bike components ⁽²⁰⁾

At the end of 2019, my wife and I moved eastwards. Switzerland being as small as it is, it was a move across borders into a different canton. With the move, my bike territory changed. While we're once again living at the foot of the Jura mountains, now slightly elevated at 550m (1800ft), the flanks north of our house are considerably steeper than they were in my old mountain bike playground. They're too steep for my 44 Marauder single-speed, and I quickly discovered that my 44 Big Boy fat-bike was also not the ideal machine for my new trails. So, I sold it in the summer of 2020 and started making plans for a bike that would feel more at home in steep terrain. In May of 2021, I pulled the trigger on a Stooge MK5 and used the following months to purchase components for it.

The pandemic broke supply chains, slowed production, and threw global shipping into absolute chaos. Combine that with people discovering cycling because their gyms were closed since the start of the pandemic and you have a bike market that can’t fulfill the growing demand. Much has been reported about bikes quickly selling out, component shortages, and long lead times. People can’t get the bikes they would like or build them with the components they would love. Many custom builders can currently not build complete bikes. They happily build frames but have to tell their clients that they’re on their own to build them up.

Looking at the photos of all my road bikes since 1992, one very noticeable change is the handlebar, and in particular, the position of the hoods. On my early bikes, the hoods were extremely low on the bars. Thinking about wrist and arm alignment, particularly in that photo of my black Trek 5200, I wonder how it could have been comfortable. Well, I was a lot younger and rode just fine with that setup. The last couple of years, I’ve standardized my handlebar on all my drop bar bikes, and used a 44 cm wide Thomson KFC-One carbon handlebar. Before that, I ran 42 cm and even narrow 40 cm bars.

When you're the mean bastard who tortures his wrists on top of mountain bikes without suspension like I do, the least you can do is let your wrists hold onto the bars in the most natural way possible, so that they're not angled or twisted in any way. Alt bars with tons of sweep are the solution. I went from Answer bars with a 20° sweep to Jones with a 45° back sweep and my wrists have been happy ever since. Ritchey now has an alternative available with a bit less sweep. The Kyote with 27.5°. At the same time, the Kyote is considerably wider than a Jones H-Bar. 800mm versus 710mm. When I saw it on Bike24 and saw the price tag (25 EUR), I had to get one. Due to the different shapes, I also needed a new stem in order to use the Kyote. I went from a 100mm long stem with the Jones H-Bar to a 40mm stem for the Ritchey Kyote.

Designed on Sunday, November 11th, 2018, ordered the same Sunday, paid and made the following Monday, mailed on Tuesday, and arrived on Wednesday. If you ever need something done out of carbon plate, contact Rolf Meichtry at CNC-Modell.ch. He's not just quick; he does some…