I’m building up a bike at the moment to try a few CX races this winter.

The bike won’t strictly be a CX bike but at my level it won’t matter.

I’m toying with the idea of using a Midge bar I picked up a few years go but the positioning of the levers on the flare makes it feel strange even for my massive hands – like its a compromise in both the drops and the hoods. It also seems to make riding on the hoods less comfortable than “std” drop bars.

Is it just me and I’ll adjust or are flared bars just a personal preference that work for some?

Help!

“……are flared bars just a personal preference that work for some?”

this

if you don’t like them (this goes for any handlebar) change them

My CX bike came with slightly flared drops, bloody hated them. How much I hated them only really became apparent after swapping them. Unfortunately swapping made me 0% faster

FWIW I fitted Woodchippers to my VN Amazon when I started taking it off-road more, then liked them so much I kept them on for normal touring duties too. There’s obviously a risk that you’ll not get on with them but without trying, you don’t know if you are missing something.

This position works well for me (I have reasonably small hands)

[url=https://flic.kr/p/oE4xXC]P1010496[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

[url=https://flic.kr/p/oE5359]DSC_0144[/url] by Colin Cadden, on Flickr

I tried some alpkit bomber flared drops.

absolutely hated them, just couldn’t get comfy despite lots of playing with stem lengths and angle of the bars.

Depends how flared they are as well. I get on really well with Salsa Cowbells, which have a slight flare to the drops, but tried some others a few years back which had a much more exaggerated sticky outness and didn’t like them at all. It’s all a bit like choosing flared trousers, if you remember them.

I’d probably be just as happy with some wide drops though. I’m more bothered about the difference between traditional and compact bars tbh.

Midge bars were designed to be ridden in the drops.

Genetic Digest. Comes in two widths and have a much better shape and bend than Midge or Bombers (fwiw anyway).

Failing that Cowbells, Cowchippers or Woodchippers – depends what flare you need.

I find midges comfy on drops and hoods.  Have them on 2 bikes set up basically the same. I love them and hate standard drops but everyone is different.  They really need a longer drop section even if you don’t have massive hands so I fitted control tech extensions.

Doesn’t sound like you’ve even ridden on them yet?

[url=https://flic.kr/p/249bWeF]unnamed[/url] by Shawn McFarlane, on Flickr

Midges are a special sort of flared drop.  Shape (as per Brant) is deliberately focused and doesn’t really allow you to set up a comfy drop, top, and hood position all at once.

A more standard flared drop would be a Salsa Cowbell or Cowchipper.  Some flared ares are only flared vertical, so the drops are wider than the hoods, but still parallel to each other.

I had Midges, bought Cowbells, Happier with them.  Cowchippers would be even better, but they weren’t avalialable when I was buying and the Cowbells are plenty good enough.

I have small hands and struggled to get flared drops to work well in both drops and hoods (this was on Midge bars). If set up well for the hoods, I couldn’t reach the brake levers properly. So I set up mine to be ace in the drops and barely ever used the position on the hoods – I found it too narrow anyway and a funny wrist angle. Being in the drops was so comfy and confidence inspiring I never minded anyway.

The only real problem was, that this handlebar position was so good that I couldn’t transition to ‘normal’ drops on the road bike at all – the road bike felt weird and horrible.

– just read brant’s reply – so now I understand! 😉

I love my Easton EA70AX 12′ subtle flare, its comfy in all positions 🙂

[url=https://flic.kr/p/R4ZTGe]2017-01-15_04-26-14[/url] by martinddd, on Flickr

@brant – Thank you – possibly part of the reason I haven’t gelled with them.

@qwerty – Those bars look like a nice compromise ….. off to google them now!

PX/OO are not flogging these: selcof-sterrato-flared-gravel-handlebar (not tried them myself…

A 10* flared compact drop for £15, perhaps worth a try?

tried alpkit bombers for my first cheap introduction to flared DBs. Very uncomfortable and couldn’t get them anywhere near useable but found flares much better for control and powering up/over/down ruffstuff. Got some ritchey  venture max recently and they are brill. The powerbulge in the drops works well for me with less fatigue when death gripping.

went for the 46m as my shoulder bones measure 44cm, they are WIDE and look daft but very comfy for me.

i ‘think’ they’re very similar to cowchippera but easy to find and cheaper.

those selcof bars look good value and pretty similar to the EA 50 / 70 AX bars.

