screen

Step 3.

I then removed the grip, brake, gear selector and bell off the opposite side.

Step 4.

Remove the handlebars, or remove the stem if your upgrading that as well.

(The 2020 Rize Liberty comes with 25.4mm handlebars and a 25.4mm x 28.6 stem, my BMX handlebars were 22.2mm, so I used shims to make up the difference. Another option would be to get a stem that was 22.2 mm x 28.6mm or you could go larger with MTB stem and handlebars combo which is typically 31.8mm x 28.6mm)

Step 5.

Pick your handlebars!

(Generally you want handlebars that have 7.5" or 190mm of space from the bend to the end of the handlebar. The first pair of handlebars I used were cut down and didn't have enough room for all the controls)

These are the bars I had on hand and went with. They are Haro BMX handlebars

Step 6.

Install you bars!

As my bars were 22.2mm I used shims to get the 25.4mm needed

Step 7.

(Basically go in reverse from step 3 to step 1)

Done.

My Thoughts.

While this is all subjective, I really feel more comfortable using BMX handlebars, as that's what I'm used too. Making sharp turns seems much easier with these handlebars, compared to the standard Liberty bars. In the future I'll change out the stem, and get handlebars that are a bit taller as these are short at 8.5" high. Also need to do some cable management work.

Hopefully this post has been helpful to those looking to change their 2020 Rize Liberty handlebars.