A 7-6-14 article in the Star-Ledger newspaper ("Cyclists" pursue access to Watchung trails") highlights once again the importance of government being run fairly, and with limits on its power.

At issue is whether the Watchung Reservation (and also south mountain), the only major county parks closed to offroad cycling, are public lands for the enjoyment of all, or a private club for a few hikers and horseback riders funded at taxpayer expense.

Obviously, if the land really is a public park, the public should be allowed to use it.  Prohibiting offroad cycling is such an unreasonable act I've never observed it elsewhere.  Lewis-Morris, a Morris County park, is open to hikers, equestrians, and of course, mountain bikers.  and in Arizona, I observed hikers and bikers sharing the same mountain trials.

Why is it then that in Union County so many seem incapable of sharing?

The Star-Ledger article, like most on the push to remove the prohibition at the Watchung Reservation, mentions that many are astounded they cannot ride there, and concludes that the general belief is "that the Watchung bike ban comes from a fear of a conflict between groups of people using the trails for different purposes."

This has been a common belief because it was what has prompted trail closure attempts elsewhere, namely, one intolerant hiker, or a horseback rider whose mount turns crazy if it encounters another member of the public on a public trail.  Then there are environemtnalists, who oddly enough, object to bicycles when they venture offroad.  The fear is that the bicycles will damage the trails.  How come 20-something pound bicycle with rubber tires is an erosion concern, but horses weighing thousands of pounds with metal shoes that gouge out the dirt isn't?  Well, no one ever said radical environmentalists made sense, least of all the radical environmentalists.

The Ledger quoted D'Elia, a county spokesman, who says he has no idea why the trails were closed, then guesses it was because the bikes won't fit on narrow trails, or maybe erosion.  All this illustrates is his ignorance not only of cycling but the Wastchung issue generally.  It is understandable if he himself is not a mountain biker.  What is not  understandable is how he can allow himself to be quoted in a news article, when he works for the county, confessing he has no idea why the county did what it did. 

Actually, from what I've heard from people who rode there then (I was one, as a teenager) the story of how it closed is a cautionary tale of another sort:  The dangers of the uncontrolled power of the government.  The truth is, no one knew much about it until one day we were just kicked out.

Yet, while there was apparently no rule to restrain one man's whim for ruining the park for thousands of cyclists, to say nothing of those yet unborn, there is apparently a whole set of rules and procedures about how to remove the ban.  Let's get this straight.  On a whim, to exclude offroad bikers, all that was needed was one man raising his fist in the air and shouting, "by the power of grayskull!"  But when the time comes to admit the county government was wrong to let him do that, and revoke the ban, a whole forest of obstacles stands in the way.  The Ledger talks about a proposed "Risk assessment to figure out if bicycles would actually damage the trails.  If bikes are found to be safe, the freeholder board could then set a policy with detailed rules for biking the Watchung trails"!

Keep in mind, that pack of rigmarole is actually coming from a Freeholder Chairman someone who wants to consider removing the ban, "because he's received requests from residents who want mountain biking allowed". 

Maybe since such rules are so difficult to remove after the fact, like a stubborn fungus, there should be more deliberation involved in making them, and citizen input.  That way we might never have to deal with this sort of nonsense again. 

So.  A cautionary tale about too much power and too little oversight.  All it takes is one angry man to make a rule affecting thousands, but for some reason, removing the rule is a lot more complicated.   Every summer the county puts out ads calling for desperately needed trail volunteers.  The funny thing is, when mountain bikers used the Reservation, they had plenty of volunteers.  Now, some of the trails are so overgrown that they are barely passable.  Why?  With only occasional riders sneaking by under a black flag, there is not enough trail use to keep them from becoming dilapidated.  Certainly the volume of hikers isn't doing it.

Here's a "policy with detailed rules for biking" the Watchung Reservation, Freeholder chairman, that you can adopt forthwith, and it’s how it works at Lewis-Morris park in Morris County.  Unfortunately, Lewis-Morris is 45 minutes away, by car.  The Watchung Reservation trails are close enough to bike to, literally in our own backyard here in Union County.  It seems a shame to let them die because some gov't employees, twenty years ago, were angry for one brief moment.