I’m not sure the advice about matching shoulder width to to drop bar width is as relevant for this sort of use as it might be for road, a little wider can be better for off-road.

More people should ride moustache bars. They are great.

Still like my Salsa Bell Lap bars – I think Salsa have moved on now and call the replacement something else. When throwing the bike around on the drops there is just enough flare not to bruise your wrists on the top part of the bar.

They used to be banned on the 3 peaks CX race as made the bars too wide – things may have well moved on.

My experience is same as others above. Didnt get on with midge or bombers, but got some selcof flared bars and love them.

@scotroutes, do the woodchippers have to be slightly wider than a conventional drop bar, to take account of the inclined hoods? What is your  shoulder width and bar width? Your setup just looks “right”, compared to some of the other Web images of woodchippers, etc.

I’ve been running some Ritchey Evomax bars since May/ Not a huge amount of flare, but just enough in my opinion. Better shape when in the drops than the compacts I used previously and a bit more room for my handlebar bag.

@badgerbater

My Woodchippers are the 42cm version. That’s the same as the Easton drops on my Cube road bike. I’m not a big guy, medium in most clothing. Shoulder are 47cm (by my shonky measurement).

As for setup, I mainly went off Salsas guidance rather than follow any “rules” that some folk seem to have made up about the angle the flared drops should be at. As it turn out, mine are almost parallel to the frame downtube and the shifter position gives me a nice, flat platform that means I can brake on the hoods or in the drops. Like the whole flared bars discussion though, I think folk need to work out what works best for them.

Here’s a photo pf the Salsa Cutthroat…

Here is someone else’s attempt

That bar/shifter transition just looks painful to me. My hand would drop into that gap and feel squashed.

Thanks @scotroutes, I appreciate your reply. Yes, the second photo looks as if they don’t fully understand how the bar was meant to perform! Hopefully one last question, I assume the 42cm is measured centre to centre just before the bar curves over?  What is the c/c distance at the hoods?

The bottom photo just looks like it’s setup with the drops as the default hand position with the hood position dictated but where the rider wants the levers to be. Also singlespeed so they don’t need to worry about being able to operate the shift levers.

Yup, that’s how I had my midges set up. Drops were primary position. I like the drop section to be not far off horizontal for honking out of the saddle. Mine was also a SS Singular!

I’ve tried some of the On-One bars and not liked them but the in-house flared drops on my GT – called Droptune – are perfect for me, being less pronounced. Probably not available after-market so that’s not much help.

convert

…When throwing the bike around on the drops there is just enough flare not to bruise your wrists on the top part of the bar…

To me that is the whole point of those bars.

Generally speaking it’s people who ride singlespeed who will benefit most from this because of the way they get physical on the bar on steep climbs. If you have gears, you generally don’t have so much of a problem.

The other way to do it is to keep the drop parallel but have the tops angled forward almost from the stem – like an old Dawes Concorde bar. Again, that is designed to be ridden mainly on the drop.

However, the whole point of the bar is to get your hands into a comfortable position, and it doesn’t really matter if you use a curly piece of metal, or a straight one with bar ends if you get it right.

The advantage of drops on an mtb or a gravel bike is the ability to hook into the drop – you can have a secure grip on the bar with very loose hands which means your wrists don’t get beat up so much on rough descents on a rigid bike. You don’t need a deep drop to get the advantage of that, so a shallow moustache bar would probably be ok for most.

Another advantage IMO is feeling more secure on descents. This is probably because by effectively lowering your upper body your CoG is lower, so although your head feels over the front wheel, there less OTB leverage.

As for set up, I prefer 1950s tourer height rather than slammed aero road racer.

When looking at bar widths, for comparison to your flat bar, consider the effective width for leverage – which is roughly to the centre of your hand. On a flat bar there is a few inches of bar sticking out past that, on a drop, just your knuckles.

The biggest thing against drop bars on an mtb in the past was the lack of good brake levers. I never found a set that was as free from flex as a basic mtb lever, so braking modulation was affected and never quite as good. Hydraulic dropbar brakes no doubt have changed all that. It’s on my to do list.

Much as I like dropbars, for really technical stuff, I prefer a wide flat bar, but as most of my riding is on natural trails, that’s not a problem.