I upgraded from some 90's stylee cutdown 540mm flat bars to some wide 600mm – uncut – flat bars. And now my bike looks completley daft.

I think I can understand the whole wide riser bar look thing now.. 😕

What is the innertube on the forks for, downtube protection?

I had an Attitude (a bike, not a **** off you ****) of the same vintage.. After several years of ball ache and back ache and shitty steering I got a 90mm stem and risers and never looked back. Partly down to the microscopic head tube I think. I loved the way that bike rode.

Now I'm thinking of putting flat bars on my Trance..

The innertube is to prevent damping oil pissing about all over the place. I had a little – ahem – accident while trying, somewhat incompetently as it turned out, to service my forks. 😛

Those zip ties will give me nightmares…cut those razorsharp tails off!

Its a disciplinary at work to leave cut zip ties that feel sharp if you run your finger over the knuckle so they have to be cut off flush. And too right when you see the mess they can make of your skin if you catch your arm on them whilst cabling in a tight space!

To me that looks fine. When I put 762mm Sunlines on my bike that looked ridiculous. Much better when I chopped about 40mm off either end. 600mm is not very wide, you'll get used to it aesthetically and I dare say you'll prefer it for riding.

The bars are fine.

It's your bike that looks ridiculous..

the bars look good – I like the look of flat bars as long as the stem isn't silly rise.

'normal' sort of rise stem and riser bars looks way better than very high rise stem and flat bars… but as above pic, it looks good!

your stem is very long though. long stems look silly….

@spooky: That sounds strangely familiar, Where you working? Now, where's me flushcuts?

The bars look uncomfortable – have they got any backsweep?

I thought this guy's wide flat bars looked pretty cool – http://www.pinkbike.com/video/106717/

Not yours though. 🙂

Maybe this is a cheap way of dropping some serious weight…

So what flat bars, 700mm+, are recommended – need 31.8 and light?

The bars are fine.

It's your bike that looks ridiculous..

+1

I've got 685mm EA70 flats on my bike now. Love them. All the width my risers had plus space for barends so I can climb properly too.

You can't polish a turd.

Bars look fine.

brake gear levers too close to the grips; makes the bars look huge! move 'em ya weirdo! 😉

The only real problem I'm seeing is the inner-tube stopping oil pissing out of the fork. 🙂

One evening's ride later… and I can confirm that wide bars do actually make a real difference, despite the currently hard-to-get-used-to aesthetic. They give MUCH more control over nasty rocky, rooty, steep stuff 🙂 Plus I can 'weight' the bars going into corners. It's a revelation I tell ye!

Bars are 6deg sweep, and the stem is 90mm – the shortest I could find in pimpy silver to maintain that curmudgeonly-retro-chique look.

Brake levers may well be moved inboard shortly, an interesting idea that..

Sharp zip-ties are probably the least of my worries, a front tyre covered in oil, with forks with no damping are probably more of a pressing concern. 😛

600mm is not wide, and who cares wide/narrow/Riser/flat, long or short stem, surely it’s the riding position that matters not the aesthetics…

To be honest I think your bike looks fine, Except for that inner tube, the bars are the least of your worries…

What length are those forks?

@ Chopper: Openreach.

we had the same when i was rigging spooky as one of the lads managed to slice his wrist open on an orange installation ;-( sharper than youd imagine arent they

Move everything inwards by a couple of inches per side, chop it and it will look better.

Those bars do indeed look wrong.

"685mm EA70 flats"
Are you sure they aren't the low rise 1" ones? (They don't look to have much rise visually). I thought EA70 flats were 580mm wide?