How did you arrive at your bar height?

Probably a 'right', for our height and core strength? I adjust mine for a lack of hunch/lower back stress when climbing or riding out of the saddle. Suprising how 10mm can be the difference between ok and a mild stress position that adds up over time. A higher bar is also better for unweighting the front wheel but doesn't stop me shifting fwd to weight it in corners. Front contact patch can feel a bit distant on bikes with really high bars though, the more you lean the bike the odder it feels or the more you need a wide bar to compensate.

There's so many factors at play that there can't possibly be any strict rules that work for everyone of any value. From bike geometry to person geometry to style of riding, terrain, etc, etc.

Personally its bars at seat height as a starting point and fiddle from there to get it feeling right

As low as the frame will allow. Saddle height for my Enduro bike just to balance weight a bit better when it gets steep. -25deg on the xc bike. Slammed on the others (TT bike has risers tho to reduce front area).

I do quite a lot of lifting, mobility and yoga tho.

I like a relatively high bar so I can rest my elbow on it and hold my beer.

Listened to a pod cast with cy cotic, he was talking about higher bars making it easier to lean into corners, makes sense as it gives you more potential movement before being at the end of the movement range

I don't know how that makes sense. The range of motion is the same you just start lower?

Unless you're talking about being so lent over that you're scraping your bar end?

Of course modern steerers and headsets makes playing around with adjustment more difficult. Bring back the quill!!

higher bars making it easier to lean into corners

Higher than what?

Everything about bar height is so variable its impossible to say what's [b]better[/b].
Personally I prefer my bars to be lower to be able to weight the front end better in corners but it's always a compromise between that and having them high enough so they're not too low when the dropper is up.

I put a small spacer between the headset and the bars, I assume the frame designers know what they were doing 🙂

@feed but what rise bars

As many different bar heights as I have bikes. The lowest is definitely the triathlon bike, and the highest is either the All Mountain MTB or the Brompton. In terms of efficiency I reckon I can produce the most watts for longest on my classic roadies with the bars 6-8cm below the saddle and 72°-73.5° seat angles. The best down an MTB trail is the All mountain MTB (27.5 Zesty AM) with the bars at about the same height as the saddle before I press the dropper button and a much steeper seat tube. Most neck ache is the triathlon bike.

Mtb, start with a few spacers, lower them until I stop understeering out of corners.

Typically results in them being relatively low compared to most people but then I’m only little. Had a go at riding them 5 mm higher a couple of years ago and just couldn’t corner at all, not enough weight on the front

Start with a few spacers from new, move them around now and again until it feels right, then cut steerer tube to suit.
Done entirely on feel, but I've been riding 25years and know what I like by now

Never really thought about it beyond what feels OK but TJ and titusrider have got me thinking a bit. Most of my bikes have saddle and stem pretty level with each other (not by conscious design though) and I run low rise bars with no spacer (or just a 5mm one) under a flat(ish) stem generally. I guess then I like the feel of a lowish front end, but I'm a shortarse so maybe that's what physics dictates?

bars and saddle at the same height has always worked for me. even with the odd time i have used drops.

i dont need to be aero, and i have never had the need to ride fast.
comfort on my bike is number one for me, and the ability to sit up and look round at the scenery.

Like my bars low and that's mostly for long distance comfort as if my bars are moved higher my lower back will start aching. I like 29ers but can't see myself moving to them completely as stack heights have jumped up on them and i doubt I'd be able to get the bars low enough to stop the back trouble.

I've tried bars too low, bars too high, and bars about right maybe. Different length stems, different angled stems, spacers above, spacers below. Now generally go for bars above saddle, which for me is more comfortable and fewer OTB incidents.

I don’t know how that makes sense. The range of motion is the same you just start lower?

For me I think lower bars had a tendency to pull me down (because I had to reach more to hold them) whereas with higher bars I can push them down so that means more control. At least that's what I've though. Might simply be I was less skilled as a rider when I raced around with low bars and high saddle with frequent OTBs.

@feed but what rise bars

Well obviously, once again, whatever came on the bike, because those frame designers know what they're doing 🙂

P.S. I'm obviously being a bit tongue in cheek about this (with my previous reply) but I would have thought that bars should be slammed (with a small spacer), otherwise surely you've bought the wrong bike\frame size for what you actually want a bike for?

I just make it so the grips are where my hands are at. Seems to work.

Done entirely on feel, but I’ve been riding 25years and know what I like by now

Likewise, but I'll take it further and say depends on what kind of bike too... My XC bike is pretty slammed, no spacers under the stem, nearly flat bar, negative rise stem, feels good to me... I do run a longer dropper on it than most will do on their XC bikes though which helps when descending.

My eBike, I'm already as high as it can go and I'm about to swap the 20mm rise bars for 38mm (albeit might compensate 5-10mm of spacers at the same time) to get the bars a little higher...

The above said... My XC bike is pretty relaxed geometry as they go, my eBike has a pretty short head tube and low stack height considering too...

Experience helps...

Higher than what?

Everything about bar height is so variable its impossible to say what’s better.
Personally I prefer my bars to be lower to be able to weight the front end better in corners but it’s always a compromise between that and having them high enough so they’re not too low when the dropper is up.

