[Closed] extra wide bars (720mm), what is the perceived advantage

not if you ride anywhere with trees.

720 is not extra wide. I have recently changed to some Renthal bars that come 750mm wide which, funnily enough, I then cut down to 720. They replaced my Eastons that measured approx. 685.

To be honest I prefer them for climbing as the extra width allows you to open your chest up a bit more and improves breathing - you may think that's rubbish, but I noticed the difference. It safe to assume that the extra width will give you greater leverage, but whether you will notice it that much depends on how sensitive you are to small changes, particularly if you have flexy forks.

All IMHO of course

Also depends how wide your 'stance' is.

I reckon 720 is extra wide compared to traditional 660 (for XC/AM)
granted it's not 750.

It's a genuine question. I was talking to a reasonably adept rider & he was teling anyone who would listen they should change to wider bars. (I think he uses 780. I also think he uses them for everything although he is largely a DH racer).

I got some 710mm bars nearly 4 years ago and everyone (including myself) was expecting me to cut them down. I left them and loved it. I now run 740mms on my "all mountain" bouncer and 660mm on my race bike.

On the right bike, they're great- something with a fair whack of travel (5"+) or a big hardtail, but on some bikes they don't have a place- lightweight hardtails, XC race bikes etc. I've ridden an XC race bike with 685mm bars and it's too wide to get an effective climbing position.

Wide bars improve handling by giving you more control at speed and in technical stuff, and seem to put you in a better stance for doonhills.

anyone ride the wide salsa flat handlebar, the one with a 17 degree bend? I just bought the 11 degree bend but think I might send it back for the bendier one

It's largely personal preference, something that was kind of ignored in the MTB world for many years, with 685mm being pretty much the widest you could get for a number of years.

Of course though, there's always a few that do it just for fashion reasons...

I ran 660's for years (even back in 1996, when everyone else was still on 580mm wide Flat bars), was suspect when Easton first brought out a 685mm bar almost 10 years ago but then tried some and quite liked it. So have been running 685mm bars pretty much ever since. Until a bike I bought last year came with some 710mm bars on, and well... Actually I quite like them. I do notice the extra width is not ideal for all situations (especially woody singletrack like Cranham woods), but for more open trails they're ace.

Spent all of the weekend before last riding my full sus bike with a set of 685mm Raceface bars on it... Have definitely decided that I now prefer wider bars, so am looking for some more 710's at a decent price... Don't think I could manage any wider though, I'm not a big bloke at just over 12 stone and 5ft 11, would suggest that people with much broader shoulders would suit the really wide (up to 800mm!) bars possibly...

Oh, and the perceived advantage...? More control, extra stability, more leverage etc. Though to be honest, once bars pass a certain width, I think the additional width will become detrimental as it will become harder to turn the bars simply because of the amount of hand/arm/shoulder movement required!

i ride with 710mm 40mm Rise 31.8 bars on both my hardtail and full sus. 6ft tall 13 stone.

Perfect for me and would not ride anything narrower or a lowe rise.I agree that i deffo notice that the wider bars on climbs open up my chest and keep the lungs breathing better. Racing snakes flying up hill at 100mile per hour will prob want a flat bar to keep the weight on climbs over the front. But for general riding wide high rise bars for me everytime.

the advantage is that manufacturers only need to stock one size nd the customer can cut them to length

Now if only I could ad an extra 40mm on those Mary bars of mine.. Hmm...
I think I'll give ODI a call about this one...

Mary bars have transformed my singlespud.. Extra torque on the bars without needing extra width, and happier shoulders after long rides. Even so, the stance you're put in makes you want them to be a tiny bit wider.

The width of your bars determines a number of things:

How much leverage you have over the bike - the more leverage you have the easier it is to crank the bike over on it's horizontal axis, which helps cornering.

The speed of the steering response - the wider the bar, the larger the arc described by the bars for the same amount of steering lock. This means you have a wider marging of error for steering inputs which makes it easier to steer at high speed.

The position of the rider on the bike - a wider bar will effectively pull you slightly forward as your arms will be bent at the elbows. When combined with a short stem (50mm) this puts you in an 'attacking' position, i.e. the main bulk of your body weight (torso) centred between the wheels and the upper part of your body, shoulders and head, slightly forward of the front centre line. This weights the front wheel for better traction without making you front heavy.

The benefits are not 'perceived' they are real but the benefits don't benefit everyone; it depends on what style of riding you want to do. XC racers don't want to slow their steering down because the long stems they run to stretch themselves out into a racer position already do this. Niether do they want to shorter their cockpit so short stem and wide bar is of little value to them. Plus they are less worried about outright downhill speed.

