co treker

I'm new to this forum so I don't know if this has been talked about or not. If it has I apologize for the rehash. That said, has anyone used on one midge bars for touring? I have a lht that i have toured on but find that the standard drop bars are somewhat limiting particularly when i go riding on dirt trails. The midges look as if they might allow me to use my lht for both purposes. thanx for the replys

roadfix

I recently mounted Midge bars on my LHT. I did a straight bar swap using the existing Thomson stem. Unfortunately, they did not quite work out for me, even after re-installing them with a high rise Salsa stem (not pictured). I use the bike mainly for commuting and although I found the drops to be very comfortable, they were a bit too wide for my taste. They were great for off-road use.
The key to using these bars is to mount them very high so the drops are almost as high as your saddle. That means swapping out the stem with a high riser, in most cases.
(I'm currently running Salsa Bell Laps which I like so much better.....so far. My LHT has gone though about half a dozen bar changes since building her up more than 3 years ago...))

HardyWeinberg

Do you have a picture w/ the bell laps? I've been wondering about those.

roadfix

Yes I do. Well, so far, these bars are working quite well for me. I've mounted these higher up as well with the Salsa stem.

HardyWeinberg

Cool. They've got some vertical flare but not the outward flare of the drops that the midges have. I've been wondering if there are bars w/ more drop than the midges but still w/ some of that flare of the drops.

neilfein

Trekker, thanks for posting this; I was thinking about putting moustache bars on my touring bike, but that would require new shifters and brake levers. Midge bars seem like a good middle ground between the two. What size tires are you rinning? 700x32s, or something smaller? I find that 32s handle pretty well on packed dirt and gravel, even when fully loaded.

Roadfix, did you find that midge bars were more comfortable than drops in the hoods? What about them did you dislike?

I'm also wondering if tilting the drops a bit might help, angling them so the front is pointing up a bit.

positron

I like the midge bars,
I also agree with nearly everything matt chester has to say on the subject, so rather than type it, I would urge you to go read this review, it explains all of their features and design impetus:

https://www.63xc.com/mattc/midge.htm

roadfix

I think Midge bars were designed primarily to be ridden in the drops. I tried angling them every which way including varying the positions of the levers. They all seem to work to a degree but compromise bar top/hood positions.
Also, I like to bring my bike into my work and sometimes into stores and found the bars to be too wide to maneuver around people and objects. The bar end shifters tend to get banged around a lot too with this setup.

I ran Nitto moustache bars for a while on my commuter with aero levers and bar-end shifters. Believe it or not you can also run a STI set on these bars. I once ran Campy Ergo shifter/levers on my moustache road bike.

neilfein

My hands are extremely comfortable in the drops. I'll ask my shop about midge bars.

positron

nitto/sr randonneur bars (nitto spells it wrong... BTW)

they have some outward flare but are more like normal drops than the midge bars. my favorite drop bars FWIW.

HardyWeinberg

Excellent, thanks!

rodar y rodar

Are the Bell Laps much different from those Nittos? I went with the Nitto Randonneurs over the Salsas for a bike I no longer have- in the end, just because the Nittos came in silver and the Salsas didn`t. I missed having a nice wide top section, but liked them overall.

Remember that Origin 8 Gary bars are very similar to Midges and much cheaper. There`s more info on setting up these bars (for mountain biking) here:
https://www.mtbtires.com/features/bik..._dropbars.html or on a blog called G-ted by googling "dirt drop bars". They pretty much say what`s already been mentioned here, but somebody might find a few useful tidbits there.

positron

Thanks for the tip, Ill look into these, as i was thinking of a set of midge bars for an old MTB frame.