How comes road bars are so narrow? I’ve just bought a road bike and the 42cm bars feel ludicrously narrow. I read you can get 46cm but I can’t find anything wider.

I’m 6’4″ and most likely feels narrow because I mostly ride a 800mm MTB bar.

Cheers
Rich

Aero innit

road bars shoudl match your shoulder width was rule I always follow. 42 is probably too narrow for you.

But they will still feel narrow after an mtb and make the steering feel twitchy. You get used to it quickly.

If you’re 6’4″ I’d be willing to bet that a 42cm bar is too narrow and you need a 44 or a 46. Once you’ve got used to those, massive cowhorn bars on mountain bikes will begin to look ludicrously wide to your eyes.

I like the look of these beauties

flared drop bar

I found a set of 47s which improved things a lot for me but I still wanted wider. I’m not especially tall and don’t have wide shoulders, I think that’s a bit of a red herring tbh, comfort is about your entire shape and stance not just how wide one part of your body is.

Seeing as in the road world “technical” just means “OMG A SLIGHT CORNER” there is absolutely no need for wide bars.

The width is regulated for racing by the uci (I imagine because of close riding in the peloton). For some reason no one seems to create a wider bar for leisure riders, they all just stick to the racing regulations. The flared drop bars don’t fix the problem that actually most people will spend most time on the hoods.

I measured my shoulder width at 515mm, so 46cm doesn’t cut it.

Seeing as in the road world “technical” just means “OMG A SLIGHT CORNER”

Hah, yeah, right.

I found 42cm bars too narrow when I first started, coming from wide-bar MTB. 18months in, I’ve now gone the other way and am now thinking I need 40cm.

42cm is too narrow for your size anyway.

Those flared drops are probably way too flared for road. There might be frowned upon in my Club for the same reason that flat-bar bikes aren’t allowed – risk of getting hooked up when in a tight group. Some normal compact or ergo bars do have a slight flare (4-7 degrees), which could be suitable

Care to show me a road course that involves roots, rocks, drop offs ?

Care to show me a road course that involves roots, rocks, drop offs ?

Care to show me a Mountain bike course that involves 60mph speeds and hardly slowing to corner?

Mountain and Road at speed requires serious skills, they’re just different skills.

Not that any of that has anything to do with road bar widths

But it wouldn’t be STW if a thread didn’t go off topic and involve the putting down of people who ride bikes that are different from yours.

Ive gone up in mtb bar width and down in road, 780mm and 40cm respectively. Narrow build so 40 fits better than the standard 42 and Munqechick is now on 38s.

There is an aero marginal gain, look at pics of Adam Hansen who’s one of the bigger guys in the peloton and I think he’s on 38s.

British Cycling went for narrower bars than accepted wisdom recommended in the search for aero advantage on the track.

Accepted wisdom said that control would suffer. It didn’t, and they went faster. Other teams followed suit.

Sundayjumper – Member
Seeing as in the road world “technical” just means “OMG A SLIGHT CORNER” there is absolutely no need for wide bars.

It’s not really the same as MTBs where wide bars are for for more leverage (and gnarr points).

As you spend a fair bit of time on a road bike in only a few positions and thus support a fair bit of your weight with your arms/hands/shoulders for longer periods, it’s beneficial to be able to support your upper body with straight arms, rather than having them offset inboard (IMO).

I have relatively broad shoulders for my height and definitely feel more comfortable on 460mm bars, my cross bike is the same for consistency and it’s pretty good to ride offroad, not that anyone would ever ride a drop bared bike offroad or anything…

I have 46cm chest and wide shoulders, so when i bought first road bike i instantly slapped on widest bars i could find at 46cm, but when i went for a bike fit, was told i should have 44cm bars.

They measure the distance between the “knobbles” at the end of the clavicle, the lump before the shoulder, not the distance between the shoulders themselves from experience.

It does have aero advantages, in that it makes frontal area smaller, but also, if the bar curves forward directly below your shoulders, when you lean down to make yourself smaller, your arms tend to tuck in below the body. When i had wider bars, the arms tended to flare out at the elbows as i leant forward.

Plus the most used position on a road bike is riding on the hoods, with the body at about 40-45 degrees, so you are putting quite a bit of weight through your arms and you tend to move position a lot less than you would on a road bike, try to a “plank” with your hands directly below you, then try doing one with hands slightly to either side of you and see which is les tiring.

A bit of Devil’s advocacy, only partly in fun:
Are you actually racing, or do you mostly train on a road bike and do sportives..?
If you’re not club/racing, how about a flat bar instead..?
I use 56cm flat bars and bar ends on both road bikes, with mixed gearing and discs. This makes the bike a blast to ride, handles a fair bit better than any ‘race’ bike in a fast descent but doesn’t have any real world impact on my ability to enjoy riding it. A small benefit while climbing is the slightly more open chest.
I just can’t understand why anyone who isn’t racing at club level or above would entertain drops. Plus the flat bars make the ride much more pleasant to use as a touring bike…

Care to show me a road course that involves roots, rocks, drop offs ?

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.349238,-1.803417,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m8!1e2!3m6!1s78438580!2e1!3e10!6s%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fproxy%2FRavHwDwehhIiQSVS1qIpIXzW7Pm2EWhfowssC2ptaOZDUyoUDxgmtJ6-zV23YD7jfIPTwMiOy0a0fUcW3-x7x9CLK7rZwQ%3Dw203-h135!7i1200!8i800?hl=en

😉

I just can’t understand…

Doesn’t mean you’re right 😉

Lots of people use different things for different reasons, in different circumstances, what works best for you isn’t necessarily best for everyone else and I just can’t understand why so many people fail to realise that 😉

Back on topic…

OP, bar width on road bike with drops is a balancing act of comfort and aero, unless you really care about aero then focus on comfort. The tricky bit is often you need to try stuff to work out what works best for you.
Like many people I’ve yoyo’d on road bar sizes (from 40 to 48) and settled somewhere in the middle but with a couple of cm variation between bikes and thier intended use.

Overly wide bars can be just as uncomfortable as overly narrow ones, and remember your wrist is angled differently to flat bars when on the hoods and drops, the riding position and handling movements are different too so MTB rules don’t apply….

Steeper angles, smaller bumps, narrower tyres at higher pressure, higher speeds and longer stems all mean that narrower bars are more appropriate.

Plus it’s a totally different position to an MTB.

42cm might be too narrow for you, but I’ve put the narrowest option of cheapo bars on my track bike (at 6’0″) – which gives marginally more space in the bunch plus “aero” – and the widest of the same on the road bike.

If you go bigger, be aware that they can be measured centre to centre or edge to edge – i.e. your 42cm may be 44cm in some other brands.