I was riding with the girl who runs Cedric Gracia's bike school recently, a 'pretty handy' rider and very knowledgeable. She was very against super wide bars and commented that lots of people are being pulled into the fashion of riding them, to the detriment of their riding. Her argument was that with the arm too widely spread it limits the natural movement of the shoulders and elbows and prevents the arms being used effectively. She did say that it was generally younger riders that suffered most, due to the fact that their shoulders are narrower.

It made a lot of sense to me when she explained it.

I am fairly narrow shouldered

Overwide bars I find uncomfortable and I see no great advantge. I don't find any shortage of leverage with 680 wide bars.

720mm? - why would i want anything so narrow?

this is me:
[img] [/img]

(i'm not sure it's all about shoulder-width, i'd suggest it's more about the distance between your elbows - maybe)

i've only ever met 2 people with longer arms than me, one of them is 7feet tall, and the other is from Norfolk ...

i have 760's on both my bikes.

read a review recently in MBR where they complained because the bars tested were 'only 700mm'! They then went on to say they would have preferred 710mm.... mental, you must need to be at one with the trail to feel the extra 5mm per side

Is there a Mr Tickle in the Mr Men ?? Awesome.

I hate wide bars for that very reason - narrow shoulders and short arms ! Its like driving a bus. All the Germans that came over for iXS Cup this year had them so very cool in Euroland, the courses there tend to be open and wide. They were happy that our course wasn't too nadgery.

But yes all the cool kids have them.

Used to ride 650mm. I had a go on a mates bike with 710mm and the difference was huge. So I bought some wider bars for my bike and they're cut to about 750mm now. I tried the narrower bars on yesterday and they just made the bike feel like a little toy.

Doesn't feel like I can climb nearly as well with the wider bars though, weird.

I hate overly wide bars and I have wide shoulders... 26"/660mm is as wide as I'll go without feeling that I'm doing an impression of JC which just feels horrible on many levels 😉

It's personal preference. There are differences but as stated earlier, those differences may or may not be beneficial to an individual rider. Give it a go and cut them down if you don't like it 🙂

I fitted my Inbred with the RF Deus from my old frame that I'd chopped about an inch off each side.
This felt too narrow so after looking for a standard (not OS) wide riser bar that pretty cheap, I ended up getting a Sunline V3 from CRC, which is 711mm (28"). I fully envisaged cutting them down a bit, but they feel great on the bike so I've left them.

Now the bars on my Stumpjumper feel really narrow, so will probably change them soon.

Richard Cunningham's take on the evolution of wide bars:

One or two degrees in the stem aren't going to make or break handling. What is funny is that a slack head angle kicks the axle forward, which takes weight off the front tire, and increases the amount of force transferred from the trail through the steering to the handlebars. So stem [b]length[/b] makes a big difference. Presently, the super slack all-mountain bikes also have the shortest stems, so they feel cramped when climbing, corner marginally on flat ground unless you weight the front wheel, and feel unstable through rock gardens unless the handlebars are wide.
What has evolved to fix it are super-wide handlebars.
Super wide bars: -force the rider to move forward over the front wheel; -add leverage to compensate for the boost in trail feedback; -effectively lengthens the cockpit by straightening out the arms.

What all-mountain and XC trailbikes need is, a combination of a slightly longer stem and medium-width bars. Adding a half inch in the stem has about the same effect as adding an inch on either side of the bars. Slightly narrower bars give the rider more freedom of movement fore and aft and laterally, when balancing in the saddle. This, however, is contrary to present fashion, so we'll have to wait a while for bike designers to figure the head-angle/stem relationship on their own.

I'm not sure how I feel about it (this seems a bit contrary to geetees explanation), but I've gone from 70mm stem/710mm bars to 90/685, which has improved cornering and stability, to my mind at least.

Yeah, but adding length to your stem and narrowing your bars isn't fashionable is it... 😉

Yeah, but adding length to your stem and narrowing your bars isn't fashionable is it.

Yeah but I'm hitting 50...

Logically shouldn't there be just as much variation in bar width as in frame size and virtual top tube length? I'm not exactly a giant but my arm span is far longer than that of shorter, narrower-shouldered and less ape-like riders!

I ride with 670mm bars but with my hands over the end of the bars so I'm probably using them more like 710+ if you had lock-on grips and hands centred on the grips. I'd have wider bars if it wasn't for all these damned trees in the way...

Used to ride 650mm. I had a go on a mates bike with 710mm and the difference was huge. So I bought some wider bars for my bike and they're cut to about 750mm now. I tried the narrower bars on yesterday and they just made the bike feel like a little toy.

Similar story here Tom, i always used to cut about 3/4" of each side of the bars to hammer through trees and the Anti motorbike restrictions on my local loop, until i cadged a go on Ed-o's bike, his wide bars just felt more natural as soon as i got on the bike, climbing seems easier too...

