Is wider better....

[tintin40]

some of the widths now are daft and make the bike feel like a clowns bike.

Agree 100%

 

[porkypaw]

I competed in motor cycle trials for a lot of years and it was said that if you did some press ups, when your arms were at a comfortable distance apart you should measure the distance across the outside of your hands and that was your ideal bar width. Not sure if same applies to mountain bikes but you could give it go.

 

[FMJ]

Dildo Bars (I kid you not). Shortest ones are 12 5/8". Subtract the radiused ends, and useable real estate would be 11 5/8".

http://www.planet-x-bikes.co.uk/i/q/HBUKDILDO-50-SIL/ueda-kenichi---dildo-bars---50-cm---silver

"don't blame us if you die horribly." - No ****!

 

[Thunderchild]

Have tried riding wider, but always return to my narrow bars. Last year on a ride on the Blow Hard trail at Brian Head Utah(http://www.utahmountainbiking.com/trails/blowhard.htm), a guy in our group commented how I would have better control etc. with wider bars. Well I stayed on his rear knobby all the way down with my narrow bars. At the bottom, I wondered aloud how that was possible based on his early comments :

Try them all then ride what you like or what works for you. And don't tell others what to ride with. If they are interested in your rig, they will ask. Yes, I am going to keep on using my bar ends and run an 8-speed drive train too.

I also did something that, though not designed to, lets me have fun with those with long bars. I re-routed a trail and built a technical switch back with a 3 offset trees to go through before you hit the switch back. There is a ride-around for the section of course. Even with my narrow bars I have to rock the handlebars back and forth to get through the 3 offset trees. I love taking dudes with long bars through the section. Without dabbing, I make it about 75% of the time; so far they make it 0% of the time :twisted:

Thunderchild

 

[feetabix]

im seeing a lot of commuting machines around city centres in the uk at the mo....brightly coloured wheels and tiny bar width!......not sure of make but they dont look safe to me.....

 

[stumpjumper1990]

They allways told me to have bars as wide as your shoulder..... That way you can keep your arms straight and have maximum control. It makes sence to me and works!

 

[doctor-bond]

Don't forget that (on mountain bikes) narrow bars came from the era of long stems. To an extent, the long stem counteracts the twitchy steering of the shorter bar.

Short bars and long stems on MTBs are heroic.

 

[brocklanders023]

They allways told me to have bars as wide as your shoulder..... That way you can keep your arms straight and have maximum control. It makes sence to me and works!

This is what I always thought as well. Sure MBUK used to bang on about it in Grime Time. It's my rule of thumb (give or take) and seems to work.

 

[merckx]

its a personal thing. especially if you use dildo bars. i digress.. on my 2007 8500 trek it came with 6 degree 600mm flat bars. it was quite nice. but i have recently put 680mm bontrgaer carbon big sweep 12 degree bars on it.

i would never again use 600s or 580s... sweep is also a big difference. its why risers feel so good, so moto. it puts your shoulders in a nice attack position, rather than locking them in place like straight bars tend to.

i now find it much easier to climb really tecnical rock gardens etc, the wide bars give so much more leverage. on descents, they also are heaps better, especially around sweepy berms etc. i might not be going any quicker... but i am having heaps more fun, and the bike feels great. it took a week of riding to get used to the wide bar, but now i am hooked.

i am now impatiently waiting for my 660mm slasa moto ace 11 degree bar to arrive for my zaskar....its one of the few nice wide sweepy 25.4 bars that are available for the old retro rocket bikes.

sith that bar in your first post is crazy! it must have been so hard and tiring to try and ride that bike!

 

[Jonny69]

I cut mine down. I'm used to road bars and riding bars that were much wider than my shoulders felt wrong. I took about 150mm off overall so they were shoulder width and it was much more comfortable. Not as narrow as in the first pic, but not far off.