Well, thanks all for the advice – and Olly for making me chuckle with his ‘ignore me’ comment 😀
For anyone who cares, in the end I took the bars down by a smidge each end, leaving it at slightly over 660mm – mainly because my hubby reckoned they were a bit wide, and well, he’s normally right about these things.
Anyway, tehy felt great! The extra width was good for hauling up the front end, but I’m glad they weren’t much wider, as I had a few close encounters with some closely-spaced trees! (Although, I probably would’ve got used to them, so would agree with most of you guys and encourage others to try before cutting them down – especially if their tt isn’t too long or/and its their only bike so they’re not quite sure what they like)
For what it’s worth I reckon Mr. Nutt is right: The short stem/wide bar combo was great – I haven’t quite got the hang of the handling yet (it’s quite different to my other bike), but once it comes together (and it did a few times today) I think it’ll be magic!
Lovely stuff!
Thanks again. MM