Ride Report
First things first. Cole, yes, using the shims for rise, since the bars were 3mm shorter than my MSR Freestyle bend bars. It feels really close. I had to do some fiddling before actually hitting the trail because the brake levers didn't rotate as far down as I liked without hitting the bumpers. Then I had to reroute the throttle cable because everything fits differently. It's okay now, just didn't start the bike and do the lock to lock test after installation.
Now for the ride report:
A snowy, nasty day at Shotgun Creek, my local riding area. The temperature was in the 30's, so not so bad, just snow. It was light enough, and yet no ice. Good training conditions. A good test of the bars too. With snow on the ground, you can't see some of the junk you are about to hit, so I had a few hard hits that made me take notice. Which brings me to a thought. I didn't notice the bars at all. That is a good thing. I don't feel them squishing around. You are right Cole, I didn't like the feeling of Bob's bike when I stood on it and felt the yellow elastomers flex. The red elastomer feels very much like a rigid bar with the shims installed, but they certainly do work when needed. There is a downhill road with big water diversions on it that you can launch off of. One of them has a flat landing that always completely bottoms my suspension, and is a fairly harsh landing. At this point and elevation level there was no snow, so I launched it. The bike flat landed and the forks clanked. I felt the landing in the bars as they compressed. I certainly felt the benefits of the bars on that jump. I also felt the benefits when hitting some log crossings and rock sections as well.
The yellow elastomers might get a try, but for now, I like the red.
I rebuilt them myself and love them. I called and spoke to Cole about several issues/concerns and he is top notch.
