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Maybe I am the only guy who didn't know this information I am about to share, but it's a revelation to me so please no flaming. There has been mucho discussion over the last few months regarding the proper set-up of dirt drop bars including the Midge in regards to bar height, stem length, rise, etc. with lots of pictures posted of individual set-ups.
One bit of set-up advice that I don't remember seeing was the angle of the hook/drop extension for optimal wrist/hand positioning while riding in the drops. Now I have seen a lot of set-up pictures and the angles of the drops vary almost as much as our individual gearing choices. For someone like me who was new to flared dirt drop bars, it made sense to me to have the bottom of the hook level (horizontal) with the ground, similiar to the way I have set up my road drop bars in the past. So I set up the Midge bars and rode a bit and riding in the drops was just OK in my opinion, but needless to say I was not that overly impressed.
Then I stumbled upon a little write-up of the Midge bar by Matt Chester on 63xc.com that included some history of flared drop bars along with some additional set-up advice. The advice was that the end of the hooks should be angled so they basically point toward the rear dropout which puts your hands/wrists in a very neutral position without experiencing flat spot pressure points on your hands when riding in the drops. Frickin revelation for me to say the least (Thanks Matt). I rotated my bars forward, jumped on the bike to bomb some fireroads near my house and the bars felt incredible. Climbing, descending, with the wrists in a neutral position makes all the difference. So for those of you who made the same mistake as me and set the bars up with the hooks level to the ground, rotate those bars forward, point the ends at your rear dropout and you will be very very happy indeed
Here's a link to the article for those interested:
http://www.63xc.com/mattc/midge.htm
One bit of set-up advice that I don't remember seeing was the angle of the hook/drop extension for optimal wrist/hand positioning while riding in the drops. Now I have seen a lot of set-up pictures and the angles of the drops vary almost as much as our individual gearing choices. For someone like me who was new to flared dirt drop bars, it made sense to me to have the bottom of the hook level (horizontal) with the ground, similiar to the way I have set up my road drop bars in the past. So I set up the Midge bars and rode a bit and riding in the drops was just OK in my opinion, but needless to say I was not that overly impressed.
Then I stumbled upon a little write-up of the Midge bar by Matt Chester on 63xc.com that included some history of flared drop bars along with some additional set-up advice. The advice was that the end of the hooks should be angled so they basically point toward the rear dropout which puts your hands/wrists in a very neutral position without experiencing flat spot pressure points on your hands when riding in the drops. Frickin revelation for me to say the least (Thanks Matt). I rotated my bars forward, jumped on the bike to bomb some fireroads near my house and the bars felt incredible. Climbing, descending, with the wrists in a neutral position makes all the difference. So for those of you who made the same mistake as me and set the bars up with the hooks level to the ground, rotate those bars forward, point the ends at your rear dropout and you will be very very happy indeed
Here's a link to the article for those interested:
http://www.63xc.com/mattc/midge.htm
