MB3

My experience as well. I had to switch to a PNW bar after a bad crash broke both bones in my forearm by my wrist, and tweaked my shoulder somewhat as well. Regular 8 degree backsweep bars make my the nerves in my wrist explode in painful levels of nerve tingling, but for some reason the 10 degree backsweep of the PNW bars seem to solve this. I’ve ridden entire days of bike park since, and I’ve been really happy with them. My only gripe is that they released a carbon version only a few months after I bought the aluminum ones. I may have to upgrade now…

@gbeaks33: I have the PNW handlebars for the extra backsweep. After I healed up from a really bad wrist break that required pins and a plate (my body now has more titanium in it than my bike), I found regular handlebars really painful to ride on. The tiny bit extra backsweep of the PNW bars alleviated the wrist and shoulder pain nicely. For some reason (my guess is that my shoulder got messed up from my bad crash as well) the slight angle difference stopped the wrist tingling and shoulder aches I would get after only a few minutes of riding on my old bars. The new angle just feels more natural to me now. I recall one fit expert suggesting that you should try holding two short sticks, one in each hand and hold them in front of you like they were a handlebar. Hold them at the angle that feels right, and that’s the amount of backsweep you should be going for.

Don't forget backsweep angle. The common 8 degree backsweep gives my wrists a fair bit of pain during long rides... switching to a 10 degree backsweep (PNW) handlebar has solved that for me.

;Handlebars are a must for me. Ever since I broke my wrist during an endo, I've found that riding on a stock 8 degree backsweep handlebar is very painful after only a few minutes of riding. I switched to a 10 degree backsweep (PNW), and that cleared it up nicely... I can now do all day rides, even full bike park, just by swapping out my handlebars for something that is angled the same as my hands. I strongly recommend you try the old trick of holding two separate sticks in your fists in front of you to see what your natural wrist angle is. It might surprise you to find that it's not 8 degrees.

@casey-as: I also have the PNW bars on my bike, although I bought those for the 10 degree sweep. The tiny bit of extra sweep seems to help alleviate the wrist pain I get from riding ever since I broke my wrist during a big endo. I'm curious to try out the carbon version of their bars, as there is supposedly some compliance on them. They only offered the alloy when I bought my bars, otherwise I would have picked up the carbon ones instead.

More ideas: Only bikes under 30 lbs? Only bikes with completely new proprietary tech? Only bikes that come with upside down or linkage forks? Maybe do a field test of bikes PB has tested a long time ago which didn't review well, just to see if they've improved since then (a Redemption Field Test).

Instead of choosing bikes from one category of travel or price point, perhaps pick another type of theme. Perhaps all from one region, such as Canada, US, Europe, etc. Maybe all bikes from legacy bike companies that have been around since the early days of mountain biking, or go the other route and do all bikes from relative newcomers. Or all bikes that share one particular component (all bikes equipped with Deore, or a Fox 36). All mullets? All bikes sharing nearly the same rear suspension design? All bikes your reviewers would choose for their non-biking friends? All bikes that you'd love to throw a few hundred bucks of upgrades onto? Lots of possibilities if you want to try something completely different.

@KolaPanda: John Tomac, Zapata Espinoza, and either Julie Furtado or Alison Sydor

Shame I have family plans that day, but otherwise I'd definitely love to check this out. Sounds like an amazing event... old school bikes? Awesome.