I've gone the other way. Had some really wide (for me) On One Fleegles (716.7mm in length), really liked the way they made you feel on the bike, wider arms, slightly forward, the attack position as described above. Also found them better for cranking up climbs.

However as nearly all my riding is in or involves woodland in some way wider bars were a bit stoopid, I was forever getting hooked up on branches/undergrowth and having to stop to wheel my bike between trees which my XC bar widthed mates would flash through like the speeders in return of the jedi, irksome.

So cut them down a few weeks ago, originally I wanted to take a couple of centimetres off each side ended up having a bit of a brain spasm while cutting and they ended up at about 630mm. Bums I thought - way too narrow, I'll have to buy some new ones. I gave them a go anyway and what a revelation sooooo much better (obv.) in the woods but I found I could carve better turns too - maybe because I could get lower because my weight was higher in relation to my leaning angle - I'm aware that this is probably because of a skill deficit on my part. I also felt faster when pedalling although this may be subjective due to the racer position. My hands/palms also felt less sore I guess due to the fact that my weight wasn't so far forward.

Chopped my bars to make room for myself among the trees/brambles/barbed wire etc and now miss the width! My levers/shifter/GD switch feel a little crowded but I reckon going back to big bars will make me feel like a barge in the woods. Bloody fettling!

So what's the consensus about climbing; wide or narrow better? Out of the saddle wide feels nice, but I don't know so much about the sat down equivalent. Mikey reckons his breathing is aided, others agree?

Like country roads & 4x4s - if we all have wider bars we will just eventually widen the trails to suit 🙂

How do roadies breathe properly with their hands so close together? I was experimenting with different positions into a headwind the other day: yes it's more aero but it feels cramped in the chest.

Laughing at the Richie Cunningham review. He nearly lost me at the mention of "all-mountain" bikes, but throwing "cockpit" in just cemented it all..

What about steering feedback? With wider bars it is harder for the front wheel to "snatch" the handlebars when it hits a bump - so it stays pointing the way you intended it to point.

What about steering feedback? With wider bars it is harder for the front wheel to "snatch" the handlebars when it hits a bump - so it stays pointing the way you intended it to point.

Same can be said of a longer stem though. The comments made above about lengthening the stem slightly and narrowing the bars makes sense in that respect. Of course though, it's not the fashion is it! 😉

On a serious note, I recently put a 70mm stem on my hardtail instead of a 90 so that my GF could ride it. She's about 4 inches shorter than me, but most of that is in the leg, so I figured she could ride my bike fine as long as the reach was slightly shorter. Seems to suit her just fine... Anyway, I had a quick spin round the carpark on it with its 70mm stem and it felt totally bloody awful to me! REALLY slow steering. That's with 685mm bars on. When I ride it, I'll definitely swap back to a 90mm stem.

Though wider bars and shorter stem definitely staying on my messabout bike...

Two years ago I went from 640 to 685 on both my bikes.

By "normal" standards, my Giant is a bit short in the TT and wider bars seem to have helpfully compensated without going for a huge stem. On the HT SS, it seems to help with steep climbing where you lever the bar up to help get the pedal down.

But there are already some "badger" trails I ride that are challenging with a 685 bar width. I guess if you are riding more open trails all the time, you can go bigger without worrying. But at some point, people's arms will not be long enough!

mboy, shorter stem will make it easier/twitchier to turn than a longer one 😕

All my offroad bikes now have 700+ bars. Just feel more comfortable to me.

I do have stupidly long arms though.

Ahwiles - i reckon i may be able to outsize you - c. 7ft fingertip to fingertip. Long even for my height (6'7").

Standard Easton 685mm bars just seem too narrow when i ride them now.

Each to their own though. There is no correct length.

Seeing as my riding has a DH bias anyway, I chucked some old Sunline's I had in the spares box on my little bike. 745 is probably a bit excessive, but on the downhills it doesn't half make the bike more stable & fun to ride.

The ups a chore to me regardless, so I don't really notice it being any harder.

makes it really scary getting on the road bike though!

makes it really scary getting on the road bike though!

Yep, my road bike feels so tiny and nimble compared to my mtb. I was happy with the mtb before getting the roadie but now the mtb is just slow and sluggish for anything flat or uphill 😆 Must be 'cos the mtb has gears 😉

Pffft, those aren't extra wide, these are extra wide!
[img] [/img]

I was riding with the girl who runs Cedric Gracia's bike school recently, a 'pretty handy' rider and very knowledgeable. She was very against super wide bars and commented that lots of people are being pulled into the fashion of riding them, to the detriment of their riding. Her argument was that with the arm too widely spread it limits the natural movement of the shoulders and elbows and prevents the arms being used effectively. She did say that it was generally younger riders that suffered most, due to the fact that their shoulders are narrower.

It made a lot of sense to me when she explained it.

Pretty much what we were talking about 3 weeks ago with LBS bloke and a friend of mine.