Mountain Biking - Ditched the bar ends.

When I first rode my new hardtail, I was screaming for bar ends. It had been 10 years since I'd ridden an MTB and riding without bar ends on climbs felt very uncomfortable.

I bought a set, bolted them on, and was happy. Granted, all my riding had been on the roads, but it felt right.

Now that I've started riding trails again, the bar ends have come off. It's all about the geography. Yeah, geography.

When I was riding and racing before, I lived in Colorado and Southern California. Rides there were punctuated by long, continuous climbs. It wasn't uncommon to climb steadily for over 30 minutes at a snails pace. The bar ends were perfect for this with added torque and alternate hand positions.

Now I ride in Georgia. Instead of 3-4 30 minute climbs on a ride, we have 50 30 second climbs with descents and drops in between them. Since I've returned to riding trails, I rarely, if ever use the bar ends simply because I don't have the time or desire to switch hand positions every time the trail pitch reverses.

So much for being retro. :)

Trails are a lot like that here(out of the mountains). I haven't missed my barends since I took 'em off a couple months ago. I use risers now instead.

I consider myself an adventure cyclist so for MTBing, I have barends because generally I do XC since it gets me to more places. The terrain I seek out is pretty varied. Sometimes I'll be on long climbs for hours and barends really help there or I'm just cruising along a relatively smooth and straight singletrack, doubletrack or fireroad where barends are also beneficial for those extra hand positions. Other times, I'll be in deep twisty singletrack with lots of brief but steep ups and downs. I don't really find the barends to be very useful in those circumstances though. However, they do tend to protect my hands from getting smacked and my levers from getting damaged in a crash.

I think the best thing about them (besides aiding in climbs of coruse) is the hand position. Sometimes I feel like i need to move my hands for no reason, i just do

yeah, I haven't used them since my huffy days, and now I have riser bars so it's taboo. But I too live and ride in GA and I just haven't seen a reason to try them.

I've just recently gotten them and wonder why i waited so long. I usually ride at around 2 hours at a time without stopping and it is nice to have the extra hand postions when a little fatigue sets in on the upper extrimities.

I ride on trails that are used for many races and they are extremely varied. Most climbs are very short (and very technical) and the longer ones are still no longer than 5 minutes. Bar ends would serve me no purpose.

I've never used bar ends but I don't think I'll be needing them when I'm riding.