Well, took the moustache bars off the Lemond, but only because I needed it for other stuff. 

However, the moustache bars have migrated to my Bridgestone mb-5 mountainbike and combined with slick 1.5 street tires it is riding awsome. 

Plus it looks wierd; half the people I passed today were probably wondering "what is that?  A mountainbike?  A roadbike?"  Questions first asked of the bridgestone x0-1, which I attempted to copy, based around an mb-5 frame.

Even with only a 46t outer chainrign it cruised at 17-20 mph going through the great swmap, a local flat route, but when I took a shortcut on a dirt path through the woods it worked fine (until I reached where the pathw as overgrown -- doh!)

Putting a 52t chainring (to appraximate xo-1 gearing) would mean I'd have to lose the innermost "granny" gear as the derailieur isn't long enough to run that too without the chain rubbing, but then the gearing 52-34 should work okay, it works for most road compasts and this thing has even smaller rims than those (26" vs. 700c") so I shouldn't be over geared.  I never actually used the granny gear, onroad or off, so far. 

Offroad or onroad, the moustache bars on a mountainbike do indeed give a unique position.  Only change I would make is to eliminate the slight "drop" in height and have the bars be completely flat. 

(To get on a soapbox for a second, however) Regarding new technology and the impression it doesn't have trade-off's: it does.

If fact, the BB30 might be a prime example. Invented according to lore by Cannondale, it is now used on many other bikes and been observed on many high end, high dollar frames -- Cervelo, the aforementioned Cannondale, etc.

Since these bearings are "press fit" they have to be removed with a mallet. WTF? Really? On a ,000 bike?
Second, being press fit, the bearing tension is adjustable only by the bb shell width of the frame itself. In other words, a slight tolerance issue in frame sizing and the bb will be either lose or tight, no way to adjust it (although one might sand or file down the edge of the frame?)
Similarly a BB30's advantage, according to one Cannondale spiel, was it's stiffness. However, A press fit bottom bracket with improved stiffness is just that. What'd that Ancient Greek guy say? Give me a lever and a place to stand... and I'll move the world? The crank is the lever and the BB is literally, where it stands. Is anchored. Here's the problem; Imagine a massive strong lever. It is more effective at transmitting energy. Good, right? Yeh. But it doesn't help if at some point a long the way all the energy is wasted. Say, you have this awesome lever -- but are standing on a soft yielding surface. Or something slippery. Maybe you're wearing roller skates. Okay, the lever won't flex a micron -- but you will lose energy because you, who are holding the lever, slip.
A press fit bottom bracket is like that. The newer, stiffer bb may be more efficient at transmitting energy, with less flex, and the lighter bb may mean that less of that energy is wasted on moving a heavy bike part down the road, or in a circle... but if the attachment point is a source of wasted energy, all that stiffer newer bb means is more squeaky bottom brackets where the press fit parts hits the frame's bottom bracket shell. Squeaking, for those who don't know, is the sound of movement. That movement means the loss of energy.
Indeed, you have a new stiffer spindle and stiffer bottom bracket -- that's press fit into a frame with a new stiffer bottom bracket shell and frame area.

See the problem? The bb to bb shell/frame interface is press fit -- the weakest link in the chain running from your feet, through that newer stiffer bb, to the rear wheel.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but all that stiffer bb will do is creak more. And with only a press fit attachment point it's not like there are threads that can be greased. in short you have to remember the bike is the sum of it's parts, at least in one respect. The bb is only as strong as its attachment to the frame. Now if you are okay with a k bike - or any bike - that squeaks, so be it, but I wouldn't be.

