- 11,792
- Marin County
The biking thread
- Thread starter Bram Turismo
- 4,869 comments
- 264,370 views
- 5,479
- Vic, Australia
- gundalini
Yeah it sure is, they sell some incredible bikes.
I stumbled across it when getting my bike built, at the factory there is a few rows of boxes which have the parts in them for the next bikes to built for customers close to the end of the excruciating wait period. I was looking at them checking out the upcoming builds and noticed a few with AC on them instead of a name and I asked what it was.
AFAIK that's the only place in the US where Baum bikes can be ordered, Darren the owner of Baum is very fussy about who he partners with to sell his bikes.
- 11,792
- Marin County
If anyone needs some lighthearted bike related enjoyment in life (who the **** doesn't right now?) check out the Kickstand Cyclery daily web comic, featuring perpetual retrogrouch Yehuda Moon, that ran for a few years in the mid aughts to teens. I've been thoroughly enjoying it. Really makes me miss the simpler era of the internet and also makes me want to ride my bike.
- 11,792
- Marin County
If you follow me on Strava you may have already seen this, but I finally threw in the towel on the sunrise bars on the Soma. They were just too tall, too wide and too backswept for this bike - I've always felt kinda cramped and awkward with them. Went down to the bike recyclery and found this sorta narrow probably circa-2012 straight Specialized MTB bar and it seemed like about right and more than that I didn't want to think about it too much..and it was like twelve bucks. Installed and I'm very happy with it. I don't really use this thing as a true MTB so the narrower profile kind of suits it. The best thing this bike does is shuttle me to places that serve beer.
On the same trip, I also finally got a set of conventional drop bars for my Ribble gravel bike. The bike came with these weird riser bars that I never understood the point of - if you want the bars to be higher, just get a taller stem or stack some spacers under it? That can't look worse than riser bars. The flared riser bar basically just looks dumb, puts the hoods (and brakes!) in a narrow stance and then puts the drops way out wide and then arbitrarily and severely limits where you can mount stuff on the bars. I find that when I'm riding that bike on technical terrain, the last place I want my hands is in a position where I can't reach the brakes, so any kind of stability benefit of the flared drops is lost on me. So I got a pair of Ritchey 46cm road bars. It's roughly 4cm wider at the hoods than the original bars AND I actually have bar real-estate to mount stuff, instead of the paltry 1" on either side of the stem with the original bars. Did I mention it looks like six million times better? Haven't wrapped the new bars yet, but I'll take some pics when I get that sorted. These were $18. I love that shop. They have a literal full wall covered in old handlebars for basically no money.
On the same trip, I also finally got a set of conventional drop bars for my Ribble gravel bike. The bike came with these weird riser bars that I never understood the point of - if you want the bars to be higher, just get a taller stem or stack some spacers under it? That can't look worse than riser bars. The flared riser bar basically just looks dumb, puts the hoods (and brakes!) in a narrow stance and then puts the drops way out wide and then arbitrarily and severely limits where you can mount stuff on the bars. I find that when I'm riding that bike on technical terrain, the last place I want my hands is in a position where I can't reach the brakes, so any kind of stability benefit of the flared drops is lost on me. So I got a pair of Ritchey 46cm road bars. It's roughly 4cm wider at the hoods than the original bars AND I actually have bar real-estate to mount stuff, instead of the paltry 1" on either side of the stem with the original bars. Did I mention it looks like six million times better? Haven't wrapped the new bars yet, but I'll take some pics when I get that sorted. These were $18. I love that shop. They have a literal full wall covered in old handlebars for basically no money.
- 5,969
- Finland
That's very much of a YMMV thing though. And I mean it the other way round, all my MTBs have had ~700 mm bars which is extremely narrow by modern standards but I've never understood the point of the armpit ventilators that come stock on everything nowadays even though stems are getting ever shorter. If one needs that much leverage to turn the front wheel something is wrong with either the frame steering geometry or the riding style, I can manage even a fatbike with a sub-700 mm bar and a 60 mm stem just fine and my physical appearance isn't far off from the stereotypical pencilneck computer guy.
- 11,792
- Marin County
- 5,969
- Finland
The usual width nowadays seems to be somewhere between 750 and 780 mm even for XC-ish hardtails, and even more for heavy trail rigs. And it's not that only large frame sizes get them, it's right from the smallest one up. The idea is probably to provide everyone with enough width and they're meant to be cut to fit but I have a very strong feeling most people won't even think of it. The feeling comes purely by the fact that a very large percentage of riders I see out there haven't even figured out how to set up a saddle anywhere near properly, much less go cutting handlebars.
- 11,792
- Marin County
The way I understand it, the super wide bars are to counter the fact that modern bikes have very slack HT angles and very short stems...both of which would tend to reduce the leverage on the steering axis. My bike has a 100mm stem and fairly upright HT (68) angle, which is probably why the 700mm actually feels pretty good.
The disparity between my MTB and Gravel bike bar lengths went from 420mm to 240mm
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- 5,969
- Finland
Both my current hardtails (model years 2021 and 2022, both frames still in production) have a 68 degree HTA, and came with 60 and 70 mm stems for size M. And 740 and 750 mm bars respectively.
- 11,792
- Marin County
Apparently Remco Evenepoel is in NorCal for some winter training. So far he seems to be riding mostly down south of San Jose but I will be really curious to see what kind of times he does on my local segments if he ventures up this way.
