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I’m new to CX a bikes but love it. My bike has Giant contact drops (440mm) with a sight flare.
I want to try proper flaired bars as I think it would give more confidence on rough ground (bit more like an MTB?).
I’m just stuck with sizing. My MTB bars are all 780mm- which I like. I’m 6’1” with long arms.
The bars I’m looking at (Genetic Digest) are 440mm or 460mm.
460mm seems wide from reading online. I’m leaning towards these but don’t want anything daft- you can’t just chop these down after all.
Any advice appreciated.
go with the widest you can find, the roadie rule of bar width matching your shoulder width doesn't really apply if you want better control off road. I'm 5'11 and not particularly broad shouldered and I have a 460 wide (at the hoods) Easton AX bars.
That said, flared bars are widest at the flare (obviously) so you get most leverage riding in the drop, which you may or may not prefer when its rough. Also, don't expect it to transform your CX bike into some kind of MTB-lite 🙂 It's the tyres and geometry that are more of a limiting factor than bars to riding rough tracks
I'd go with the widest possible. I have Woodchippers and ride in the drops as soon as it gets rough and every extra bit of leverage helps with control.
Funn G-Wide in 500mm flavor.
Loving it to the bits 🙂
Had Digest 480 before, but Funn is nicer IMO...
Cheers!
I
what druid said
Thanks Gents. Great info.
I don’t expect a drastic change on the bike. I’m actually enjoying the ‘terrafunning’ element of being out of control on a mildly rough surface. A feat it takes some doing on my enduro bike.
I’ll also check out the Funn bars.
Cheers all.
... if you are scared by 500mm Funn is coming in 480 as well.
Cheers!
I.
I have a pair of Genetic Digest bars - the narrower ones don't leave much room if you like riding with your hands on the tops / either side of the stem. I mainly ride on the hoods - creates a nice flat platform to rest the wrists.
yes it's worth thinking about whether you want to mainly use the hoods but have a flared drop as a secondary grip or if you want to ride mostly in the drop. The more extreme flared bars can set the hoods at quite an angle that you may or may not find comfortable since they are designed to work with the drops as the main grip position. With this kind of bar you might also want a higher rise stem and in all cases it's worth considering a shorter stem if you're using a wider bar - say 20mm shorter than you might use on a road drop bar - IMHO
I tried a few different bars including some On-One midge bars which are the more extreme type and they were good but found I preferred a more standard compact drop bar like the Easton AX for the hood position