Make no mistake, the BB30 has advantages, but let's just not forget that like everything else it has a trade-off too. Cyclists -- like anyone else -- engage in such trade-offs all the time. For instance, A carbon frame is light, but not very great at surviving impacts unscathed. So you make a call -- which is more important, short term performance vs. long term durability? For racers this is a no-brainer. For the rest of us, it is a real question, because most of us "real world" riders have to buy our own equipment and don't get new stuff every year. Also our bikes have slightly less specialized roles than racer's bikes. For the regular rider, his bike isn't just a piece sporting equipment, it's also a vehicle, a way to get to the store, etc. And while granted, a person is probably not going to commute on a pure race machine, they could. This is where one of the other great misfortunes of modern cycling technology comes into play, the horrible lack of tire clearance on many bikes. Sure racers aren't running 25s or 28s, but then racers don't have to ride after work in the dark or early Saturday mornings over post-winter roads. Have you seen the potholes out there?
True there is a place for specialized racing machines -- see the classic racing aesthetics of a lugged steel frame, chrome, and Campy N. Record! But... even though you want to be able to ride as a racer, you shoot yourself in the foot if you totally lose all ability to use the bike for anything else except keeping up with the guy in front of you. The fact that if you are really an avid cyclist, you probably have a less "racy" bike to commute on, doesn't change this observation.

As to the trade offs; they aren't new. Old Vitus frames were light, but reportedly flexed a great deal. Aero or v-section rims are more aerodynamic, allegedly -- but heavier rotational weight (more material. To try and minimize this trade-off they use carbon for many of the high-end aero rims; it's light but more delicate; another trade off. An aero rims also need special long valve stems.

Not all trade-offs are worthwhile -- or commercially viable. The Lampert and Viscounts both claimed to use airplane related materials and technologies -- and became obsolete curiosities, mainly due to the fear that their fork blades would come off. Not all new technology is successful. It is ironic, then, to note that the Lampert had a press-fit bottom bracket, like the BB30. And while Viscounts and Lamperts are in my humble opinion really awesome vintage bikes, as well as sort of iconic historical things, you wouldn't probably want to put 5,000 miles a year on one. At least I wouldn't. So while the modern cyclist, who "knows better," may smile knowingly at the somewhat quaint images of the decades old Lampert ads touting "aerospace technology!", are we any more sophisticated when we run out and buy a BB30 -- just because it's "newer and stiffer and lighter"?

The modern press fit bb, the BB30 included, has the same practical trade-off as any other technology. For example, a BB30 *is* lighter and stiffer, or *should* be if made properly; a press-fit design needs less material in terms of thickness than a design with threads in it, as the threads consume part of the initial thickness. This is true on both the frame and removable bottom bracket. And a wider spindle is stiffer. The downsides are a squeaky bb-bb shell/frame junction, and no real adjustability to bearing tension.

 Oh, and having to whack your expensive lightweight fragile frame to get it out using a mallet.

BB30's may actually feel nice while riding.  They definately have potential weight savings.  But... gee, how much is that Cervelo worth?  Three grand?  And you're gonna hit it with a hammer?

Of course with modern cartridge or self-contained bearings adjustability is less of an issue anyway, and has been less of an issue, for years, since before outboard bearings, back when we all used square taper bb's and nothing else. Once bb's went to cartridge or self-contained bearings, that was a big change, bigger perhaps than bearing size or location. Because the purpose of the bearings changed. Now they were more replaceable parts than an integral component of the bottom bracket itself. You didn't adjust the bearings as they loosen; you threw em away and replaced 'em. It is a different attitude.

 Without it we'd never have seen BB30's.

Maybe it's the attitude of the future. We'll see. )

Personally I think they should bring back 3-piece bottom brackets, with the bearing cups and square taper separate spindle.  These were lighter than sealer bearing ones, though probably not as lighrt as BB 30's and the ilk -- although they contain adjustibility the lighter more modern design doesn't -- and none of it's flaws.  They sure don't creak.

Dust off that thirty year old catologue.  What used to be old might be the next New Thing!

  Hey it worked for press fit bottom brackets (or, more to the point, it didn't, and doesn't).

E-bikes and the right to the road

I originally put these thoughts down (some of them, anyway) over four months ago in response to a column in the newspaper, but a recent discussion with a fellow rider made me once again consider them, and the subject of both the discussion, and the column:  E-bikes, or “electric bicycles”.