Basically the same principle I've applied for 20+yrs... The bottom bracket height is pretty well fixed, so once you've set your saddle height for pedalling, you can start adjusting all the other contact points from there on in within the scope of adjustments available.

Caveat emptor... What works for me might not work for you though... I see more people on MTB's (especially eMTB's) with their bars higher than optimal and a near upright position out on the trails, where roadies are usually the other way and will suffer chronic back pain rather than suffer the indignity that a flat top tubed aero race bike just isn't for them!

I put a small spacer between the headset and the bars, I assume the frame designers know what they were doing

Some do... Some don't... But ore importantly than that, have they designed the bikes geometry for you specifically, or more likely have you bought one of 3/4/5 sizes available that present a compromise based on trying to fit a range of different height customers buoyed by the adjustability afforded by the various contact points on a bicycle that people often don't take advantage of...? 🤷🏻‍♂️

Simple fact is, even if the designed knows exactly what they are doing, then unless the bike has been specifically designed around you as an individual, everything is a compromise... So don't assume that anything is best fit, until you've actually experimented with what works for you...

@mboy wins the replies here,great detail buddy

I think there's too many factors at play to have a one size fits all approach. My old 26" bike had quite low rise bars and only one stem spacer, my new 29er has loads of spacers and much higher rise bars. For my setup the difference will mostly be down to geometry and the 29er being much longer than my 26er was so I don't need to try and artificially weight the front of the bike with a lower bar.

Personally its bars at seat height as a starting point and fiddle from there to get it feeling right

This seems like pretty good advice for most people.

I put a small spacer between the headset and the bars, I assume the frame designers know what they were doing

Well, maybe, but what stack of headset, rise of stem, and rise of bar were they assuming. Is that what got specced on the bike by whoever put the kit of parts together?

Also, I'm guessing that making the head tube longer to raise the bars raises the top tube, so impacts standover and also adds a load more material which adds cost and weight (and a "competitively" low frame weight for the spec sheet is probably one of the design objectives). And it will change the look of the bike and make the bike look more diffent through the range (smaller, compact frames tend to look better than 'gates'). And different riders have different degrees of flexibility - a low bar might be good for performance, but uncomfortable for some riders.

Based on all of that, I normally run mine with 5 or 10 mm of spacers (because I think any more looks ugly, and any less doesn't allow for a different, awkwardly taller, stem I might fit in future or screwing up the measuring and cutting) and assume the designer got it right (and adjust the ride height with the bar).

15mm Spacer under a 42.5mm stem and 38mm risers is my optimum. Could swap a few things around like slamming the stem and going shorter to equal out the reach increase from slamming, then higher risers, but this all works so don't want to fiddle.

How I go there, totally my accident, expermination and feel.

Interesting read this one. Anyone noticed if there is any correlation between Lower bar height = lower back pain or higher bar height = lower back pain? I am still messing with mine and had a hideous ride the other day with lower back pain plus wrist pain. The adjustments I had made were an effort to fix the lower back pain but all they did was add wrist pain.

Thinking I might try a slightly longer stem as I am on a 30mm at the moment

Could it be the lower back pain is linked to MSK issues? Tight hamstrings/TFL/weak glutes?

Wrist pain could be too much weight on bars, or the backsweep not being favourable maybe?

I start with a few spacers under and lower until it feels right or it's slammed then I put up or swap bars etc. I do like it lowish though so I can push hard through the bars.

I’m the opposite and like the bars nice and high. Never realised how comfortable it is until I bought a Stooge. Now pretty much always have 10 or 15mm under the bars, zero rise stem and high rise bars with plenty of back-sweep too

It’s complicated!

But two bits of advice I’d give:

1. Longer reach bikes often work better with higher bars (and when I say higher bars, I mean stack height plus spacers plus bar rise, considered at sag).

2. Your proportions matter a lot, not just your height. The longer your legs, the higher your bars tend to need to be to match up with your hip-hinged attack/ready/boss position.

Actually I’ll add a third - on ebikes with all that battery weight and often longer chainstays, a higher bar gives better leverage for chucking them about.

My bike has quite a high stack height for its reach. It came with 15mm of spacers under the bar, and a 20mm rise bar. Rode it like that for about a year before I got round to experimenting.

Tried 10mm higher and lower, which I expected to me too much, just to get an obvious feeling of what it affects. 10mm lower pulls me down instead of letting me push down. 10mm higher feels unbalanced fore/aft generally, makes it harder to the front down on steep climbs, and makes the front wheel feel far away.

Didn't try 5mm higher/lower, not sure if I'd notice it.

I think there's a strong element of us adapting to our setups and preferring what we're used to.

Low enough that I'm not under-steering, and there's weight on the front tyre, high enough so it's a bit more stable down hill. About there-ish.

Those that are saying start with it level with your saddle. Is that with it up or down? At fully up, my saddle is higher than my bars, as that's a better position for climbing,

Xc 29er, bars slammed as low as possible.

Singlespeed, cx bike, Enduro bike, as high as they'll go.

Road bike stem flipped with a 10mm spacer.

For me, your arms should be slightly bent, back straight with minimal pressure on my neck and shoulders when in the riding position that you'll spend most time in on that bike.

Not scientific but seems to work for me.