We Put a Light Bar on Moné Bike’s Light Bar So You Don’t Have To: A Review – Spencer Harding | The Radavist | A group of individuals who share a love of cycling and the outdoors.

The enigmatic folks behind Moné Bikes invested “new Honda Civic” money into the fabrication of their carbon riser bar. It was a gamble, but the results are impressive. Spencer Harding has become addicted to upsweep angles and while steel risers may work in many cases, sometimes you need to shave some grams. Read on for some silly memes, useless light bar mods, and a hot take on the handlebar bend you didn’t know you needed.

Before things go off the rails, the light bar in the photo is just a gimmicky headlamp I zip-tied to the crossbar of the Moné Light Bar. It’s a joke. a light bar on a light bar…The light was basically useless as a bike light, don’t bother.

Let’s start with some numbers for ya. The Light Bar is 825mm wide, with a 2.5″ rise, 12 degrees of back sweep, and (most importantly) 5 degrees of upsweep. While handlebar width has been creeping over 800mm recently, much to many rolled eyes, I would say this bar is the narrowest I’d prefer to ride anymore. Don’t scoff about hitting trees—I live in the desert, try punching a cactus. If you did scoff at that width, rest easy, you can trim these down to 665mm if you really want to. The 12-degree sweep is a lovely sweet spot between an overly straight XC bar and a more touring-focused swept-back bar. The sweep keeps wrists happy with the bar width without compromising your bike’s reach. After spending a month riding across Spain on Moné’s other MRB Bar I found myself having trouble riding bars without any upsweep. When I swap back to a flat bar it feels like I’m riding turned-down risers. All of these impressive measurements come in at a scant 285-gram package that passed DH testing, much wow.

The Light Bar takes a bit more effort to dial-in due to the upsweep which can still be set up to be flat if you rotate them back in the stem. They offer some great adjustability in that regard. I’ve tried to show the amount of upsweep in the photos here aligning the stem as close as I could perpendicular to the ground. Dial it in as you’d like, but I’m sold on upsweep.

While Cjell’s signature OddMoné Bar has been a mainstay in the riser bar world for a while now, some people may be turned off by the weight of steel bars. I’m not much of a weight weenie, but the thought of adding a few pounds to my already hefty Ibis Ripley AF didn’t sound super appealing. I also had a fork that I’d purchased from a friend with a barely long enough steerer for my XL frame. The 2.5″ rise of the bar allowed me to run the fork with the stem slammed but with the bars, nonetheless, at my preferred height. I’ve also found the rise helps to compensate when swapping between a suspension fork to a rigid fork. My MRB bar nicely compensates for a swap from a 140mm fork to an Enve rigid fork and the Light Bar will end up there as that bike becomes more sporty in the near future (less rise=more sportier).

It can’t be all perfect, right? I do have a few gripes. Elephant in the room: $312 is a lotta money for a bar. You can get similar results from the Whiskey Milhouse bar for a bit less, if you need carbon. The Milhouse has more back sweep than the Light Bar, making the Light Bar a better choice for general mountain biking as opposed to touring, in my opinion. Of course, if you want all the sweet specs and cool brazing then snag yourself one of the OddMoné bars. I would have preferred a wider clamping area as it got crowded when running a handlebar bag in tandem with stem bags.