In particular, one sitting at the local shop prompted a discussion about their merits and demerits.  Also as to why anyone would ride one.  A general consensus was that people wanted to use one because the electric assist wouldn’t require them to get as sweaty if they were, say, riding to work.

In that sense, the E-bike may be a laudable invention – although riding it to work still poses some questions (with the added weight no one is taking it inside, even though they have complicated electronics and cost a lot of money).

Similarly if a person has been injured; an E-bike with an electrical assist allows them to keep riding.  Great.  More power (literally) to them.  It’s sure better than having either sit in a car.

In that respect I agree with columnist Paul Mulshine in his 11-10-13 column that in terms of traffic impact,  and even pollution concerns, an e-bike is better than, say, a car.  Indeed, from the perspectives of just those two issues, it would be better to have people riding electrically assisted bikes than Humvees or even regular sedans.  However, I do not share his conclusion that since this is the case, all is well with electric bicycles.  There are other factors involved as well.  The first is, except for where the motor only assists actual pedaling (as mentioned earlier), E-bikes are not actually bicycles.

Put a motor, any kind of motor, that moves the bicycle as a substitute for pedaling, and what you have is a motorized bicycle.  In this case an unlicensed one.

It may seem absurd to compare the tiny electric motors on E-bikes to Harley’s or even mopeds.  However, the distinction is one of kind not degree.  While there is a huge practical difference between an E-bike and a motorcycle, as one normally thinks of the term, there is nearly as much practical difference between an e-bike and a conventional bicycle.  Moreover, there is a difference by definition: a bicycle is not motorized.  Put a motor on it, and it is no longer a bicycle and subject to the rules of bicycles, but instead it becomes a motorized vehicle.

To protest this logic because, well, the motor is tiny compared to a huge motorcycle, is to distort the issue.  Yes, it is tiny.  But it is a motor.  If part of what defines a bicycle is that it is human powered, and the legal distinction between that and motorized two wheeled vehicles such as motorbikes or mopeds is  the lack of a motor, than adding any motor, even a tiny or slow one, takes it out of the bicycle category.

By itself this wouldn’t be much of an issue, but it is, because of the regulations for motorized vehicles.

American bicyclists have enjoyed a legal right to the road since the late 1800’s.  In cases such as Swift vs. City of Topeka, the courts affirmed that the cyclist was a road user – as the operator of a vehicle.

But when automobiles came along and were required to be licensed and insured, this was never extended to bicycles.  Same for other motorized vehicles – motorbikes, trucks, buses.  Why?  The bicyclists had a legal right to operate their vehicles on the roadway.  The drivers, because of the increased danger posed by a motorized machine, could get up to speed with no effort, and whose vehicles weighed more, were required to get government’s permission to use their vehicles on the street.

In other words, the regulatory status of cyclists is different than that of motorized road users.  The cyclists have much more freedom and a legal right use their vehicles on the street.

Because of this, one  has to consider that electric bikes, by introducing a motor, even an electric one, into the bicycle equation, risk moving bicyclists closer to the role of motorized vehicles – and the regulation that entails.  This is a risk to all bicyclists, even those riding  bicycles without electric motors, because the E-bike riders are self-identifying as bicyclists – even though they aren’t.  Thus they risk forcing the rest of the cycling public into some new regulatory straight jacket with them.  That’s why one cannot say it enough:  These aren’t bicycles, they are motorized bikes.

In Mulshine’s 11-10-13 column in the Star-Ledger, “Conserving the rules, not energy,” he talks about a citizen who wanted to ride an e-bike rather than drive a car to save gas.

Mulshine said his reader, who wrote in about his plight, was going to buy an e-bike and then found out that according to the DMV it’s considered a “motor vehicle.”  But because a motorbike has to have an engine displacement of at least 50cc, or cubic inches, and an electric motor has no engine displacement in that measurement, there was no procedure for registering it.

This, as Mulshine opines, is indeed evidence of foolish and inept runaway bureauacracy.  Or would be under normal circumstances.  The devices have been around for a while now, there should be a rule that applies to them.  Well, yes, if they were intended to be used on the road.  But they do not fit into the current state of things.  It would be one thing if they wanted to create a third category, a sort of secondary motorized bicycle category for electrically powered E-bikes.  But attempting to force them into the normal bike-car equation causes havoc.  A bicycle does not have to be licensed, a motor vehicle does.  Which is it?

