800 on 3, 780 on 1.
Those running narrower bars, on account of wide ones being slow and sluggish, how long a stem are you running?
Those running narrower bars, on account of wide ones being slow and sluggish, how long a stem are you running?
Generally 50 to 70 mm, depending on the bike.
I cut down from 810 to 760 this year. I initially stuck a pair of old 760 bars back on thinking it would feel shit and be a short experiment. Turns out it felt great and made me feel more active on the bike. I cut my proper bars down as a result and haven't looked back. I'm a marginally apey 5'11" with relatively wide shoulders (struggle a bit with airline seats), but 760 seems to be my sweet spot. They're probably 770 with death grips on.
How much leverage do you really need - resistance to turning the front wheel has never been such an issue!
How much more leverage does 20 mm give? In the real world.
I am finding hitting trees is a much more “real” issue
dunno narrow i think 600 and something ish
“How much leverage do you really need – resistance to turning the front wheel has never been such an issue!”
If you’re riding a modern bike with wide bars you don’t turn the bars in the old sense, you tip the bike on its side, so the forces and leverages are quite different.
730, Easton Haven cut down a little bit from 760 I think. My local trails are Minley which can be pretty tight between the trees in places. Not sure I’d want any wider and I’m 6’2 with orangutan arms and wide shoulders.
I like wide (Stooge Moto currently on my hardtail, 800 mm). I always have done since my fave bike as a kid, which was a bit of a klunker with cowhorn handlebars. I've ridden narrower that I've liked (e.g. One One Mary) but even then I'd often hang my hands off the ends of the bars.
800mm felt fine when I built my Banshee, but the trees said otherwise.
760mm is the sweet spot.
The first proper wide bars I had (780) were adrecslatio. At 6’2”
Now 800. I preferred 820 but swopped to Vibrocore at 800 stock.
There’s an influence from head angle (62.5) offset and stem length (35). Feels right to me for control and body position, but yeah it’s a pain on tight singletrack.
Shoulders at 38cm so 38/40 on the drop bar bike.
Ooh, old school. Will work on a road bike but wider with shorter stem (and wider flare, short drop) is great for anything that'll tackle XC trails
Started off with 680, which felt fine until someone gifted me some old 740s which were immensely better.
Then I built up a new bike and stuck 780s on it, and they were immensely better again.
Then that bike got nicked and I built a new one with 800s and they felt normal.
Rode 820s today and they also felt normal.
I'm not really sure what to take away from this other than something in the region of 800mm "works for me".
The thing I like is how slow a process it is. Like, I got some 762mm wide bars- Sunlines maybe? And put them on my hemlock and it was just obviously too wide. Everyone made fun of it, and on the first group ride I crashed because I absolutely smashed the bar on a tree that I've ridden past a hundred times. Disaster.
Couple of years later and the exact same bike had 780s on it and they were absolutely fine. So the equation's definitely more complicated than "whatever length I just cut my new bars down by 20mm from", there's a time element too.
ton
Full Memberbars should be just wider than your shoulders.
I mean yeah, if you don't have elbows?
MTB has 780mm bars on it which I like and also happens to be the length Renthal Fatbars were when I bought mine. Prior to that I ran 780mm Syncros bars for about a year before my wife’s (GF at the time) landlord got fed up with them tearing his door frames and walls so I cut them to 750mm which was fine as well. I’ve ridden with 810mm bars and they were also fine. I just like how the Fatbars (31.8) feel.
I’m 180cm with a 183mm wingspan.
The wife is 165cm and rides 750mm but that might well just be habit (like my 780mm bars).
My road bike is whatever they were when I bought it in 2008 (too stiff! Could be wider).
I’m a relative short arse at 5ft 9” but have long arms. Hover around 780mm with a 35mm stem and lots of rise and back sweep. Had wider bars on the Stooge (Klunker and Scrambler) and they put wrists and arms in a very comfortable position
77cm just to match my username 😉
They were 800mm when I bought them. Found that the extra control was non-existent, but clipping trees was very existent.
They're now about 760mm, I think.
bars should be just wider than your shoulders.
I don't understand why folks feel the need to have rules about this stuff really. It's like the other thread that popped up about bar height and folks were talking about "start with your saddle at the height of your bars" All this stuff is so personal, it's otherwise pretty notional to some-one else. Like tilting the nose of your saddle down, or where you like the rotation of your brake levers.
You may as well ask; what colour should my eyes be?
I don’t understand why folks feel the need to have rules about this stuff really. It’s like the other thread that popped up about bar height and folks were talking about “start with your saddle at the height of your bars”
Definitely with bar width. With bar height, having them saddle height is a good rule-of-thumb to get started. You will always need to experiment a bit to find what works for you, but having bars at saddle height will generally give you a reasonable starting point. Having the steerer too long and cutting it shorter later is better than cutting it too short to begin with.
With bar width, you might as well buy 800 mm bars, try them, and cut them down 10 mm per side until you find something that works for you.
Has anyone saying shoulders actually measured their shoulder width, middle of the joint rather than the outside of the skin?
Average is around 400mm.
Maybe on a hipster fixie but not good on a proper off road MTB.
As above though it's personal. Next up, how big are your shoes?
770 for trail bike and hardtail, tried the full 800 and it was just too wide.
I put some old Raceface 750mm bars against my Spank 800s... there really isn't a lot of difference is there?! 😀
780 & 785mm for my MTBs.
Earlier this year I convinced myself that I needed to go narrower because my bikes were so long and unwieldy now, and the EWS pros were all closer to 750mm.
Did one ride on a 740mm bar and it was bloody terrifying. Not even interested in trying to adjust, just felt so wrong.
Did some other setup tweaks and got my confidence back anyway.
760mm on the 29er XC FS, it came with alloy 720's but I wanted carbon and wider so put Mt. Zoom flat carbons on there along with a 70mm stem - super rad and on trend I know 😉 - and 720 on the 29er XC HT, where are the ones that came off the FS as the ones that came on the HT when I got it were el cheapo Brand-X ones, I want to replace them with a wider set, but it's not that bad really.
760 mtb (I think...), 480 gravel, 440 road.
770mm plus grips for me.
I'd argue - because its STW so it's what we do 🙂 - sweep and rise are more important that width. I'm not really sensitive to bike setup (having had so many I suppose) but there are some bars I really don't get on with even if they are my 'normal' 780mm width. Nukeproof Horizons seem to have it nailed for me.
I did cut my last set of bars from 800 to 780 but really just to make them all the same. My old SolarisMax were 740s and after 5 mins didn't notice the lack of width. That bike now has 700s on tho for my daughter and they feel like old school 600s!
740mm on the Anthem, 640mm on the Ti-456 (2008 build) but those do feel a bit narrow these days. My singlespeed road bike has On-One Mary bars, they're 645mm but don't feel too narrow at all.
It's as relevant to everyone else as "What size frame do you ride?" "I'm thinking of getting a new frame and not sure what size to go for.. what size does everyone else ride"
Like it'd help with the decision! 😆
(Alternatively, replace "frame" with underpants)
I've been riding with 785mm for years.
I bought some quality brand 762mm bars and it took some time to get used to them on a 130mm AM full-suss, but then I was fine. I just put some 730mm bars on a second full-suss, a 150mm Trail bike, and they seem fine.
But when I put the original 785mm bars back on my hardtail, they just feel stupid. First, I am chipping paint off the doorways getting in and out of my apartment, then they just don't feel good to ride as if my wrist angle is in the wrong place.
I have wide shoulders, and am pretty tall. That obviously didn't mean I had to have stupidly wide bars.