Thursday, December 15, 2005

Turnin' Mary upside-down on the Salsa too...


I liked the conversion to upside-down Mary bars so well on my 'cross bike that I decided to try it on my Dos Niner too. I'm already back to a shorter stem from when this pic was snapped, but so far, so good. I like the position on the bike -- a hair lower than I'd been before (with the bar right-side up and the spacers on-top of the stem). It seems like I'm possibly better centered on the bike than I was, which is good. The jury will be out until I get some additional trail time on the setup though. That'll be more telling than the cruisin' around town I've done on it thus far.

Hopefully we'll stay cold enough today to get through a frozen-solid Wilderness Park tonight. Keep your fingers crossed!

Cheers,
MG

11 comments:

cvo said...

that makes my back hurt just looking at it...

I'm almost ready for my trek 7100 with adjustable stem.

MG said...

While it may look a lot lower, it's actually less than an inch lower than it was with the bar flipped-over (in the "rise" position).

Nice optical illusion, 'eh?

cvo said...

yup, how ya been dude, havn't talked to you in ages....

you gonna be out both days this weekend at B.O.?

I hope it's frozen cuz I'm actually looking forward to riding the loop at area 1 on the magic carpet.

MG said...

oh, i've been purdy good. well, it's relative. had the flu for a few days -- not so good. feeling quite a bit better tho, so it's back to purdy good.

i'll try to do the b.o. on both days. we'll see how the flu-ravaged body holds up.

i hope it's frozen too... would be much better than mud, imho.

ride tonite?

RF said...

actually, it seems about that puttin mary upside down is givin you a bigger rise.

MG said...

... i get a rise out of some weird stuff, i guess.

JT said...

1 for creativity. looks quite comfy. I certainly like the feel of the bars when I rode your bike at Platte.

After doing a little bit of research the bend going forward right at the stem is generally not a good thing. MG if you were to have a good frontal impact, the area around the bend and stem clamping point is the location the bars are going to give. And without getting a real close look I would say that flipping them over probably places a few more stresses that are unknown and might qualify it to break during other basic impacts. Think about flipping a riser bar over and what might happen in that scenerio. Running this setup on a commuter bike would probably be alright.

I wonder if you could get the same hand position by switching spacers or stem or possiably a combination of the 2.

It would be interesting to see how this setup would hold up at Platte under prime conditions and the MG riding style ???

GOOD LUCK

MG said...

good points jay... i agree the forces around the stem clamp are likely quite different for a mary bar than those of a traditional flat or rise bar.

i wouldn't consider this handlebar as a good freeride bike candidate. for the three or less (vertical) feet of air i get out on the trail, i don't have too many worries about the bar's ability to take it. it's when you start hitting things like gage's ramps that i'd start to question my sanity... but at that point many people are questioning sanity anyway.

see ya' at the races this weekend!
mg

MG said...

... i may end up flipping the bar back over on my salsa.

ironically, i was just telling mw last night that i think i'm going to run a standard rise bar on my unit 2-9. there is a certain directness to the steering with a regular bar that at times seems missing with mary. that said, i love those bars!

JT said...

I will always question YOUR sanity because when my tires leave the ground their is a good chance of failure not material but a CRASH.

MG said...

LOL... yeah, but hopefully it'll look good before the impact at least!
:-}
mg