# Surly Open Bar



## r1Gel (Jan 14, 2004)

Just saw this while perusing Surly's updated website.
I guess they decided to jump on the funky bar bandwagon...

The Open Bar


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## Singlespeedpunk (Jan 6, 2004)

Looks like a noce bar, might get one for my Xtracycle monster 

To be fair Surly (well, 1x1) had the Torsion bar out years ago, and seeing as it was cro-mo, wide and with big sweep pretty funky compared to all the 120g 3deg 510mm alloy bars that were about at the time!

Ohh and now they do it in black...Yum!

SSP


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## umarth (Dec 5, 2007)

Good find. Now I need to see one or two on some bikes...


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## spacemonkey (Oct 8, 2004)

Any one have an idea when these will be available and a price range? "Project Satan" needs bars.


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## lubes17319 (Dec 19, 2005)

http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=558495


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## spacemonkey (Oct 8, 2004)

Finally! Finally I was able to get a set of these bars. Here's a few things I've noticed after putting a couple of hundred miles on them.

1) They are kind of funny looking.
2) They are kind of heavy. 
3) They only come in a 25.4 clamp diameter.
4) They are pretty darn wide especially if you are a smaller rider.
5) If you set them up on a geared bike you'll have to run a fair amount of cable and housing to do so.
6) It has made it a little more difficult to manual my front wheel up and over rocks vs a riser bar.

Those are the cons.

Now, the pros:

1) My damaged wrist no longer bothers me even while riding on chopped up trails with a rigid hardtail.
2) I find myself usually riding in one or two gears higher than I was with using a set of conventional riser bars so I'm going a lot faster.
3) Interestingly enough I think I have better control with the Surly bars than with any other bars I've run in the past (including a variety of different flat and riser bars and even some "alt" bars including Nitto Mustache bars and both WTB and Salsa drop bars).

Other:

While it's still a matter of debate whether it's better to run a longer stem with some "alt" bars due to the swept back nature of the bars I found myself running a stem 10mm shorter than I did with riser bars. Your results may vary but I found this worked well for me.

I find myself sitting more in the middle of the bike rather than being slightly forward over the bottom bracket so I feel as if I'm more in a "neutral" position on the bike which is particularly nice for dicey singletrack riding.

The bars really aren't that much wider than what I've been riding in the past (Salsa MotoAce bars) so I haven't found that there has been any clearance issues while trying to weave through areas that have low lying brush or a narrow gap between trees.

I know that Jeff Jones has popularized some the idea of using "alt" bars and more specifically "alt" bars with a huge front tire but after riding a bar combo that allows me to have a bit more flexibility in my upper body and a bend which feels more neutral in my hands makes me question the necessity to run an almost 4" tire. 

Over all, I dig them.


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## Harvie (Jan 27, 2013)

FSA Metropolis same width adds flats outside of both sides of stem and has 31.8 clamp
Amazon sells both for 40 bucks delivered


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