Best Night Ride

It's no secret that I like riding at night. There is no one else on the trails, you can see more and varied wildlife, and it adds a whole new element to familiar trails.

The downside is that my night riding is usually limited to local trails; it's hard to convince the wife that I need to drive 3 hours for a night ride.

Sometimes, though, the stars align and I find myself proximal to an epic trail with my lights. Hmmm... what to do when the camp goes to bed. RIDE OF COURSE!

Such was the case last week when I ended up camping near the McKenzie River Trail--and by "near", I mean "right on top of"--right where the trail goes from technical to non-technical, with nearly all of the usual suspects that join me on the local night rides. For those of you who haven't ridden the trail, it should be on your must-ride-before-you-die list. It's 26 miles long and is very nearly two different trails. The upper half has long sections of lava rock, has some steep-ish bits, and will make you crash if you have a lapse in concentration. The lower half if mostly flat with a few good rollers. It is mostly smooth with roots interspersed. On the upper half, you are generally picking your way carefully, with a few spots were you can open up and fly. On the lower half you are generally opening up and flying with a few spots were you need to pick your way. It rocks.

So what happens when you take an already epic, amazing trail and ride it at night? You get epic squared. Maybe cubed. I couldn't wipe the grin off my face for the entire ride.

Ok, that's not entirely true. When I had one of those aforementioned lapses in judgment and relaxed... only to have my bike stopped while I continued on without it. The trail--where I landed--removed the smile, but I had it back as soon as we were riding again.

If you haven't ever done a long ride, do one. If you have, but not at night, get out there after dark. But remember, battery power at night, particularly on a trail where there is no good bail point should something go awry, is akin to water in the desert. You can never have too much. As we found out, it might be a good idea to even carry a spare light. Something small and versatile, that can be helmet or handlebar mounted, just in case. T. was using an older HID which, for some reason, decided that this was the perfect time to lose its ballast. This eliminated his bar light, and some battery issues with his helmet light required musical chairs with batteries among the other riders. The irony was that he had a spare light back at camp, and I had a spare battery back at camp. So, use our mistakes as your lesson. Bring way more light than you think you'll need. Just in case.

Riding very good excellent trails at night is another way to see them in a completely different light. Next up, the North Umpqua Trail. In sections, please.

It turns out the best rides also make the best night rides.

Long Ride, No Preparation

Last Friday I rode what has become an annual tradition: The C2Sea. This would be the fourth time I've ridden this route, and the third official C2Sea ride. Last year, I wasn't able to ride the whole thing because of a mechanical early on. The year before, I rode it on my 'cross bike (see HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE; this is the most detailed information about the route I've posted.) This year, I barely got my bike sorted before we left. I wasn't sorted at all.

Because of school, home repairs, etc., I am not in the sort of shape I usually am this time of year. I've been riding, but not the big miles needed to get ready for a ride of this magnitude. I was close to not even attempting the ride, but decided I could struggle through it. Besides, T. was taking his mountain tandem and had his 5 year old on the back for the first half. At the midway point he was exchanging kids for his 8 year old. I mean, if they could do it, I should be able to. Right?

Here's what I found out and thought about during the ride:

• It's a very good thing that I've spent so much time on the bike over the years. I was able to adjust my pace as needed and read my aches and pains to minimize my suffering.
• I suffered.
• I can suffer and still enjoy the scenery, to a point.
• There is no substitution for real training for long rides.
• I hurt much worse the next day.
• When I am tired and struggling to hang with the group, I don't take any pictures.
• Full suspension is very nice when you are tired.
  
• Swapping tires to lightweight ones doesn't matter a whole lot when you then strap 4 pounds of water to the bike.
• I really, really like eLoad. It has replaced Cytomax as my go-to energy drink. I could drink this stuff all day long. Really.
• Chamois creme makes all the difference. But it still feels weird when I first apply it.
• I normally don't eat right before riding, I should have stuck to that for this one, too.
• Apple Pie Clif Shot doesn't taste like apple pie.
• You can never be prepared enough for flats.
  

About the flats: I had one early one, even though I was running Stan's goop. I lost pressure, but the goop did its best. As near as I can tell, I ran down a blackberry bush length-wise, since I had 3 or 4 spots where the sealant was coming out along the tread. The bad one, though, was the puncture in the sidewall--ironically located dead center on the "tubeless" symbol. I had a can of Hutchinson sealant/inflater and used that as well. Since it was an expanding foam, it did a slightly better job of getting that sidewall puncture. However, it continued to leak down. Only when we met up with T.'s wife to do the kid swap was I able to take care of it. T. had placed a floor pump in the van, so with that I inflated my tire to a little over 50psi, forcing the sealant out that sidewall hole and sealing it. Without that, I think I would have struggled with the slow leak all day.

