Gravel drop bars … soooo much choice = confused!

Converting my old 26er to try a gravel bike, to ride local Kent woodlands, and stuff v similar to SDW. Fun, short blasts rather than loads of hours riding. After a drop/gravel bar but utterly confused as there’s so much choice.

Doing this on a budget, so are there any good start points to guide me as to choice, recommendations, opinions of how wide/flare etc … I’m intrigued by the flare etc, so keen to try to get the ‘experience’!

Cheers

Flared bars are great, but I have no real knowledge of what’s considered best or fashionable.

Do you have any pals with gravel bikes you could try, to see if you like their bars?

Ritchey VentureMax seem really well liked and not too pricy

@Aus if you just want something to try to get a base line I have a lightly flared set of giant bars you can have for postage. 420 wide I think. Pretty sure this model https://www.giant-bicycles.com/gb/giant-connect-xr-drop-handlebar

The Sonder ones on the Camino always look quite good to me

Or go Aliexpress if you have a mtb groupset on the bike currently

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005283907836.html?pdp_npi=2%40dis%21GBP%21%EF%BF%A1%2083.49%21%EF%BF%A1%2046.76%21%21%21%21%21%40211b612516830192328974297ed104%2112000032485156349%21btf&_t=pvid:74705dd0-84b4-4c50-9780-cedf74c90a37&afTraceInfo=1005005283907836__pc__pcBridgePPC__xxxxxx__1683019233&spm=a2g0o.ppclist.product.mainProduct

There are degrees of flare ranging from quite mild, through to full-on spread-out madness. Personally I’m quite happy with a mild flare, Salsa Cowbells are a pretty solid choice and get good reviews – mild flare and not too much drop between the tops and the drops. I recently swapped mine for some Sonder Spitfires as I wanted to try a slightly narrower, but also flared bar, they’re okay, but actually I prefer the shape of the Cowbell. The idea of the flared drops is that you get more leverage for off-road riding when you’re using them. The really wide flares give you even more leverage, but not everyone likes them.

Quite a lot of it is personal preference, but I think for gravel, what’s called a compact bar – less difference in height between drops and tops makes sense – and maybe a little wider than you’d use on the road, but again there’s personal preference there. Exact width depends on your build as well. Most normal men use around a 40cm on the road, so maybe a 42 or possibly 44 on gravel, but if you have very wide shoulders, you may want to go even wider and some people just like really wide bars, not optimal for your shoulders though as it affects the angle of your arms.

So yes, I can see it’s slightly confusing, but mild flared bars don’t really have a downside tbh and give you a little more control than classic non-flared road-type bars, wider flares are more Marmite.

Much cheapness

https://www.ribblecycles.co.uk/level-gravel-alloy-6061-31-8-flared-bar-black-42cm/

I have a pair on the way, I can let you know then how they differ from my current ‘road’ standard / straight Uno bars…

I use Ritchey ergomax, you get a bit of extra rise and a bit of extra flare without anything too crazy. For someone very used to road bars they aren’t too much to get used to.

The only way really is to try a few out and see what you like.

Personally I despise the trend for super wide flared drops. They’re neither particularly comfortable, or aero because they turn your whole body into a parachute, or give a feeling of being in control because they flex and force your arms to be straighter than they should be and your weight forward.

Drops work best when you’ve got 3x hand positions that aren’t huge changes, i.e. flats for climbing when your weight is off your hands and you can tuck your elbows in/down, hoods for cruising, drops for putting the hammer down/cruising. Flares are nice, but IME work best if the designer hasn’t just twisted out the ends and kept the tops/hoods the same width.

I’ve got Ritchey Venturemax, and went for the same nominal width as my old CX bars (440mm). On reflection I should have gone 20mm narrower (420mm). The flared/profiled drops are super comfy, but too wide.

I’d get the Ribble bars to start from, because £10 posted, and work from there.

FWIW I’m wanting to try something with slightly less flare than my Sonder Bombers because I’m sometimes finding them a bit uncomfortable on the hoods, but moving the shifters up a bit might fix that anyway.

I think you need to try a few, very subjective and also influenced by what bike they go on. The VentureMax is a good one to try on anything based on an MTB. I like the Genetic Digest bar in the wider option.

Personally I despise the trend for super wide flared drops. They’re neither particularly comfortable, or aero because they turn your whole body into a parachute, or give a feeling of being in control because they flex.

Conversely.. I love wider flared drops, but it does depend on where the width is gained. If done right (for me) they’re really comfortable, I can be aero enough by tucking my elbows in but still have loads more control on descents when needed and I like a bit of flex in a bar for added comfort (prefer the bar to flex than the fork).
I didn’t like them at first, too different to std road bars but now the combo of a 46cm position hood for climbing or cruising with a wider drops area from a 30-45 degree flare feels ideal on my current gravel bike.

