1st Re-Review

     It's been really rainy here in Michigan and that means lower temperatures to go along with being wet.   I thought I might take a little time inside during the next few days to have a second look at some of the products I have used throughout this year.  A lot of people like to test and review products but it's not very often that they provide their opinions after months of use.
   First are a few things I used on Byron, my beloved mixte and daily city steed.  I had originally chosen the Nitto Albatross bars and mounted them inverted, which provided a low swooping mustache type of bar.

My reason for this was to provide a more comfortable hand position when using the forward curve as a semi-aero position.  This allowed me to have my hand turned outward with my pinkies lower than my index fingers, a more natural position to my thinking.

I found I was wrong.  I rarely used that position around town and because of the drop in the bar I had to raise the stem to get a comfortable position level with the saddle.  
   I recently changed that and am a lot more comfortable with the result.  I was able to take advantage of the rise, lower the stem considerably and the result was a much better upright position.   The handlebars looked a lot pettier, I could raise the bell and,with the stem lowered, I actually increased the reach to the front bar position providing a much better quasi-aero position.

 Even though my hands are turned the opposite direction, it hasn't bothered me because I rarely use that position on the bars, and not for long when I do (city riding you know). You might also notice I did not reinstall the leather grips I had used.  Initially it was for convenience(I simply didn't want to restitch them for the experiment) but now I found the cork wrap to be much more comfortable and will probably continue with that or buy some cork grips to replace the leather.

   One other item in this installation is the little Blackburn light I had installed on the handlebars.  As I noted at the time, I don't need a great light on this bike because the summer days are really, really long here and city streets are well lit to begin with.  It does a good job of making me "legal" (by the lax American standards) and the flashing feature makes the bike very visible-when the batteries are strong.  I find myself accidentally bumping into the lens and leaving it on in the daylight.  Of course that creates the problem involved in battery lights, the batteries are weak when you need the light, and those darned cr2032 batteries are expensive.  I'm not going to get rid of it but I turn it towards me when not in use, so I will notice when I accidentally turn it on.  If a reliable light is necessary I will always opt for a dyno powered version, I  guess I'm too clumsy to make a battery powered light reliable.