There could be some argument for an e-bike where all the motor does is assist you in going up hills.  But many of these things have motors that will power you forward without any pedaling.  That’s a motorized bike, not a bicycle.

To try and keep weight down, and because they are based off of bicycles, e-bikes often don’t have turn signals and all the other things motorized vehicles have.  A bicyclist doesn’t have to have them because he can make a hand signal.  But then he also doesn’t have to register his bike either.   And, at the end of the day, unlike a 20-lb bicycle, the e-bike is still mostly too heavy to lift!

It would be nice if one could agree with Mulshine and just say, let em ride the thing, who cares?

Who does it hurt?

Well, it could and eventually would hurt all cyclists.  First of all, many of these things are much heavier than a standard bicycle which typically weighs 20-something pounds.  A good quality road bike can weigh less than 20 pounds.

An e-bike weighs a lot more, often so much it is difficult to lift it.  This is because the battery pack is very heavy.

This could be a problem given where they ride, which is, excepting the foolish and illegal who ride on sidewalks or footpaths, typically where regular bicyclists would ride.  Why?  Although motorized and much heavier than a bicycle, they aren’t as big or fast as a car, so they hug the side of the road away from other motorized traffic – and end up nearly running down cyclists.

This is evident on islands and vacation resorts where tiny motorized scooters or often used are rented, according to some localities, without needing a license – because the engine displacement is less than a given amount (maybe 50cc?  They never said.)  Now these are gas powered, but the principle is the same and so is how they act: you have these motorscooters zipping along and then zoom, a motorscooter comes up behind a cyclist, engine screaming, passes, then moves back over to the edge of the road, where the next bicyclist he encounters is likely to be riding, and speeds off.

What are the dangers here?  With a motor, the scooter rider is likely going faster than the cyclist he encounters.  And with the greater speed and mass of his motorized vehicle, if he hits the cyclist, he could seriously hurt him or his bike.

But at least you can hear a scooter coming.  The e-bikes are by comparison silent!  True, no one on an e-bike that is only capable of 20 mph is going to overtake a paceline of road riders.  But a regular cyclist cruising in traffic could be doing more or less than this typical speed of say around 20mph.  For example, 17 or 18.   Or the e-bike rider could soup it up.  There’s been examples where people fiddle with the batteries and so forth to boost power and therefore speed.

Several articles in the last year or two have highlighted the new trend of "electric bikes" --  Mulshine’s column isn’t the first.  However, most of the others were simply along the lines of noticing an increase in e-bikes.  Mulshine’s column is unique in that it calls for them to be declared legal road users. 

So let’s look at e-bikes.  What are they, and what is or would be there legal status?  

In the beginning they were mostly bicycles with an electric motor attached to provide a power assist, in other words, help pedal up hills.  Some of these however do move on their own without pedaling.  

The danger of course, is when you don't have to pedal, at that point, you have a motorized vehicle.Same goes for other bicycle infrastructure; cyclists have seen bike racks at local train stations, from Madison NJ, to Summit NJ, blocked by motorized contraptions ranging from old folks' electric mobility scooters to full fledged motorscooters with motorcycle license plates to top-heavy e-bikers like the kind Mulshine’s reader wrote in about.  Newsflash:  A  motorcycle is not meant to be locked in a bicycle rack.  Neither is an old folk's scooter or an e-bike.  Both the first two block the cyclists -- the intended users -- from using the rack because of their bulk.  However, the motorcycle or motorscooter is worse, because it not only blocks use of the part of the rack it obstructs, it could fall on and damage any bicycles parked adjacent to it.  A motorcycle is a hell of a lot heavier than a bicycle.  This observation applies completely to e-bikes too.

What happens when you have a bike that weighs, say, a hundred pounds, and it is locked to a bicycle rack next to a nice classic road racing frame or good quality fixed gear commuter that weighs 19 to maybe 22 pounds?