I was not the only flat. We had a total of 10 flats out of 12 bikes. Most of those were near the end of the ride, as well. It actually became comical, since we'd ride for 20 minutes then stop for 20 to fix a flat.

Overall, this was the biggest group we've had on this ride. It was great fun, and next year, I'm training.

Seriously.

WBR 09 - Report

A couple of Saturdays ago, I helped support some running friends of mine while they raced in the Wasatch Back Relay (a 188 mile relay race-- see here: http://www.ragnarrelay.com/wasatchback/index.php). My job was to ride my bike through the night, providing water (or other energy drinks), lights and a way for the rest of the team to rest. Basically, those who aren't running are supporting the guy who happens to be out doing that particular leg of the relay. By riding through the night, I allow them to get some much-needed sleep.

About the ride

I started around 2:30am (someone else took the first half of the night) and finished around 7:30am. I covered about 35 miles. I rode my hardtail mountain bike (I didn't think my road bike had low-enough gearing) with flat pedals, Ergon grips (http://acidinmylegs.blogspot.com/2009/06/bar-ends.html) and plenty of lights. I rode slowly. One might even call it a running pace. (Though, to be sure, I don't think I could have run at that pace. I'm no runner.)

Observations

It hurts more to sit on a saddle when you aren't pedaling, or are pedaling slowly.

While I had plenty of time to look around, it was dark. Even once the sun came up, I'd rather not have that much time to look around.

Runners run on the wrong side of the road-facing traffic. We were on old country-roads where the only other people on the road were others supporting or participating in this race, so it wasn't so bad, but I really don't like riding against traffic. Makes me feel like a salmon.

When riding that slowly, grips make a big difference (http://acidinmylegs.blogspot.com/2009/06/bar-ends.html), but shoes do not. I wore some comfortable shoes and didn't miss the stiff soles of my normal riding shoes.

I got surprisingly hungry, but not really thirsty over the ~5 hours I rode.

It's much harder than you'd think to sit on the bike and go slow. Trust me.

Bar-ends

(photo courtesy of www.diaryofamountainbiker.com)

Just like riding a bike, you can't forget some things.

I stopped using bar-ends a number of years ago. It happened like this: When I started riding mountain bikes, flat bars (with as little bend as possible--3 degrees was about as small as you could find) on fully rigid bikes with short chain stays (for climbing) was the thing. Somewhere along the way, someone decided that if they invented bar-ends and attached them to the end of these flat bars, we'd all be a lot better off. Of course, standing up and pedaling was no big deal back then. No one worried about "bob" or other suspension-related drawbacks.

Um, do I sound old?

Anyway. Bar-ends. Right. So someone invented them and we all got excited over them and the manufacturers jumped on board to make a few extra bucks and before we knew it, everyone used them. Then, for some reason I can't quite pin down, flat bars were no longer the thing. (Actually, before flat bars were the thing, riser bars were it. Yes, full circle.) I don't know if a bunch of road cyclists started to cross the great divide and ride mountain bikes or not, but I do know that everyone suddenly realized that with riser bars, big suspension and the trend to all things "hard core", everyone realized that bar-ends didn't look cool. Or something.

Thus, with the inexplicable rise of, um, riser bars, came the almost total demise of the bar-end. Not really gone, but certainly neglected and hardly used. I, myself, being not quite as much of a retro-grouch as this post might imply haven't had riser bars on my bike for a number of years.

But, in anticipation of a long (in time, not distance), slow ride, I decided to borrow from James some Ergon GR2 grips--with integrated bar-ends. I knew that hours in the saddle without hardly any effort would lead to numb hands and wrists. I really like the Ergons. They perform exactly as designed. They're comfortable and really help prevent any sort of wrist issues that come from bad positioning--something hard to avoid if you're exerting almost no effort throughout a monotonous 5-hour ride.

What surprised me about having the Ergons on my mountain bike wasn't the comfort of the grips, though, (that is one of those unobtrusive benefits) it was how quickly I went back to using bar-ends. I didn't even have to think about them. It was natural enough for me to switch to them when climbing or standing up out-of-the-saddle.

