Recently, I found myself riding my Advocate Hayduke (now Esker Hayduke) a lot more. It turns out that a plus hardtail with relaxed geometry is a nearly perfect bike to ride around the neighborhood with your kids as they learn to ride. The only catch? I didn’t find the standard 9º backsweep all that comfortable while sitting upright and noodling around town.
I don’t have a lot of experience with high-sweep bars as Ron is our resident Alt-bar expert, but I knew that Hudski has a few options. I liked the idea of trying the same bar with three different sweeps to figure out what I liked best.
The Hudski Longhorn is an alloy handlebar made from 6061 T6 aluminum that comes in three variations. Equipped as the standard bar on their Doggler ATB, the Longhorn 16 is right in the middle with a 16º backsweep. They also offer a Longhorn 10 and Longhorn 27 with 10º and 27º backsweeps respectively.
All three bars have the same 790mm width, 50mm rise, 4º upsweep, and 31.8mm clamp surface. That makes it so the backsweep is the only difference between the three – perfect for a backsweep shootout.
Right away I knew I would like the Longhorn 16 as that was the bar I rode on the Doggler. But how would the 10 and 27 fare?
For me, the 16º ended up being the Goldilocks setup. I found that the 10º wasn’t a big enough change from the 9º bar I was already riding, and the 27º bar felt like too much backsweep for my liking. The 16º bar is more comfortable for casual cruising, but it still feels confident if you want to ride more aggressively. I’m not about to switch all my bikes over to higher sweep, but for bikes like the Hayduke, it works.
One thing to note though – I found that I needed to increase my stem length by at least 10mm to keep my preferred positioning on the bike. I was after a bar that put my wrists in a more natural position, not a shorter reach. Some riders will welcome the more upright positioning that comes with bringing the grips back closer to your body though, so I’d recommend doing some experimentation with the bar and stem.
Overall, I’m very happy with the new hand position on the bike, and at $79.00 per bar, it’s a relatively inexpensive way to make a big change to your comfort. If you’ve ever been curious about high-sweep bars, the Hudski Longhorn seems like a good place to start.
