MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
By some miracle I had last week off work - so I headed up from London to enjoy 7 sun soaked days up in Scotland.
I'd just fitted 50mm stem & haven bars to my 5spot and wow!
Pros
- Increased precision - I can now put my front wheel exactly where I want. Great for those rocky chutes
- Switchbacks - So easy - massive improvement
- twisties - so much fun being able to slam the bike left than right
- leverage when climbing out of the saddle
Cons
- took me a little while to adjust to a lower bar but all good now...
- Every other handlebar feels too narrow now - I'll have to buy bars for the other bikes!
I wasn't too sure about changing and I really had to convince my wife to try the havens on her bike. Now we'd not go back
welcome to 2010
Yeah - I know.
I just couldn't justify the change up until now.
But a new frame for my wife gave me the opportunity.
welcome on board brother 🙂
How wide have you gone?
Same thing happened to me. Now my other bikes all feel odd. Going to cost me a fortune to get them all changes.
There's a great little wooden bridge, with handrails, on my local ride, that I couldn't ride with wider bars.
I'd miss it, tbh, along with all the narrow gate posts on the old railway.
As for wider bars being a new thing, bullhorns on 70's trackers were huuuge!
You have the same set-up as me, 711mm is just enough to get through trees I find. I put a 70mm stem back on mine just to try it the, just made steering feel less precise and nothing else.
Bars are 711mm Carbon Havens bought cheap (relatively) at Merlin.
Absolutely blown away by the difference.
Never had carbon bars before either - they definitely feel different... don't know if it makes a difference... lighter and less twangy...
Just be sure to avoid anywhere with wooded singletrack 😉
after years on the standard 685 I got some Haven 711s and the difference in feel is significant, these feel "right". My forearms are parallel to each other and the top tube (looking down on them*) which just feels like a natural position, to the extent I wonder why they werent always like that.
Trimix on here has something silly wide, close to 800mm I believe, as it replicates the feel of his motocross bikes. Interesting in wooded singletrack though 😯
*this is what I'm trying to describe
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Just be sure to avoid anywhere with wooded singletrack
running 730mm and never had a problem
Just be sure to avoid anywhere with wooded singletrack
711mm Havens and 50mm stem and I'm riding the same woods as you! 😉
710mm is wide? 😯
[i]711mm Havens and 50mm stem and I'm riding the same woods as you![/i]
that explains all the trees in Stanmer with no bark on at bar height 😉
I've been running 750mm for a few years now, just got some new renthals which are 780mm and hit my first tree! Great for DH though, so I will persevere before chopping.
720mm in Stanmer. I do have to dodge and weave a lot in the half track though. Sent me over the bars in Big Dog last year - a small price to pay 🙂
I clipped trees with 685 in stanmer. Now on 710 and still hit trees. Wouldn't want to go much wider or I'd have to start braking. There are already enough sqeaky bum moments.
If you don't skim trees surely you are not taking the racing line?
710? I thought you said wide bars? Try 762mm, it's a whole new world and honestly, not one I'll be sticking with past this weekend. They're just a touch wider than I like, maybe 1 inch needs chopping.
I though 760 was *my* width until i got some 780 Renthals for Chrimbo. Loving the width - no serious tree/bar interface issues to date...
[i]They're just a touch wider than I like, maybe 1 inch needs chopping.[/i]
if you only have problems on one piece of singletrack consider trimming the inch of just one side so you avoid *that* tree. You still get the full benefit of wide bars on the offside that way 😉
The wider bars I applaud, I have 750's, but its the shorter stem that I think makes a huge difference. Why anyone sets their bike up to steer like a narrowboat I'll never know.
If the trees get narrow, simply do a wheelie-crossup until they are wide apart again 😀
Lock-on grips have saved me from an unplanned dismount at least once - the shiny metal end-cap slides over bark rather than gripping like a normal rubber grip, and the handlebars don't get flipped round into an over the bars moment... Without the extra stiffness of the new bars and stem I don't think going 40mm wider would have been beneficial - but as it is I can place the bike more precisely and thus shoot the tree gap accurately!
"Halftrack" - def. ultra narrow singletrack. 🙂
there has to be a market for 'dropper' style handlebars where you can make on the fly width adjustments?
Why anyone sets their bike up to steer like a narrowboat I'll never know.
Because all they ever really ride are tow paths? 🙂
Nuke's 760's I find are perfect.
780's ;] It's the law.
Agreed, after i put 780's on my dh bike, my little bike felt weird so it has 780's too and now feels like a mini dh bike 🙂
I found 780 a bit too wide so chopped mine to about 740
I thought that my Renthal's were 740mm wide but they are actually 790. No real issues with fitting between trees but the 60mm stem pushes my weight back too far for getting over the front on the twisty stuff so I'm going to trim them slightly and try a 75mm stem.
Surely you want a shorter stem cheers_drive to get more over the bike ?
I had 800mm Nukeproof bars, didn't cut them down for quite a while. Ended up taking them down to 770mm, so much easier to get them through doors and up the stairs at home. Seems to feel a lot more natural compared to 800mm too(which surprised me because 15mm off each side looks like nothing). Just got some Funn Fatboy bars (£10 from crc)for a commuter bike i'm building up, there only 710mm, hoping them don't feel too narrow.