They're off again now (my slow ride is over), but not because of how they looked (not entirely, anyway). No, the main thing I didn't like about them was how it made my handlebars (and grips) virtually more narrow because of the bar-ends. I'm used to having my hand right at the end of the bar, and I almost felt cramped to have that bar-end snuggling up next to my pinky finger.

New Beam Shots

It's been a while since I posted some beam shots and, frankly, I've been meaning to get to these for some time. I can tell you this, though, in the winter, fog is a problem. Now, in the summer, it turns out that bugs are an issue. Long exposure times lead to some interesting patterns. If only I could train a bug to spell out something...

I've been using the SlickRock 900 off and on (swapping it with various LEDs) for the last few months--more than expected to, before getting beam shots up, to be honest--and it's about time I let you see what its beam was like. Without the bug effects.

NiteRider claims 900 lumens for this bad boy, and certainly punches a hole in the dark. How does it look compared to the LED lights that claim similar outputs? I rounded up the DiNotte 800L, Lupine Wilma and, just for fun, the Lupine Tesla. The SlickRock uses a reflector and of these 3 LED lights, only the Tesla has a reflector. I thought it would be interesting to see how the stack up. For reference, the claimed lumes are 920, 800 and 700 for the Wilma, 800L and Tesla, respectively.

First up, the Wilma:


Quick aside: My usual tripod arrangement was out of commision, so I was using a tripod that did not allow my to elevate my camera as high as I would normally. This necessitated my moving the camera to get the best picture, rather than leave the camera in one place, as I've done in the past. The camera settings were the same throughout the shoot, as was the position of the lights themselves.

Next up, the 800L:

Finally, the Tesla:

The biggest difference between the HID and the LED lights was in the beam patterns. The LEDs show a nice smooth even light. The HID has a very bright center, then a dark ring, followed by the peripheral lighting.

The amount of SlickRock seems to be brighter than any of the LEDs and has more light up close than either the 800L or the Wilma--both of which have very similar beam patterns, a nice broad swath of light without a focused hot spot.

The Tesla has a very similar, albeit cleaner, beam pattern to the SlickRock. I think that this highlights the differences between the normal LED optics and reflectors.

Casting Stones

This Spring has not been kind to me. I mean, it isn't even Spring anymore. Somehow it's already Summer. And I'm not in any kind of shape yet. I gained weight--somewhat inexplicably, I might add--sometime around the end of December, and haven't been able to lose it.

Though I've tried to get going and get in shape. Nothing seemed to work.

Last week I think I found the culprit. (And I'm relieved to find out it wasn't due to my own laziness and over-eating. That would've been even harder to solve.)

Wednesday, I was crippled with the worst pain I ever felt. Completely knocked me flat. Only hardcore meds distributed via IV helped me through the pain. I was diagnosed with a kidney stone 4mm x 9mm large. So large in fact, that it was too big to pass. HUGE, I tell you. Though I was out for the procedure, it went well and I got to feel every minute of the recovery.

Today, I think I'm finally past most of the pain and discomfort. I'm almost back to normal. I'm ready to get out and ride again.

Without the added weight (and pain!) of that rock, I figure I'm probably already in top shape again, too.

12 Years Old

The other night I was riding on the trails near my house. I ride there often and it feels like I know every root, rock, turn and climb. They aren't technical trails, but they are close by, enabling me to ride off road as easily as I can ride on the road.

In the winter I'm usually on my 'cross bike. When I want to get a good work out, I lean towards riding my road bike. When I want to have fun, though--to play if you will--I ride my moutain bike.

So, getting back to the other night...

We rode up a gravel road to a ridge and then came down Water Bar trail. We then hit the trail pictured at the right.

I was having an inordinate amount of fun. I found myself launching off of any and every bump in the trail (launching = 1 to 3 inches of air), swooping in the corners, and very nearly laughing out loud and the joy of being on my mountain bike. Does this happen to anyone else? I seriously felt like I was 12 years old without a care in the world. I was on my bike and that was all that mattered at that point. I was jumping and grinning ear from ear.

That's why mountain biking is better than road biking. I never, ever feel 12 on my road bike. Dont' get me wrong, I have fun on my road bike, and I enjoy riding it, but it never feels like playing. Nearly every time I'm on my mountain bike, though, at some point in the ride, I get to jump. I get to wheelie. I get to do the things I did on my bmx bike as a kid.

Tonight there is another night ride scheduled. I'll be riding on some singletrack that is new to me. And it's local. I'm going to have fun... I'm going to play and I'm going to be 12 years old again.

