Wide bars on 26"

Anyone do this? Felt really wrong when I tried.

Did you get the 26″ specific ones?

Dave did one. No ones seen him since.

Just put a set of 740mm on my 26″ single speed. Felt good.

If we’re going down this route, then, looking at the bikes I’ve had over the last few years, the absolute widest bars I’ve had have been on 26ers. So, um… YOU’RE WRONG! Or something.

I’ve got 740mm on mine, feel OK, but I’d guess it’s down to shoulder width rather than wheel size?

I’ve gone 740mm for the 26″ & 800mm for the 650b – I wouldn’t want to ride 650b spec bars on my 26″ – chaos.

26″ is 660mm – that is the maximum width you should run!?! 8)

I used the little-known formula to work out my bar size.
Front wheel size x 25.4(to get mm’s) + stem length + number of gears + shoe size(EU) + bar diameter.

Eg:
26×25.4 = 660.4
660.4+50 = 710.4
710.4+10 = 720.4
720.4+44 = 764.4
754.4+31.8 = 796.2

I cut mine before I’d found the formula and, guess what, my bars are 794mm. I think the formula is pretty close. 🙄

I must be doing something wrong, as I have the exact same 750mm bars on 3 bikes with 3 different wheel sizes (26, 27.5 and fat 26) and they feel, weirdly, EXACTLY THE SAME.

I used 780mm on my old inbred and it was good, use wide bars on my 29er too, it feels just as good. I have fairly wide shoulders so it suits me, but would go as wide as needed anyway.

780mm here but been considering something wide instead…

I have 780mm on 2 bikes and 720 on the other MTB. All 26ers. Will I die?

t’s down to shoulder width

, arm length, torso length, top tube length, head angle, stem length, bike type, riding style, personal preference, experimentation, tree spacing and fashion and perception of what constitutes ‘wide’ – is that relative to what you had before, or anyone else posting numbers?

Did you get the 26″ specific ones

😀 😀 😀

Wide bars existed well before other wheel sizes. Yes on both bikes and they feel great

Assuming this isn’t a pisstake (? 🙂 )

Wide bars on my Norco LT (740mm) feels right. Much narrower (660mm, I think) on the Inbred feels right.

The trees are getting closer together around here.

OP
Measure your index finger then devide it by the length of your ring finger.
If the result comes out any more than 0.97,you are not qualified to talk about handlebar width,you should stop immediately and ask someone with the right finger ratio.

What do you think the relationship between wheel size and bars could be?

relationship between wheel size and bars could be?

I always assumed the reason their sizes were quoted in different units was to prevent exactly that sort of comparison being made? But then 650B came along and Boom! it’s all up for grabs.

I used the little-known formula to work out my bar size.
Front wheel size x 25.4(to get mm’s) + stem length + number of gears + shoe size(EU) + bar diameter.

don’t forget the enduro coefficient, 0 for no enduroness to maximum of 1 where full coordinated enduro specific kit and bike colour scheme, goggles and 160mm carbon bike are present.

Classic leg-pull. Fair play to the OP for posting something fairly plausible on STW, then just enjoying the fun.

Surely it depends on what tyre you are running anyway.

(Sits back and casually flicks kettle on-switch………….)

Anyone notice that high ordinary bikes had really narrow bars…?

Makes the 1200mm bars on my BMX seem stupidly wide.

mine are blue

(the bars I mean)

GnarBar ??

Don’t forget to put 650B stickers on the sidewalls of your 26 inch tyres and rims. It makes them roll faster.

Actually not a pisstake.

I’ve found that bars that were perfectly fine on 26 are not wide enough for 29. People go on about ‘more leverage’ from wider bars, and I had no idea what they were talking about until I tried narrower bars on a 29 – then I needed more leverage to handle the larger wheels.

Likewise wider bars on 26 made handling slow.. so I think it’s entirely reasonable to draw a link between wheel size and bar width because leverage.

Can’t believe NO-ONE else has considered this? Or are you all using whatever came with your endurpoon or whatever the mags tell you is rad?

you sure it’s not head angle, offset and rake affecting things too?

Likewise wider bars on 26 made handling slow.

hmmmm, wider bars aren’t changing geometry at all. so it doesn’t have that (slow handling) effect.

He could get the head angle tested.

Thread = joke

molgrips = pedant; ergo difficult to tell 😉

I still maintain that just sticking 650B on the sidewalls makes you go faster.

I think history and trends comes into this a bit. There will be a lot of 26 bikes out there that just came with narrower bars because that’s how it was a few years ago. And it wasn’t until around the same time as 650B happened that the whole trail bike and wider bars started to catch on.

A 2013 bike I bought (and recently sold) came with 660mm bars out of the box and 100mm stem. I upgraded it to a 50mm stem and 760mm bar and it was a lot better for it. Much more control.

My last of the 26 inch 160 ‘duro bikes came with 780mm out the box and it feels perfect for that kind of riding but I have 760mm bars on a 26 inch 140 trail bike and that feels perfect too.

So for me bar width goes with travel and not wheel size since all my hoops are 26 inch.

Wider bars are for more precision steering supposedly.
If you have two radios one with a huge knob and one with a tiny knob, it is much easier to tune precisely the one with the bigger knob.

hmmmm, wider bars aren’t changing geometry at all. so it doesn’t have that (slow handling) effect.

It’s because you have to move your hands a lot further, which takes longer to do. It’s why racing cars have small steering wheels.

Gelert – sensible answer 🙂

nickc – Member

hmmmm, wider bars aren’t changing geometry at all. so it doesn’t have that (slow handling) effect.

Wider bars mean your hands have to travel further for the same amount of steer so they can have that feeling. Though in reality, all bikes steer as fast as you tell them to, what varies is effort not speed.

I like that Molgrips has now turned his bar confusion into randomly slagging other people, it’s good this.

I like that Molgrips has now turned his bar confusion into randomly slagging other people, it’s good this.

Well since most people piled in rather than talking about geometry I thought I’d return fire a bit 🙂

Just messing around but I was genuinely interested if bigger wheels demand a wider bar, and smaller wheels would benefit from narrower ones. Seems entirely reasonable to me and my very limited experience bears this out. But as said, I’ve only tried modern wide on a bike that predates the wide thing and of course there are many other variables.

Surely it was people putting wide bars on 26″ bikes in the first place that made people realise it was a good thing, now apparently they were wrong?!? Or did wide bars come out with 29ers but they didn’t state it in the press release!! 😕

Couldn’t you try getting your arms shortened before committing?