Earlier this year I jumped on the CRC discount bandwagon and bagged me a Pike RCT3 29er fork for my Stanton Sherpa replacing a Reba.

The increased stiffness is night and day. Despite being 100kg ish I’m a fairly light rider (I’ve never pranged a wheel) and really like how the bike now tracks through rougher* stuff. It’s very point and shoot.

I currently have a 50mm Thomson stem and an On One 760mm flat bar, both 31.8mm

I’m tempted to try a 35mm stem and bar and go a smidge wider on the bars.

The fork is supple enough, I think, to not make any additional stiffness jarring.

What are folks thoughts on this “new standard”

* In the context of Suffolk rough 🙂

My last bike was 31.8, my new bike is 35mm. Can’t say I’ve ever thought my handlebar is too flexy, even in 780mm wide.

In fact I’m slightly struggling with my current handlebar so about to swap for one with slightly more Sweep and width (760 to 780) as not as comfortable as I used to be.

So, in my mind it’s not worth swapping.

I’ve got a cheap 35mm clamp stem for sale if you wanted to try 35mm out. Recently changed to a shorter reach stem as my new frame has a monster ett

I remain unconvinced by the benefits of 35mm clamps, despite having a very nice RaceFace SixC bar and Aeffect stem (came with my Bird). It would be nice to be able to swap stems and bars about but it’s the one standard which differs between my two bikes.

If you try the wider bars and shorter stems the 35 standard, and then decide you like one but not the other then you’re stuck because you can’t use the old stem with new bars or vice versa.

Absolutely pointless.

It’s actually been about for a couple of years but doesn’t seem to have gained much traction as a “standard”…

From a technical point of view it makes sense, bigger diameter bar means more clamping surface, more potential stiffness, but then 31.8 was already perfectly adequate, nobody was complaining about the need for stiffer bars really were they? Not that that seems to be a barrier for new “standards”…

I suspect the real reason it’s not taken over as the defacto bar/stem standard is that it doesn’t quite have the ‘SRAM blessing’ RF, syncros and a few of the finishing kit manufacturers might have pushed 35mm products out but unless SRAM tell all of their OEM customers that they WILL be getting 35mm truvativ OEM parts next year, it’s not going to take…

And of course the problem is that it’s maybe a little bit too backwards compatible for their liking, a couple of quid for a shim and any old bar will fit in those 35mm stems, if they can’t convince you that a new stem, means new bars I doubt they’ll force the issue…

But I bet there’s something else much “better” in the works for bars and stems, just you wait, you’ll all get settled on boost/tapered forks and they’ll change the upper steerer to a nice round “metric” 30mm, for which only special splined interface 38mm stems will be available and the corresponding bars will now have a larger diameter grip section say 24mm at which point you just say “**** it, nothing fits new bike time”… Or am I being cynical?

My three bikes run 35mm bars and stems, because the Chromag bars I like we’re going cheap in 35mm.

On my full suspension bikes (160mm 650b and 140mm 29er) I don’t notice them. Which makes 35mm a pointless upgrade to my mind.

On my hardtail (29 plus with 110mm travel) they are actively uncomfortable. They are just too stiff and I have more wrist pain from that bike compared to hardtails before it.

Not a good upgrade IMO.

Have them on 2 bikes and couldn’t tell any difference, good or bad.
If rest of your stuff is 31.8 I’d just stick with that for mix and match purposes.

I have 35, looks nice and chunky, claims to give more feedback but in reality utterly pointless.