Mountain Biking and Real Cyclists

We here at LAT are addicted to gear. You might not have noticed this, but, nevertheless, it's true. We frequent Backcountry.com's one-deal-at-a-time sites (Steep and Cheap, Chainlove and Bonktown) often, and find ourselves hitting "refresh" to see what else is coming. With that in mind, we were pleased to find out that two new bike-only sites have just been launched by these fine folks: 

HucknRoll.com 

RealCyclist.com

HucknRoll is their mountain bike stuff, and RealCyclist handles the road side of things. That said, I'm not sure why they don't think mountain bikers are real cyclists, but there you have it. Check 'em out, they are good people.

Switching gears a little (pun intended), Cyclingnews.com has a nice look at the new XX line from SRAM, their first mountain group that is all SRAM branded. James Huang takes a gander at it and it looks like there are a few intriguing new features... and some interesting omissions.

First up, it'll be 10 speed. And not compatable with the current shifters or derailleurs. Second, the cassette will have a 36 tooth option, and will be made much like their road group Red's PowerDome cassette. In other words, it'll cost you. A lot.

Finally, the omission that I was expecting was a single lever shifter, something akin to their road groups shifter. They have made a flat bar version, but I guess non-real cyclists--AKA mountain bikers--want both levers. Check out the article, the stuff does look sweet.

100 Miles of Nowhere Report: Inside

As it happens, I actually didn't do much riding outside. That was just the fun part. (As it turns out, though, the side of roads aren't level. At all. Now, I'm pretty inept at riding on the rollers in my mostly-level basement. But when there's a slope for water run-off built into the road, it actually gets a bit sketchy.)


Most of my riding was done indoors with my children running to fill up water-bottles for me and Star Wars on the TV. I might have preferred something else, but my choices are limited with small children watching on.


Luckily, my wife was ready with camera in hand to chronicle the part where I wasn't enjoying myself.


Mile 63. Almost 2/3 done. I actually felt pretty good at this point.



As many other participants have observed, this was hard. I actually cheated, in my mind, because I rode 100 "miles" in 3:36:20, which is much, MUCH faster than I could ever do on the road. My sympathy for those who rode it in 6-8 hours. I think I would have died.

100 miles
3:36:20
27.7mph avg

100 Miles of Nowhere Report

On Saturday, I rode the 100 Miles of Nowhere. It sucked. A lot.

Actually, part of it was fun, but mostly because I decided if I was going to do 100 miles on my rollers, I wasn't going to be cooped up inside my small house. Heck, the weather was perfect riding weather--not too warm, overcast--so I wanted to get out and enjoy it.

And so I did.

Here I am, doing one of my favorite climbs, Squaw Peak Rd.


Only 3 more miles of twisty road until I'm at the top!


I also decided to head up Provo Canyon a little more to take in the sights.


I am only posting this picture because it makes my calf muscles look large and well-defined.


And what ride in Utah County would be complete without a ride along the peaceful shores of Utah Lake.


Even if I wasn't getting anywhere, I was determined to avoid staying in one spot. I'll post more information and photos in a couple of days.

An Observation and A Thought

A thought:

The other night as I was laying in bed, unable to sleep, I was thinking about a trail near my home. This trail is rather steep and has pretty severe water bars--we refer to this trail as "Water Bar", though recently the forest managers decided to call it "Bonzi". Since they misspelled Bonsai, we still refer to the trail as Water Bar. But I digress.

As I mentioned, the trail is relatively steep, and straight and--except for the water bars--flat. This makes it fast, as you can well imagine. So there I was thinking about the trail and wondering, "how far do I travel in the air at each water bar? Now, I know that I can hit between 27 and 29 mph on the trail on a regular basis. I know that I slow a little for the water bars. So, I grabbed my calculator from off the night stand--what, you don't keep a calculator on your night stand?--and did a little math assuming that my launch speed was 25 mph.

So, assuming that I was in the air a single second, I would have traveled just shy of 37 ft. That seemed like a really, really long way to me. So I did it again, using a jump speed of 20 mph. This time I the answer was just shy of 30 ft. Still a long way. And with that thought drifted off to sleep. The next day I headed up to the trail and, since I don't have a computer on my mountain bike any longer, thought I'd determine my air-time using the age-old method of 1-mississippi, 2-mississippi, etc. What I found was that I was landing right at the 2 of 2-mississippi. So, I was in the air, about 1 second. Now, there are some flaws with my reasoning, but I think that the errors cancel each other and the horizontal velocity is sufficient.