I tried some with very wide hood positions (like the Curve Walmer bars but not that wide) and they did feel wrong and didn’t feel better with use. I prefer how some flare drops give you a range of both grip width and height.
I had the same bars as the Sonder Bombers as a sample a while back, couldn’t get on with them at all. Too much forward reach with a short drops/hook length I think. Like an odd copy of the original WTB and the On-One Midge bar.

I look at my 29ers swept Alt bars and my road bike bars and see the ideal flared gravel bar as being halfway between them, for a bike that gets use halfway between them. Go more one way or the other dep. on use?

There are so many different shapes of bars and ways to set them up and then set the brakes up on the bars even before you get to personal preference that I’m not convinced it’s possible to definitively prejudge without trying several. I think the alpkit bombers look like absolute torture devices but who knows, with the hoods in the right place they might be wonderful. I’ve never tried them.

Different uses apply as well- I loved woodchippers on a bike built as a tourer because they gave me a bit more leverage over luggage in the drops when i needed it. Wouldn’t put them on a road bike because they’re unnecessarily wide. Except I’ve just rebuilt my/Northwinds old roadrat as a singlespeed and the same extra leverage is glorious hauling up a climb.

Do you have some ‘normal’ drop bars you could play with the hood position on? I tried rolling the hoods in a little until I found a position I liked then tried to find a bar that gave me a drop that matched it. Seemed to work with a mild flare.

I’ve got nothing to compare them to, but I have the wide flare Sonder Bomber bars on my Camino.

I find them super-comfortable and great for cruising along on.
I used the drop position for quite a lot of time during the Dirty Reiver the other week and found it to be very comfy, apart from the feeling of being a long way from the brakes when it got busier & I wanted the reassurance of covering the brakes.

The shallow drop also means my middle-aged body can stay in them for a decent period without getting achy/tired.

But, they are really a very flared position & something a bit less extreme would also probably be good.

The crucial thing about flare is that it comes in two very different forms

There is flare in the sense that the drops’ ends are rotated outwards, like the Salsa Woodchipper (top pic)

Then there is flare which bends the entire drop section outwards but keeps them parallel, like the Ritchey Beacon (bottom pic)

I much prefer the latter and I currently use the Ritchey Venturemax, which are similar in this respect. Ritchey Beacon (and to a lesser degree the Venturemax) also have a crazily short reach and drop, which is really good for more techy ground

With something like the Beacons you can have a very wide stance on the drops for descending, and a narrower, more aero position on the tops, which sounds kind of backwards but it worked for me

This is a great tool for comparing all sorts of bar shapes:
https://whatbars.com/

I’m still a bit “Flare-Curious” for my gravel bike, having just stuck to 440mm compact drops on all my curly bared bikes for the last decade.
While that rather fixed choice has been fine, I am now wondering if my Gravel bike would benefit from something narrower at the top with a wee bit of flare to the drops (5-10 degrees with a 380/400mm top, still compact drop ~120mm, so the drops aren’t too much wider if such a thing is available?), That linked Ribble one just looks too wide to me at 420/540 wide with 25deg.

Interesting looking at the other bits Ribble are clearing actually, seems like 650b gravel tyres, heavily flared bars and 175mm cranks aren’t in favour any longer, so if you’re tall with a higher ape index and taste for tweener wheels it’s bargain season 😉

thanks all – much appreciated and helpful.

The aliexpress suggestion – just figuring out if you can attach mtb shifters/brake levers … is that the idea behind part of the design?

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005005283907836.html?pdp_npi=2@dis!GBP!%EF%BF%A1%2083.49!%EF%BF%A1%2046.76!!!!!@211b612516830192328974297ed104!12000032485156349!btf&_t=pvid:74705dd0-84b4-4c50-9780-cedf74c90a37&afTraceInfo=1005005283907836__pc__pcBridgePPC__xxxxxx__1683019233&spm=a2g0o.ppclist.product.mainProduct

just figuring out if you can attach mtb shifters/brake levers … is that the idea behind part of the design?

Yeah, it’s a copy of the Surly Corner bar for MTB controls which is crmo and about 700g. Rather heavy .. but I’d take them over a carbon aliexpress bar like that any time.

I think your ride profile sounds like mine, and I’ve just gone from Cowbells to Woodchippers and it’s made more difference than I expected – more comfort and much better control especially on the downs. I went wider too, which is all relative; in my case, I went from about 44 I think to 50cm, which just about matches my shoulder-bone to shoulder-bone dimension. Very pleased.

I now realise that I like the extra flare, which like you I wasn’t sure about before. Feels more natural to me, a little more like being on bar-ends used to feel like, if you were around back then.

