musicman1586

So I have two purposes here, one selfish, one good for many people. On the one hand I wanted to start a thread to gather up as much information about different alt bars as possible. I'm increasingly finding that I don't really know what is available on the market, and it'd be nice to have a single resource for that.
So here's my selfish reasons for asking, I want to convert an old steel MTB I have to a daily go-anywhere-do-anything steed. I want to move to a friction set up, as I'm too busy with grad school at the moment to want to constantly be tweaking an indexed system. I want a bike I can just jump on and go. So I initially thought I'd do the seduced-by-Rivendell thing and get some Albatross bars and bar end shifters. I ran into a problem the other day though as I read something where it was suggested that it is hard to wheely with those bars. Where I live the roads and sidewalks really suck so I am constantly popping my front wheel up to get over little obstacles that would probably flip me if I hit them. Also there's a crushed granite trail near me that riders have made some short little single track loops along, and I'd really miss being able to hop on those for some quick fun when out for a leisurely ride. I kinda realized that the Albatross bars really maybe aren't for me. I like to be able to go fast, and I'm still young and don't care if I'm bent over more than I need to be. Also I don't have to go to bar ends if I want a friction set up, I can pick up some Thumbies or those IRD shifters, no biggie.
However I am kinda seduced by the idea of new handlebar set ups now, even though straight bars have never let me down, and I thought I could use this thread for everyone's benefit. It is kind of hard to find out about all the different alt bars on the market right now because most places really only carry one or two, if any at all, so how about we do this. Throw out your suggesetions for different alt bars you've liked, and we'll slowly compile a list of all the different non-straight/rise, non-drop handlebars available on the market. If you want include the specs as well, it'd be nice to have one resource for all these details too.
I posted this in the mountain bike forum for a few reasons, for one, most the bars that are probably what I'm looking for are going to be on other MTBers bikes, second I'm converting a mountain bike so I want to hear input from people converting bikes with similar geometries. Will gladly hear input from what people have on their commuter, utility, etc. bikes though.