An observation:

As I've stated, I use my GPS these days to record my rides. Recently I went on a long solo ride that had, according to the GPS, 4000ft of climbing. Not bad for 18.6 miles. I was mentioning this to T. since is familiar with the route and he expressed doubt in the veracity of the total climbing. Huh. So I went back and looked at the data. The program I use allows me to upload my rides and it will overlay the route with a topographic map to give two profiles: one from the GPS, and one from the topo.

As you can see, there aren't any really big elevation discrepancies. Sure, you can see where, while descending, the GPS didn't have a good fix--on the top graph is looks like a flat line, then a quick drop, while on the topo (bottom) graph, the slope is more realistic--so I dismissed T. as a naysayer and stuck to my 4000ft of climbing, thankyouverymuch.

Then it happened again.

On group ride I proudly announced that we had done something like 1600ft of climbing. E. said, "no way". Huh. Now, I was thinking about this. Could it be that the mighty GPS is off? I've checked the speed part and it is dead on. The mileage matches up, too. But could the vertical be off?

I then recalled that the better GPS's use a barometer for elevation. My watch has this feature, so on my next ride I thought I'd use them both and see how far off they were. I expected them to be within 200ft of each other.

I was wrong. Way wrong.

My GPS logged 4500ft of climbing, while the watch--with its more accurate barometer based elevation measurement--showed only 3500ft of climbing. That's 1000ft or nearly 25% error! And it's not consistent, either. It all depends on how well the GPS is receiving the satellite signals, so under tree cover it's worse, naturally.

Long story short, you can't trust the elevation of the GPS using satellites alone. Now, if you are out in the open, and stationary, I think that the GPS does a fine job of absolute elevation. My watch has to be reset nearly every day if I want accurate absolute elevation, due to fluctuations in weather. Both technologies have their place, and neither is perfect. But for accurate total elevation gain/loss, use a barometer.

I guess my solo ride didn't quite have 4000ft of climbing.

Update on the gps...

Last night on our ride my barometric elevation (watch) and GPS elevation were within 200ft of each other. To make matters worse, C. claims that the GPS elevation more closely matches that of his computer topo maps. Frankly, at this point I don't have any conclusions. If I were looking for government funds, I'd end this post with "more research is required to come to a conclusion." Anyone want to fund me?

To Crash Out

When I wreck on my mtn. bike, it's often dramatic. At least, the bad ones are. I love to tell and retell the stories as if I'm some sort of war hero describing the cost of victory. (Remind me to tell you about the missing cleat-bolt one--it's a goody.) When I wreck on a road bike (which is pretty rare), I'm usually doing something crazy like taking a corner too fast.

When I wreck on my rollers, it's just plain embarrassing.

And yet, embarrassing stories make good stories with the added benefit of leaving everyone else feeling better about themselves. This is that kind of story.

The Set Up
I ride on rollers, and my rollers have a small resistance unit. I've never disabled the resistance unit. I figure if I'm on the rollers, I want to get the best work-out in the shortest period of time. I've also signed up for to do a 100-mile ride on my rollers on Saturday. Normally, this time of year, I'd be outside full-time with my Hometrainer tires safely packed away until the winter. In order to build up my rollers-resistance, though, I've been riding the rollers more and more.

I realized, the other day, that if I'm going for distance, I needed to ratchet up my average speed on the rollers. I took off the resistance unit. As it turns out, without the increase in wind resistance that comes logarithmically with the increase of speed, I can speed up on my rollers without any perceptible increase in effort. Maintaining 27-30mph outside is hard. On the rollers, it means just shifting into the big ring. Those poor rollers sound like they're going to explode at that speed, though.

Crash 1. Ride time: 00:00:00
It was early this morning, before the house was awake, and I decided on a whim to try starting on the rollers without using a wall or some other solid object to balance myself until I got going. It turns out, this is harder to do than I thought it would be. I made it about 1/2 of a pedal stroke before I lost balance and fell. It's unfortunate that I'm another 6-8 inches above the ground when I'm on the rollers.

Luckily, I ride in a room that has become our "storage" room, so I didn't fall far before a metal filing cabinet "broke" my fall. Ouch.

Crash 2: Ride time: 00:04:37
With a minor bruise on my leg and only a minor bruise to my ego (everyone was still asleep and none-the-wiser), I was riding again and "cruising along" at around "26mph". [He actually wasn't moving at all, of course, because he was on the rollers. - Ed.] For some reason, my balance got off and I started to lean towards the wall on my left side (opposite of the way I fell just five minutes earlier). Unfortunately, my bike really took off as the angle to the ground decreased and slid out from underneath me to my right. This might have been because of the speed. I'm not sure. All I know is I went down pretty hard.

