Besides this, I felt the reach was a hair too long, but I suppose one might be able to adjust for that with stem length. It isn't a deal killer, but in conjunction with how that corner also slopes downward to the brake hoods, it makes for a difficult to love position for cruising on the tops/hoods. I'm not a big fan of the Cinnelli-like "rounded" section from the tops to the ramps, but a lot of people dig that sort of classically inspired bar shape. The long extensions could certainly be trimmed back, but the tops, despite being narrow, are nice. okay? It was far better than anything else I had been able to try it on, so I thought I'd give it a go, despite its deep drop.įrom the top the Gator Bar looks somewhat inviting. Finally, I tried them on the resurrected Karate Monkey I have and the fit was.hmm. Every time I thought I could use it, I found that the extensions would end up so low that they would be unusable. In fact, I have had this bar for over a year now sitting in the Lab, waiting for a suitable bike/set up to try it on. My initial reaction to the bar was that it had too deep of a drop. The Gator Bar has narrow tops, a lot of flare, and a deep drop. Parallel to the ground as with road bars)
These types of bars, you want to angle the drops down, not have them
(Reach and drop is relative to the angle you install these bars at. Drops are 190mm long and have an OD of 22.2 Width: 505mm at front of drops, center-to-center Size/Width: 655mm at ends, center-to-center Here's a short bullet list from Soma's site on the features of this bar: What that means is that you could mount brakes and shifters right off your mountain bike to the longish extensions, as Soma made the diameter of this part of the bar 22.2mm. And just what are those, you may ask? Well, for starters, the extensions are mountain bike control compatible. The reality is that the Gator Bar stands alone with no known drop bars even coming close to its unique features. At first glance, it looks vaguely similar to a Salsa Cycles Woodchipper Bar, but the resemblance is only cursory. The Soma Gator Bar is definitely one of the oddest drop bars I am aware of. Sometimes that is frustrating to me, and in other cases, it makes a lot of sense. The bars are often times so out of the ordinary that, even though the design may be brilliant, the bars do not sell due to their massive departure from the norm of road racing bred drop bars. The "world" of off-road drop bars is a weird, strange one with freak show bars and bizarre stems joining together to make for an often "hit or miss" component selection for gravel and off road riders. The Soma Gator Bar as seen on my Karate Monkey
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