* sorry, Cowchipper, not Woodchipper.

Woodchippers looked a bit too much for me.

I went with Ritchey Beacons in the end – much for the reasons Legometeorology expounds.
I usually run a 42 road bar, so went 44 on the Beacons for a bit of extra width at the hoods, but then a not-too-low but nice and stable position in the drops. I based stem length and spacers on being comfortable descending in the drops and worked backwards – so the super compact shape of the Beacons gives me a relatively lower/longer hoods and flats position which is better for just riding around.

Agree with TINAS that they’re not very aero though… (answer – ride steeper trails!)

If your doing a budget build just get some cheap wide shallow drop road bars.

That will leave money for controls. I think with advent x you can do a 1×10 set for around £100, using your old chainset. Although if you have hydraulic brakes that wouldn’t work

My Arkose has done 13,000 km on whatever cheap bar Jameso specked and it’s fine. One day I’ll try something else. But I’m clearly not feeling any urgency to change it. Lot of other bits have been changed

As a flat bar rider of very many years who couldn’t get on with drops, I went from very mildly flared bars (basically ordinary drops) to On One Midge bars. I liked these quite a lot, but the drops are very short and easy to almost miss (ie you end up with only the first part of your hands on the bars) which felt like an accident waiting to happen. I then went to Richey Beacons and get on well with them. As has been said, the vertical difference to the drops is minimal and that I like. In reality I spend virtually all my time on the hoods, and I find these very flared bars give a better braking action from the hoods.

I bought and fitted Woodchippers way back when. Truth is, there were fewer options 12-13 years ago. I liked them so much off-road that they became a permanent feature on my #gradventourer. However, they are both heavy and very stiff. I’d be tempted by the carbon ones if they weren’t so bloody expensive. My new (yet to arrive) gravel bike comes with a much more mildly flared bar so I’ll be giving that a go before deciding just how much flare I want on this one.

Worth noting: drops extend the reach of your bars, when riding in the hoods and drops, which will probably account for 90% of riding. On something with MTB geo – even 26er geo from back in the day – the design expects straight bars, with shorter built-in reach. So you might find you want a shorter stem to counter some of the reach in the bars themselves.

(by contrast, road and grav bikes expect drops, and straight bars on a gravel bike usually shrink the reach).

I’m running Ritchey Butano v2s, which I’m really enjoying – regular width in the hoods, nice flat bit on the straight for resting palms on, nice amount of flare. But for me, the best thing is the shallowness of the drop: the drops are nowhere near as low as my old bars, so it’s easier to get in them and spend longer in them. But it’s taken a while to work this out.

Oh and: bar tape is also a little personal, but nice tape will make your bars feel all the better.

I was very happy razzing about Kent and Surrey bridleways on a CX bike with cooking, narrow, drop roadie bars, was always on the hoods as I couldn’t reach the Ultegra levers properly from the drops and coming from flat bars off road it just felt really strange to be stretched out on the lairy bits.

There is always lots of road connecting sections of off road on my general routes from SE London, so I don’t see much advantage of flared bars and some disadvantages, particularly when the paths close up with spikey and stingy stuff in the coming weeks..

The bars on my newish Revolt are wider and slightly flared enough to affect the aerodynamics and require more effort on tarmac, with no discernable benefit (for me) off road. They are a bit more supple than the bars on my CX bike which is nice.. If I was regularly threading my way down boulder gardens in the mountains I’d possibly think differently.. and possibly be on a different bike 🙂

Brilliant and thanks all … have been offered locally a set of compact road bars to get up and running, and then will see how it feels, but really helpful guidance

Worth noting: drops extend the reach of your bars, when riding in the hoods and drops, which will probably account for 90% of riding. On something with MTB geo – even 26er geo from back in the day – the design expects straight bars, with shorter built-in reach. So you might find you want a shorter stem to counter some of the reach in the bars themselves.

I think the rule of thumb when putting flatbars on a dropbar bike is to put a 20mm (or so) longer stem on to compensate, so obviously the opposite is true when going from flats to drops

This is again where reach is very important, though. Proper dirt drops like a Ritchey Beacon or Salsa Woodchipper have a reach of only ~60mm, while other gravel drops may have a reach of 100mm.

So when moving from a flat bar to a proper dirt drop you may not need a shorter stem, and if so, not by much. But if moving to a more conventional gravel dropbar, you may need as much as a 40mm shorter stem to feel comfortable

The Complete List of Gravel Bars and a Guide to Flared Drop Bars

I am a Midge fan. I use champagne corks as plugs which keep my, admittedly small, hands in place. if only there was a very flared, shallow drop ike the Midge that was way narrowers. Say the drops at 42cm .Perfect road bar for me