Interbike interrupted this review a bit. Oh well! ha ha! At any rate, here are my impressions so far on this bar with the bendy goodness. The Ragley Carnegie’s Bar particulars can be found here, if you want to find out more.

sept09 087

I took the Carnegie’s Bar, mounted to a bicycle, of course!- to a local trail I know well that opens with a gradual climb, and then has a nice technical downhill that includes a couple of really tight switchbacks and nice whoop-de-doos through a couple of ravines. If my handle bar isn’t working for me, this is where I will find out, and find out quickly. Well, I was rather taken with how well the bar worked for me, and how it transformed the way I handled the bike it was on.

sept09 090

The bar set up ended up putting my hands about an inch further back towards the center line of the steer tube than I had been with the previous riser bar. This obviously shifted my weight bias on the bike a bit, and apparently that is what this bike needed, because I felt the bike came alive with this set up. But be that as it may, it is true that almost any bar could have achieved this with the correct stem choice. Ahh…….but there is more to this.

The Carnegie’s Bar has sweep, which alters the relationship of your upper body, arms, wrists, and hands as you steer the bike. The combination of the weight bias shift and the different ergonomics now in place allowed me to push into the bar to counter steer more effectively and also to push into the bars as I felt necessary to weight the front wheel properly throughout the corner. I was more comfortable, felt more in control, and therefore I went faster than I had ever gone through certain sections of this opening salvo of trail. In fact, I smacked my left hand so hard on a tree because of the increased speed I thought I may have broken a bone for a moment or two. However, it was just a nasty bruise. No real harm done!

Climbing was a worry, as I thought the rearward hand position may adversely affect steep climbing, but it wasn’t an issue. I was still able to weight the front end enough that technical climbs were done with no drama. Out of the saddle, I liked the Carnegie’s Bar better, as the sweep really helps one to leverage the bar to generate good power on the pedals. I find this is true of most any bar with more than 20 degrees sweep.

Okay so far. I am really liking the Carnegie’s Bar. It is stiff enough, has enough room to place my controls as I like them, and enhances my riding on my Big Mama full suspension 29″er. I’ll keep hammering on them for a bit, and then report back with a final few thoughts, but as of now, all I can say is, “Brant! Get these distributed State side, fer cryin’ out loud!