Easy, that huge heavy e-bike, if it is jostled or tips over in any way, can crush or damage any bicycle near it, because it weigh much more than a regular bicycle thanks to its motor.  Specifically, the battery.

Inept and often clueless drivers want to take up every tiny little bit of room and leave cyclists with nothing to bike in.  That's bad enough, but now you have people intruding motorized devices where you park your bike?  No way.  Tow the damn things. 

As to the legal status of E-bikes, do whatever you want – but not on the street.  American cyclists have a legal right to the road -- going back to court rulings in the 1800's -- primarily because unlike the drivers who came later, their vehicle aren't hugely heavy or powered by a motor. 

If one accepts motorized bicycle – including e-bikes – as legitimate road users one has to decide on which side of the fence do they fall – motorized, or bicycles?  Given an Assemblywoman Cleopatra Tucker's kneejerk, illegal proposal to require bicycles to be licensed to ride on the public road a few years back (after an accident that involved a youth who wasn’t even using the road) one must be careful to ensure that threats to cyclist’s right to the road do not re-emerge. 

Long ago, the courts and the legislatures decided cyclists were vehicles, but not motorized vehicles.  Unlike a car driver or motorcyclists, they have right to the road.  They have to obey any applicable laws while using the road, but that use of the road cannot be denied them or made conditional.   In other words, rushing to welcome e-bikes either creates a third, middle category between motorized and not, or it could force cyclists further towards the “motorized” category. 

Once you introduce a motor, it is no longer a bicycle and the operator loses many of the rights of the bicyclist.  In fact those encouraging people to choose e-bikes over bicycling are ultimately threatening them with the very rules and regulations and strictures that people often take up cycling to get away from, starting with, you don’t need permission to ride!

In short, motorized “bicycles” risk moving cyclists toward to same category or regulation as motorized vehicles, destroying not only cycling as a sport, hobby, form of transport or way of life, however you look at it, but also destroying it’s practical advantages for travel, such as its low operating cost, total lack of licensing or other fees, and a simple, human-powered mechanism that is small enough the law allows you to share a lane alongside a car, sparing you many traffic jams.  

The e-bike might be a neat idea, and is certainly better than a car.  But it is hardly a “bicycle” and when Mulshine opines that “in a few years, E-bikes are expected to outsell regular bikes” what he means is that he sees the bicycle as on the way out.  

There are reasons to doubt his observations.   E-bikes may be popular with tourists or people “down the shore”, but they are not and probably will never be popular with avid cyclists. Nor or they especially useful for commuting, the stated goal.  Why?  Weight and handling.  Here’s from one advertisement:  “Weight = 54 lbs”.  Fifty-four pounds?  A normal lightweight road bike weighs under 20 and there are some that are even lighter.  A “normal” bicycle weighs about 20-odd pounds.

Guys (or gals) who are not racers, but are just using bikes for transport will be likely to choose a real bicycle – not an e-bike.  Why?  Weight. Carrying a nicely balanced 20-pound bicycle up the stairs to an apartment is no big deal.  Nor is it to hustle one up the stairs of an office, or into an elevator; the bicycle there can be tipped on end to fit in even the narrowest of elevators.

Now imagine that bike is a poorly balanced 50-something pounds.  Or closer to a hundred pounds.  No one is going to be taking it upstairs or into their office.

And as, according to Mulshine’s reader who wrote in on the subject, many of the E-bikes cost over one or even two thousand dollars, is someone going to use them and not take them inside?

In other words, no regular cyclist, whether road rider, urban rider, offroader, or commuter, is ditching their bicycle for  quasi-motorbike, as Mulshine suggests.  Maybe they are popular among tourists, or people who don’t know much about road use and the benefits of a bicycle.  One of those benefits is that it’s light weight and lack of a motor keep it from being subjected to many of the same rules as cars, SUVs, or motorbikes.  Mulshine seems to be insisting that e-bikes are taking over so the law should accommodate them.  He forgets that with motors they are no longer bicycles (again, with the caveat about pedaling assist, which, though motorized, accomplished the same function as a series of advanced gear ratios; it makes self-propulsion easier, it does not substitute for it.)

