Excerpted from "Dream of Alt Bars" from Bike Magazine by Andrew Major
Handlebars for mountain bicycles – both original equipment (OE) and aftermarket options – are overwhelmingly dominated by options with a backsweep between 7-9°. Awesome if that works best for you, but have you considered that it might not?...
I have been commuting on the same 780mm -16° mid-rise bar that I ran when my current ATB* was my go-to mountain bike and wanting a little different body, and wrist, position without overly impacting the fit or handling. The switch to the -20° Soma Dream Lowdown bar is exactly the right amount of difference, and this application is the perfect starting point for folks who are alt-bar curious but maybe not ready to mess with their mountain bike preference...
I have aspirations to do some mountain biking – not just the light(er) single track I find myself on in my regular travels on my commuter bicycle – using the Dream Lowdown bar just so I can say that I have gone beyond my normal, but I imagine that for janky offroad efforts, I will continue to find that ~15° backsweep is my MTB happy place. On the other hand, I am all in on the 20° Dream bar on my ATB bike. As with so many ‘my best’ fit discoveries, swapping saddles or brake lever blades, etc., the challenge is that I have grown accustomed to the Dream bar on my commuter but still have a -16° bar on my fair-weather roadie project, and I would like to be running the Soma on both rigs....
... if on one or more of your bikes whether managing an injury, age, or even discomfort that you long ago forced your brain & body to ignore, more backsweep could be an answer looking for an open mind and relatively few bucks to be adopted. In that case, Soma’s Lowdown Dream riser bar may be a good place for you to start.
