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Pardon my craptastic finishing tape job! |
In the super-niche of off road drop bars, maybe there is no other drop bar that has engendered such curiosity and desire as the
Ragley Luxy Bar. Why is that? In this post, I'll take a stab at answering this question and telling the back story on this peculiar handle bar.
The Start:
As I recall, there was a thread on mtbr.com on the 29"er forum that was going on about off road drop bar set ups and what bar would be best. Of course, at this time in history you had two choices: Find an out of production
WTB Dirt Drop, or similar bar, or use an
On One Midge Bar, which was based off the original WTB offering, but tweaked in several important and good ways. (Note- There was
also a revival of the WTB Dirt Drop that was never really embraced by the public, due to it's super-deep drop and weird anatomic drop shape, so I have left that out of this discussion.) I was in the On One Midge camp, but I had nits to pick with that design. I stated something to the effect that I had a "perfect" off road drop bar design in mind which I would have loved to have seen made. Not long after I posted this, I received an e-mail from Brant Richards.
Mr. Richards was a designer at On One, but had recently left to do bicycle and component design on his own, dubbing the company "
Shed Fire". He was doing several designs for Chain Reaction Cycles UK brands and mostly for a brand Mr. Richards developed dubbed "
Ragley". In his e-mail to me he asked, in his typically abbreviated style, to send along a copy of my design for his consideration.
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The Luxy featured a much wider, more flared, and longer drop bar sectioned design. |
So I did and Brant seemed truly interested in coming up with something. Months went by, and Brant consulted with others on the design, most notably Sam Alison of
Singular Cycles. After this period of time passed, I received images of the rough prototype which no longer bore any resemblance to my crude drawings, but I found fascinating nonetheless. Not that anything I contributed was worth keeping, but I'd like to think that I influenced the design in some small way. I guess I may never know that.... Anyway.....
The design process completed, the bar went through the various stages of prototyping and manufacturing, which Mr. Richards was kind enough to keep me abreast of. It was a fascinating look "behind the scenes", and I learned a lot along the way. Finally, one day a box arrived that had two Luxy Bars inside of it. One in polished ano and the other in black ano. A "thank you" for my thoughts and whatever help I lent along the way, I suppose, and also to get the word out, which I figure was part of the plan on Brant's part.
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With its extremely shallow drop and super short reach, the Luxy Bar had no peer. |
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The Hey-Day:
The Luxy Bar hit the scene and was embraced by a few, but from where I sat I thought that it was a a product most misunderstood at the time it was released. As far as I was concerned, it wasn't anything like I had envisioned, but it was really quite nice, actually. It had a unique 31.8mm diameter top section, and with its "wheelbarrow" handle feel, climbing torque was awesome, so the Luxy Bar and single speed seemed a natural marriage to me. However; some found geared set ups to be quite nice as well.
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Still my fave! |
The End:
I didn't really keep up with how the Luxy was selling, and not too long after it came out, Brant went back to On One. Whether or not that had anything at all to do with the Luxy's demise is anyone's guess, but it seemed to coincide with the disappearance of this product from stock. I am told it only had two production runs before Chain Reaction UK shut the availability of it off.
The Legend Begins:
I shrugged it off as "one of those things", and since the demand seemed soft for it, I figured that this would be the end of the story. However; maybe a year or two ago now a sudden interest in the Luxy Bar appeared and I was getting asked about the availability of the bar and whether or not I could find any for people. I actually tracked two down and sold one of them to a good friend in Des Moines. Others were being sold for about twice what they originally sold for. I am aware of at least three people that have gone to the length of e-mailing Chain Reaction UK to find out if there was some way to get them to either make more, or release the design to another company to be manufactured.
There is a lot of behind the scenes scuttlebutt on a "Luxy-like" design drop bar being potentially developed. As of now, that's all it is- scuttlebutt. I really do not foresee the Luxy Bar, or anything very close to it, ever being made again. I think that is sad, since I really like the design, and I know many others do as well. Maybe just as many more would like to try one just because they have heard about the scarcity of these. It's an odd thing that I have dubbed "
thing wanted- cannot get". In other words, it seems to me that when you could actually get a Luxy Bar, no one seemed interested, but now that it cannot be had, the "
demand" for one seems to have rekindled.
The future will possibly bring other drop bars for off road to light, but maybe none will have such a legendary story as the Luxy Bar has had.