Hard enough that I'm still in pain. Somehow, I crashed my bike indoors while going really fast nowhere. And I crashed hard enough that I pulled a muscle in my neck. I think I was trying to catch my fall with my head against a pile of boxes. (Storage room, remember?)

Lessons Learned?
I tried to get on, but the rollers won this time. After less than five-minute's work-out, I was done for the day. As I gingerly leaned my bike against the wall, I noticed my saddle was twisted as well.

Humbly, I walked upstairs to find the bottle of ibuprofen. 100 "miles" of this? It just might be my most damaging century yet.

A Superpower

I have a superpower. Actually, I have a few, but there's one in particular that I got to exercise today. At my day job (sitting at a desk, working on a computer while ignoring people on conference calls), I can get free lunch. (There's no such thing as free lunch! There, I said it.) Of course, what makes this power so nice, is that I usually get it for my whole team.

Take today, for instance. It's about 12:30pm and a friend of mine (who is also on the same team) was trying to talk me into going out to lunch. I love going out to lunch, but I brought a gigantic bowl of left-over stroganoff from home I was already salivating for. I mean, if someone were to pay my way, it'd be a different story, but I'm not spending money if I have an excellent meal waiting for me. (Thanks wife!)

Just then, I see my boss walk by with his boss and one of them says, "Who's driving?"

Instantly, my superpower kicks in and without knowing why I say to my boss, "Hey, aren't you taking the team to lunch today?" His boss says, "Yeah, c'mon. Let's all go!"

My co-workers love me.

On the other hand, I don't seem to have the superpower to get my diet going again so I can wear lycra with confidence again. Two words: pizza, breadsticks.

Aging

There are days when I feel old. It happens when I just can't remember where I placed that roll of electrician's tape I was using. Or when I set down a tool I know I'll need in a place that will be obvious--only to find that it wasn't obvious and I can't find the tool. I feel old when I can't seem to get my weight down to my pre-Christmas holiday weight.

Today, a friend turned 34 years old. He rides bikes, like I do, but also does other things... like running and swimming--sometimes in the same race! Being the benevolent friend that I am, though, I try and look past those faults and just try and get him on his bike as often as possible.

But today, to celebrate his birthday, we decided to go for a ride. Ideally, we wanted to do 34 miles, but since neither of us are very fast, and it was meant to be just a lunch-time activity, we decided to stick to 34 kilometers (~21.13 miles).

The weather today was cooler and much, MUCH more windy than it has been lately, but we were sticking it to old age! We weren't about to crawl back to our desks! Off we went, into the wind. Well, actually, we first started at a nice fast pace with our BACKS to the wind. But, darn it, even at 34 we turned around at around 10.5 miles and came back the way we left.

The wind was stiff, but surprisingly enough, we kept up a fast pace and even managed to, with the help of a stoplight, reel in a couple of riders decked out in a local team kit.

How do you correctly pass another year of age? Riding, of course. Was there really any question? Today, I didn't feel old. Neither did my friend, I think. Happy birthday.

Bonus Friday Post: Bar Ends

There was a time, back in the heady '90's when the predominant style of mountain bike was the cross country race bike.  Most of the mountain bikes sold had short chain stays--the shorter the better!--and steep angles.  They climbed well, had fast handling but were twitchy on the descents.  Because racers would cross train on the road, and because there was little to no suspension to coushon the blows, they desired multiple hand positions.  Flat bars didn't quite cut it in that respect.  They also wanted another hand hold for climbing, to help move the weight forward and provide a good handle to pull against.

Thus the bar end was born.  

I love bar ends, and I can't live without them.  That being said, I know that many, MANY of you who once ran them, use them no longer.  Often I've wondered what has happened to the bar ends that are no longer loved.  Do they waste away in a drawer somewhere?  Are they used for cupboard handles?  Have they been retrofited to be used a door handle?  

It turns out that the answer is none of these--though the door handle idea is a pretty good one.

It turns out that they are collected and used to make bike antlers.

Clearly the owner of this bike needs more hand positions than he/she would normally have available, and he/she might just need to use his/her bike to fend off any would be attackers.  Finally, however, we see where the unused, unloved, unneeded bar ends end up.

And the unused wheel skirts, too: