New Budnitz Bicycles Flatbar Test & Review

A few weeks back, John Young, Sales Manager for Budnitz Bicycles http://budnitzbicycles.com/ offered to have me test ride the new titanium Budnitz Flatbar http://shop.budnitzbicycles.com/products/titanium-straight-bars. Disarmed with a huge smile, I was powerless to refuse.

The Flatbar

 

Rise: 0mm

Sweep: 12º

Width: 630mm

Weight: 230 grams

Clamp Diameter: 31.8mm

The test bar has precise marks for length trimming. It also has a finely textured surface area for stem clamps. The bar weighed in at 260 grams on my digital scale. I later discovered fine finishing debris inside the bar’s ends after mounting. All was easily wiped and blown out, but I didn’t weigh the precious dust. As I said, this bar is new.

The Bike

Time came to choose a test mule. Hmm. I couldn’t bear to tear down my No. 1’s cockpit, it’s set so perfectly. For an alternate test mule, I did, however, have to amputate the No.1’s Budnitz stem, as it’s the one stem I have with a clamp 31.8mm in diameter. I gazed over the quill-less of my quiver, the bikes sans quill stems.

A ’97 Moots YBB, made the year my bro Tony and I rode the Emerald Bay trails in Orange County with Sara Ballantine http://www.saraballantyne.net/about/index.htm atop her Moots sponsored YBB. We ran into an angry 6 foot long rattlesnake after introductions.

A custom Moots Psychlo-X YBB with an original Jones H-Bar.

My 1st titanium frame, a ’95 Bontrager Ti Lite with Sweet Wings cranks, a Modzilla converted Rock Shoks Judy disc fork, and a 28 spoke radially laced rear wheel I built with a Bontrager asymmetric ceramic rim and a Chris King rear hub designed by Keith Bontrager to be the 1st King hub approved strong enough for radial lacing. I’ve ridden thousands of interstate trail miles on this frame, a gift Danusia gave me in 1995 after my ’92 Gary Fisher Procaliber with a Rock Shox 1 (pink stickers!) was expertly stolen from our garage.

A ’96 Bontrager Road Lite single gear with a White Industries ENO eccentric rear hub.

A 2004 custom Sycip Crossdresser, the 2nd Crossdresser made, except with different paint, BB, and chainstays. The bike is made of stainless steel tubes mated with Richard Sachs lugs. Because of a shortage of stainless road chainstays, my Crossdresser was made with stainless mountain bike chainstays, which are too great in diameter to fit the Sachs bottom bracket lug, so my  bottom bracket is welded, yet sports a painted lug to match a real one. The Sycip brothers have a good sense of humor.

My delayed, but essential point is that the Budnitz Bicycles Flatbar will do justice on everyone of these unique steeds. Yes, I called them mules, but that was legerdemain. And this gorgeous bar will turn any mule, … well, most, into a stallion.

Right. So. Which steed got its horns … rather, which bird got its wings?

A 1995 WTB Phoenix, a frame handbuilt and signed by Steve Potts, which I built up as a ’69’er after I bought it in 2005. It has a Salsa unicrown steel fork, which attaches an Avid disc brake and places me deep in the bike’s sweetspot. The inertia and angle of approach of the 9’er wheel guides me balanced in all terrain conditions. It’s a bike that ‘disappears’ under its rider, perfect for focusing on the Flatbar.

The Test

 

Del Monte Forest Trails: Poppy, Spider, 666, Ti, and Congress.

07:30 53* foggy and misting.

26 psi front, 30 psi rear.

Wet spider webs awaiting.

Heading out, I noticed my torso position to be a touch flatter and forward, perfect for speed, climbing, and blitzing down. With the Flatbar, the Phoenix cockpit felt very solid, balanced, and precise. That established, my intention on the trail was to discover how much the Flatbar would flex. With a rigid fork on a trail of drops, I quickly observed less flex in the Budnitz bar than in the aluminum Mary bar that otherwise guides the Phoenix. The Budnitz titanium stem was instrumental in the WTB’s solidity in the narrows and, naturally, in its aesthetics.

The mountain biking and trail riding applications of this titanium flat bar are wide reaching. Its dimensions are spot on and it will last a lifetime … beyond that, actually. I project that its urban application reaches even farther. The Budnitz Flatbar is suited to any bike one would choose to negotiate the impermanent moving portals among people, their automobiles, and the narrows.

Buddhaspeed,

Cary

PS John mentioned that another newly designed Budnitz Bicycles product might find me for review in September. Disarmed again with a huge smile, I am again  powerless to refuse.

Flatbar on my Budnitz No. 1

© Cary Gossett and Rollin With Outta Colon, 2012. All Rights Reserved.

Oh, sorry about the paragraph spacing. Looks perfect before posting. WordPress spaces posts however it likes, regardless what I do. WordPress? You there?

Toolshed III: Modzilla Lives

Today’s project is the resurrection of my Bontrager Ti Lite’s Modzilla fork that Speedgoat Bicycles built in 1995. Chris took a Rock Shox Judy SL, replaced the crown with a Paul Components CNC machined aluminum crown that can fit 1″ and 1-1/8″ fork steer tubes, then replaced the original Judy internals with air cartridges by Englund, now Total Air, if they still exist. The 2 massive crown bolts are torqued to 35 ft/lbs.

Toolshed II: Snapped

Today’s project was entirely unplanned. I snapped the head off a seatpost collar bolt while readying the Bontrager Ti Lite, the bike Danusia bought me ’93 as a replacement for my stolen Gary Fisher Procaliber, to receive the wheel with the special hub I built and posted about Thursday. The collar had* a machined slot with too narrow a division, preventing enough tightening to hold the seatpost in place before the clamp’s metal edges touched. That fact unknown to me at the time, I over-torqued the bolt, snapping its head off with a loud POP. 

Toolshed I: King To Bontrager

Today’s project is transplanting the guts of a Chris King 32 spoke rear road hub into a 28 spoke rear MTB hub made for Bontrager by Chris King in 1999. The Bontrager hub shell is the only King made shell that’s approved to withstand the load of non-drive side radial lacing, meaning the lace of spokes on the chain-free rear wheel side don’t cross over or touch one another hub to rim. I bought the Bontrager hub shell on ebay for $20 in ’05. It was unusual to find just a shell for sale, especially this one, as hubs are usually sold as complete units, with all the guts in place.