ExpressJS - base route and express.static not working?

Question

Node.js

I have in my application (on the Backbone client on the server - mongo node express) 2 lines

app.use(express.static(path.join(application_root, 'site')));

and

app.get('/',function(req,res){
console.log('Its a base url');
});

but the request for '/' does not work, I remove express.static - everything is fine. Is this because a single-static page is implied and therefore the '/' route is ignored?
and if I need to hide some blocks for the user "user", is it better to read about the template engine? Because, as far as I understand, session information needs to be transferred to the base route.