Frustration!

I so want to love the Jones bar. I bought one from CTBM a few years ago (the wide one).

I keep putting on my bike (Krampus, Mukluk, now ICT – just keep getting fatter!) and taking them off again.

Love – shape and initial hand placement, extra hand positions for climbing, esp with bar tape to keep fingers warm, hanging bike packing stuff off the front.

Just cannnot love – gives me sore wrists 🙁 , and a wider, normal bar does give me more confidence in rough stuff, esp steeps.

Its really the wrist thing that has sealed it. I’ve had it before, not a major thing, but I ride every day and after a few months of H-bar use I notice a certain sharp pain in my wrists during certain actions (no sniggering! not that!) that gets progressively worse.

After I switch back to normal bars, pain goes away. First ride this morning with old normal bars back on, and wrists are noticably better.

Ah well, dammit, so want to love you H-Bar, but, sniff, it ain’t to be 🙁

Anything tried on your bikes that just doesn’t work?

had the same wrist pain but now I,ve sorted the position out pain free now you need to take your time adjusting!

Like you, I’m a bit ambivalent about them. Lovely idea for bikepacking but doesn’t, to me, offer the same control at any speed. Might work better with the Jones geometry / riding position. Conversely, I like them in snow as they seem more suited to soft, slippy terrain. For the past couple of years I’ve been fitting them on the fatbike for Winter and removing them for summer

i fiddled with my loops (as part of my jones build)

it took me ages to get the bars working for me and now a love them.

no idea if this will help your wrists but i run mine upside down, so they are almost ultra subtle drop bars. love it!

possibly worth a try?

I cant get on with them, my wrists don’t like having impacts when held at that angle. Appreciate the potential control you can get, hand position etc. but I went back to flat bars and bar ends for bike packing, specifically Egron grips with bar ends. So normal straight bar for main riding but let you rest your palm on the grip and rest your hand at any angle all the way upto the full 90 at bar ends.

I have to slope them slightly upwards (back end lower than the front end) and then they seem spot on to me… Have you tried adjusting the angle?

I used cranked shaft paddles when I was kayaking to relieve wrist pain and though Jones bars might do similar for me biking. But I found they brought my elbows too far in and the backsweep was too much to get on with them, ideally I want something a smidge wider with about 25deg backsweep but the same shape for bikepacking useage.

We did a skills day with Chris Ball and cynic-al had some Mary bars on, which put your hands in a similar position. Chris pointed out that they restrict how much you can bend at the elbow to move around the bike and weren’t really ideal for serious mountain biking (as opposed to bike packing on gravel roads etc, where I appreciate they may have a use).

Have a go on the On One OG bars, I find them just about perfect not quite as much sweep as Jones. Plenty cheap too

weren’t really ideal for serious mountain biking

whats serious mountain biking?

I bought an on-one mary bar after seeing this pic..
They certainly require you to use your cojones in a more assertive manner, which obviously helps you to ride faster and harder..
It’s almost a kamikaze attitude that the bar shape forces you to adopt..

I thought they were great..

I don’t know what to suggest for your weak wrists though 😕

Chris pointed out that they restrict how much you can bend at the elbow to move around the bike and weren’t really ideal for serious mountain biking

Typical endurobollocks from someone who’s probably never ridden them. 🙄

I’m not sure what ‘serious’ mountainbiking is, apart from the sort that you do to make a living.

His head would probably explode at the thought of my rigid fatbike with Jones riding ‘serious’ terrain.
I didn’t think this stuff was serious at all, I found it a hoot 🙂

Plenty of gnarrrr at 7.10 > and 10.00 >
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLAsqjHZb00[/video]

Don’t worry folks, I am not too sad 🙂 I’ve tried lots of variations on position, and yes, even (accidentally) upside down.

On my first 29er years ago I had the on-one bars, but those gave me bloody tennis elbow!

I’ve tried for years as I want to like them. Just not destined for me, I am sure there are folks that can thrutch the gnar with them just fine, but for me it’s back to normal risers on the ICT.

Final reason that I forgot, breathing. I am a tall, broad and fat fella, and the ‘chest open breathe easy’ nature of 780mm normals, compared to 710 backsweep was really noticeable as well.

Good call on the ergons for big trips, that makes a lot of sense.

I think a lot of bar fit relates to your shoulder width, arm length and how you tend to position your shoulders and hips when riding. I’ve accidentally discovered that my perfect bar is the 800mm Raceface SixC, which is pretty standard back and upsweep. But as soon as I take my hands in to 750mm width the sweep is too great and I want a straighter bar to take the pressure off the outside of my hands.

I’ve tried lots of bars for size/fit in my local shops this last week and at 750 they all have the same problem. Sadly our local trails are too tight for 800s to be viable all the time, so I’ll just have to man up and tolerate the less comfy 750s on my hardtail and keep the big bars for the big bike.

I love mine. Key for me is being angled down. Just fitted a carbon pair to new bike and they are noticeably more comfy than alu ones. I like the range of positions available, but appreciate they will not be for everybody.

I really like them, I’ve had loops for a few years now, first on my Scandal then later on a Jones Diamond frameset. Once fitted to the Jones frame, it all seemed to make perfect sense. They’re really great when doing high torque, out the saddle peddling.

I fitted mine with Ergons and find them very comfy, although I’ve never been 100% happy with the height of my bars, due to the steerer length being a little short (frameset was bought used off here), still that’s my justification for an eventual Ti truss upgrade. 🙂

I’ve always thought they were great for control too, the limiting factor for me on rougher trails was always how much of a battering my legs could take.

If they’re not working for you best move them on before Alpkit flood the market with their copies.