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.
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.