There are a lot of great bars and stems on the market that all do the same job. As long as you get the lengths and angles that you prefer, then how do you choose between what’s out there? On looks of course dummy! Saddles are more personal and I’ll come to that later.

I think this Chromag bar and stem are worth buying on looks alone. The chrome finish on the bars manages to be understated and flash at the same time. They’ve taken a couple of scrapes but are no worse for it than painted or anodised finished bars would be. The stem manages to combine a retro BMX like look with a minimal modern vibe. The Chromag logo and pin striping to one side looks distinctive and classy. What about performance though? Oh well, if you must….

The OSX bars are 780mm wide (even though it says 760mm on the Chromag website) and I’ve kept them uncut. I paid a price for this when I tried to bunny hop through a gap between a barrier and a tree. I’ve been happily hopping through here with 740mm and 760mm bars, but not the first time I went in with the Fubars. It fucking hurt me and hurt my companions with laughter. However I’ve had more advantages to running the wide bars than I’ve had inconvenience with narrow apertures. Enough said. They are classed as a DH bar and weight is a reasonable 310g. They have a 25mm rise, with 5º upsweep and 8º back sweep. These numbers are perfect for me, with a nice neutral hand position. They come in a load of other colours too including black chrome. Cost for the chrome finish set is RRP £89.99.

The Ranger stem is marketed as an all mountain product. I like the low stack height with zero rise that it has. I’m digging the way that all its edges are rounded to prevent nasty moments if you do a ‘love maker’ onto it. The one I’ve got is 70mm in length. Weight is around 170g, so no grief there and like the bars it comes in colours galore. Price is RRP £104.99. That’s actually quite a lot isn’t it? It does look bitchin’ though.

With a seamless leather cover, (yes leather baby!) titanium rails and a weight of just 240g I think we’re onto a winner with the Moon saddle too. Again it just looks so damn cool with the pin stripes and sexy slim profile. Performance is great with this one for sure. The rounded, falling away edges at the nose and back make it easy to move around on and get behind, without short snag-age. The rounded nose is also good for perching up on for awkward climbing moves. Wear seems to be pretty good so far. You can’t really say much about saddle comfort as we are all differently ‘bummed’. It works for me and I’ve done some long days out on this one. RRP is £91.99.

All in all a dandy cockpit and bumpit. ‘Pimp’ is such as nasty word with little class that I don’t want to sully this excellent kit with it. After all have you seen the cars those pimps drive?

 

Check more Chromag kit out here on the Shorelines, UK importers website.