Let’s hope that regarding these devices outselling bicycles, Mulshine’s wrong, because that would mean the effective end of cycling.  So far he seems to have greatly overestimated the appeal of E-bikes.  I have seen no indication of their ascendance; they are growing to be a more often-seen rarity, but, fortunately, still a rarity.  And, especially among actual cyclists, the e-bikes are still an oddity.  It is their very rareness that prompted recent discussion; seeing one of these contraptions in a bicycle shop is rare.

Why?

Because it’s not a bicycle.

And that’s that.

And now -- for something Completely Different!  Moustache bars -- offroad? 

What kind of wierdness is that?

Well, having put a pair of moustache bars on an old road bike, I recently tried them on my Surly 1x1.  I have to say I'm thrilled with the results.

Indeed, my initial impressions of the bars are that they are probably better suited for use on a mountain bike or even a dual duty street/dirt "all rounder", than a roadbike -- although they work well on the roadbike, too.  Or, perhaps, it is not so much that they aren't good on the road bike as simpyl just better on the 1x1. 

This should be no surprise.  Grant Petersen designed the first "moustache bar" for the XO-1, a cross between a mountain and road bike that was indeed an "all rounder" or a bike suited for multiple surfaces.

First, the set up.  Like the roadbike, putting the moustache bars on a mountainbike involved a higher raised stem. 

This is because although the bars do not have much "drop", compared to traditional road bars, they aren't level, either.  The curved parts with the major hand positions are slightly lower than the central clamp area (See my page on moustache bars, https://www.angelfire.com/blog/bicyclerider/Moustachebars.html ...more on this).  Oddly enough, a friend recently asked me if the original XO-1 moustache bar had the short but noticable drop.  I seem to remember some that were level, just curved, but can't be sure.  Maybe the nittos.  Mine are more inexpensive Origin8 Tiki bars and like most variants between different companies I am sure the shape is not entirely the same. Each maker or brand -- Soma, Nitto, Origin8, etc -- has all given us their own interpretation of the moustache bar.

I used a stem with a short reach, sharp long rise (110mm in length, but more than 4" in height) like I did on the Lemond roadbike.  Oddly enough while it seemed after a while like it could've been just a hair too far forward on the Lemond  it seemed just fine on the Surly -- in fact a shorter stem might've led to the ends of the bars risking a knee strike in a low speed turn.  I put this down to the 1x1's short top tube.

The ride:  On the road you cruise with your hands in the curves, by the brake levers, but sometimes at speed there is a tendency to move them back to the flat straight ends.  Aslo, then standing on the pedals, you move your hands to the flat sections.  I experimented with repositioning the brake hoods slightly and yeh you can use those -- but it's not great.

Offroad tests included a short dirt jaunt followed by gravel -- rocks, really.  With the recent rains I didn't feel like tearing things up but it worked out okay and I have to say riding over a dirt path paved with fist sized peices of gravel gave me an idea of what those old-timey bike races must have faced dealing with cobbled roads.  Ouch.

Nevertheless, the rocks -- which had been put down on a trail through the woods so that power-line repair crews could get back there this past year -- were a great test of the bars as far as offroad handling was concerned.

What I learned was that over road surfaces, you have great control.  It would seem the other way around, mountain-bike type flat or riser bars would seem to be better, and for some things they might be -- I am not sure yet how I woudl lift up the front wheel the way I would with a flat or riser. 

However, for control in riding (if not jumping) terrain or obstacles you can't beat it.  This is true even if the bike itself -- being singlespeed -- was probably overgeared for offroad use (I had it at 42x18 , a 42 tooth front ring and a double sides rear wheel with an 16 cog on one side and an 18 on the other... I've since dropped it down to 34x16, but that seems too low.  Maybe a 36 or 39t chainring will be in it's future.  I have to find a gear that works offroad but still cruises on the street.  Right now the 34x16 is okay for around town but to get up tp 20mph I have to spin like mighty mouse and it is not enjoyable.  Or I may leave it... we'll see)

The moustache bar does indeed work offroad.  For those who want to try something completely different, give it a try.