Handlebar width

[corpuschain]

Hey folks,

What should I consider when deciding on handlebar width?

I'm riding an XC hardtail and my current handlebar is 620mm wide. This was mostly to make it feel 'comfortable' with regard to my shoulder width and in my dirt jumping days it made tricks easier. However, I have never really thought much about it. I notice the trend these days is towards 680-700mm or so, and so given that I'm some way off that, I was wondering if wider bars would be a good idea. My trials bike has wide bars for increased leverage and control, so... wouldn't that be good for my XC bike?

My riding style is not fast, so I'm not worried about being aero. I mostly spend my time riding steep, rocky stuff in a tiny gear.

What factors should I consider in choosing a handlebar width?

 

[2manyoranges]

680-700! Nope. 750-810!!!

It’s all gone a bit bonkers. When I was doing 60 miles a day off-road as relaxed distance, you ran bars the same width as your shoulders, for precisely the reasons you outline. And we had bar ends, to enable us to move our hands around to stop cramp and carpal tunnel syndrome. And we had 130mm stems, god knows what fork offset (who talked about that then?) and used narrower bars to get the right ‘speed’ steering. With 160mm travel forks, sitting way out in front on 64 deg head tubes, 42 mm offset forks and 35mm stems, you need to run a wider bar. 780 is right for us, we think, the Grom and I, and that weights the front properly in DH, and JUST squeezes between the trees in singletrack - though only just if it was cut in the narrow-bar era. No bar ends means aching wrists when doing distance. And it’s not distance which is popular any more, it’s all about air, flow, and more air.

That’s the thing...it all depends. If you like your narrow bars, your have trad stem and forks, and your shoulders and wrists do not complain, and you don’t stack all the time - stay with them and Relish the Retro. Indeed if you try a 780 bar on a bike with a 135 stem you will have slightly hilarious handling.

If you have a new geometry hooligan bike (Ragley, Stanton, Transition) then you’ll want that 760-780 bar.....

 

[corpuschain]

Hmm, interesting response! I should have mentioned that I just built up a new bike out of old parts, and the geometry is slightly different. Maybe I should ride it around and see how I feel with the current width.

I can certainly recall a few times that the narrowish width has helped me get through narrow terrain! I'll go for a few rides on the new steed and see how it handles.

 

[mk one]

What factors should I consider in choosing a handlebar width?

What works best for you!

Handlebar width has and always will be a personal choice, what works best for one person is not necessarily the right choice for another. What, apart from the feeling you are missing out due to advertising and propaganda, do you think your current bars are lacking?

 

[kyle888]

Re:

I recently bought a pair of these 740mm bars https://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/HBSBGUFLE ... -handlebar
For my bike which has a Conservative 68° HA and 60mm stem.

I had 700mm before the sweep was less on the new bars and felt like it made the bit between my finger and thumb hurt so I changed back to the old bars but they felt so narrow and strange I put the new bars back on.

Hope this helps

Kyle

 

[corpuschain]

What, apart from the feeling you are missing out due to advertising and propaganda, do you think your current bars are lacking?

I certainly don't think I want super wide modern bars (>700mm). I just have always cut my bars down from what was standard, and wondered if I should experiment more.

The rebuilt bike has steering that feels little wrong. Last night I sat on it and thought maybe a longer stem but higher rise bar would solve the problem instead.

I recently bought a pair of these 740mm bars https://www.planetx.co.uk/i/q/HBSBGUFLE ... -handlebar
For my bike which has a Conservative 68° HA and 60mm stem.

I had 700mm before the sweep was less on the new bars and felt like it made the bit between my finger and thumb hurt so I changed back to the old bars but they felt so narrow and strange I put the new bars back on.

So you preferred the wider... interesting. 740 is pretty wide. I wouldn't go that far. Those bars have hardly any rise, which I notice is a modern trend. On Tredz, I can only see one or two bars that have more than 1 inch rise.
Interesting about the pain in your hand. I certainly wouldn't want to change my bar to one that increased the likelihood of pain!

 

[corpuschain]

680-700! Nope. 750-810!!!
It’s all gone a bit bonkers.

I see what you mean! You could be forgiven for thinking you were looking at a motorbike.

 

[2manyoranges]

I think one thing which has changed hugely is the approach to cornering. Yep, simply going round corners is subject to contestation in the MTB world. For years,w with narrow bars, I used balance to get a bike to corner. Lean inwards, nice and balanced on the bars, round you go. But then the newbies shout ‘....WRONG!!!...’

I wondered why I was washing out on berms, and suddenly I could see why. With wide bars and long slack frame you need to NOT lean in, but lean the bike, a weird elbow-out position, with your chest over the (stubby) stem, keeping pressure on the front wheel through a centred body (no leaning in) and pressuring the lower end of bar - ie subtle pushing and then reduction of pressure using the lower inside end of the bar with the upper hand doing virtually nothing. Very odd. Christina Chappata has a very nice video on the weird-feeling and strange-looking technique - which REALLY WORKS. Much easier to correct trajectory, and no washing out. But COMPLETELY DIFFERENT and needed lots of unlearning of old technique and much learning of new....RUFF! You can teach an old dog new tricks....

 

[corpuschain]

I think one thing which has changed hugely is the approach to cornering. Yep, simply going round corners is subject to contestation in the MTB world. For years,w with narrow bars, I used balance to get a bike to corner. Lean inwards, nice and balanced on the bars, round you go. But then the newbies shout ‘....WRONG!!!...’

I wondered why I was washing out on berms, and suddenly I could see why. With wide bars and long slack frame you need to NOT lean in, but lean the bike, a weird elbow-out position, with your chest over the (stubby) stem, keeping pressure on the front wheel through a centred body (no leaning in) and pressuring the lower end of bar - ie subtle pushing and then reduction of pressure using the lower inside end of the bar with the upper hand doing virtually nothing. Very odd. Christina Chappata has a very nice video on the weird-feeling and strange-looking technique - which REALLY WORKS. Much easier to correct trajectory, and no washing out. But COMPLETELY DIFFERENT and needed lots of unlearning of old technique and much learning of new....RUFF! You can teach an old dog new tricks....

I hate berms. It's one of the reasons I avoid trail centres. It's not so much the technique; I've never crashed on a berm; but I hate the fact you can't see where you're going.

I remember I used to go to PORC in Kent to do some jumping. The dual/4X course had a long straight with big jumps, which was lots of fun. Then it went into a section full of smaller jumps and berms. I used to stop here and walk back up. Berms just weren't fun. They felt more like going down a waterslide than riding a bike. Kind of like the different between Nascar and Formula One?

 

[kyle888]

Re:

Yeah preferred the 740mm bars. I had changed the grips at the same time which were a different shape and slightly thinner so I put my old grips back on.
Kyle