The Hudski Longhorn handlebar is an aluminum handlebar offered in three backsweep options: 10º, 16º, and 27º. They’re 790mm wide with 50mm of rise and 4º of upsweep. Interested in trying a bar with a bit more sweep than my go-to bars, I ordered a set of the 16º bars to see how much backsweep is “too much” for technical trail riding.
Specifications
- Width: 790mm
- Height: 70mm
- Rise: 50mm
- Backsweep: 16º
- Upsweep: 4º
- Bar Clamp: 31.8mm
- Material: 6061 T6
- MSRP: $79
About Hudski
Prior to ordering the Longhorn bar, I wasn’t very familiar with the Hudski brand. Looking them up, I found they are a small company of flatbar adventure bike specialists based in the North Bay Area and became intrigued. as I’m also in the flat bar+dropper post for gravel adventures camp. Hudski developed the Longhorn bar to pair with their category-defying alloy rigid bike called the Doggler. The Doggler is offered in a city, gravel, and mountain build, that changes up the tire, wheel size and handlebar for each specification. In one of their blog posts, they refer to it as an ATB or “all-terrain” bike, and I love that they’re trying to bring that term back.
Out of the Box
The box the Longhorn bars came in was pretty cool, with hand drawn illustrations printed all over it. Considering how minimal the graphics on the bars are, its a great first impression. I would have liked to seen a bit more of this attention to detail on the bars, as the center clamping lack the printed marks many bars come with that assist with centering them and setup. They do have printed marks in the grip area to facilitate cutting the bars down though, should you want to shorten them.
On the website, the handlebars remarkably light on descriptive copy aside from the listed specs and a basic engineering drawing. Clearly, these fellas are more riders than marketers, as I found. I didn’t see any listed weights so I made sure to remember to weight it before installation. According to my scale, it came in at 350 grams.
First Rides
I initially installed the Hudski bars on my Binary Maniak Ti hardtail mountain bike, which is currently my favorite ATB for exploring the unbeaten path and solo adventures. (I currently have four hardtails built up not counting my dirt jump bikes) If I’m not meeting up with friends to hit the trails, sometimes I just want to get on my bike and ride. This bike is ideal for days when I don’t know where I’m heading or where I might end up. Sometimes I point to a hill in the distance and just start riding. Sometimes I’ll just aim for hitting the short single track bits at the local park. Otherwise, pavement, dirt, gravel… my goal is generally to end up in the hills and find a new patch of dirt to ride my tires on.
My first impressions were filled with mixed feelings. I had set the bars almost vertically as I liked the look of the sweep at this angle. I typically run the bars closer to the angle of the headtube, so the aesthetic threw me off a bit. However, it felt ok on the bike so I kept it this way for the first few rides.
On long stretches of pedaling the 16º of sweep felt good in a seated position. Standing felt ok as well. It felt a bit off when pulling the bars to lift the front wheel or bunny hop the bike up curbs, but other than the feeling of things feeling slightly off, it didn’t impair my ability to control the bike for technical riding.
On the trail
The biggest test for the bars came over the Thanksgiving holiday, when I decided to pack my hardtail over a full suspension trail or eMTB for a trip to the Oregon coast. I figured I might not get out, so the hardtail was easier to pack. Ironically, after stopping of at Bike Envy, a bikeshop owned by my friend Ed Jones near Astoria, I found the local gang was doing a early morning Turkey ride. The catch: most of the crew were going to be on eMTBs, and dual suspension bikes.
I usually ride my hardtail on hardtail rides or less technical trails as the lack of rear suspension makes less exciting trails more fun. However, in the loamy and rooty coastal soil, I didn’t find the lack of rear suspension – or a motor – to hold me back. If anything, riding my lightweight hardtail gave me the sensation of climbing super powers, and just made descending over the roots a bit more interesting. Though I went around features like small drops and jumps initially, by the end of the ride, I felt comfortable enough just spotting the trail to high most of the trail features. And though I was still acclimating to the “off” feel of the increased sweep, I didn’t feel the bars held me back from riding. My previous bars had about 30mm of rise and the additional height helped a bit with the confidence. I also didn’t feel it held me back on the technical climbs either despite the ride height and decrease in the reach.
After the Thanksgiving ride test, I tried tilting the bars back a bit to try them. However, while the look of the bars was more inline with what I was used to, I didn’t like the feel as much. The upsweep didn’t feel as good, and I ended up moving them back to how I had them.
So how did I like 16º of backsweep?
I felt that there was a lot to like about the Hudski bars. I liked the amount of space in the middle of the bar for mounting accessories, which would make this a great option for night riding or bike packing. Or bike packing with night riding. For $80, the Hudski bars are a reasonably priced option, and you get to support a smaller brand.
I had a hard time finding that “just right” angle though. I felt like I still could ride aggressively with the increase in the sweep, but I’m not sure it’s for me – at least on my go-to “adventure” hardtail. While we all have our own preferences, I was pleased to find that 16º didn’t feel like “too much” for “real” mountain biking. I’ve run bars with more sweep and didn’t care for them for riding trails, but felt the Longhorns to be trail-worthy. That said, they never felt truly “normal” to me.
I’ve since migrated the bars to my rigid steel Wolfhound bike that’s set up more for urban riding and cruising to log more time on them. That frame has a tall front end though, and the 70mm rise is a bit tall. I’m still debating what I think.
I’ve since moved on to testing a new handlebar with 12º of sweep. I’ll cross-link the articles once the second piece is live, including comparisons.
More on Hudski bikes: HudskiBikes.com