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By which I mean grips fatter on the outside than the inside. Modern wide bars feel incredibly uncomfortable to me without tapered grips. It feels like the outside of my hand is not being supported at all and all the weight goes on my thumb webbing. How on earth does everyone use straight ones with 780mm 9 degree sweep bars? How is this the 'normal' default setup? I'm a big advocate of sticking to the stock setup to begin with, but this is clearly miles out for me. Am I a freak? I don't have particularly short arms or narrow shoulders.
Agree with this. I was using Ergon GA2 fat but new favourites are PNW Loam XL
Ideal backsweep varies from person to person, and some people are more sensitive to it than others.
It feels like the outside of my hand is not being supported at all and all the weight goes on my thumb webbing.
I have that with 8deg bars, also pain up my outer wrists. With 12 degree bars I have the opposite problem, the end of the bar putting all my weight on my outer palm. 9 degree bars are good, 10 degree ones are better.
You could try experimenting with bar roll, but that also affects the upsweep and how far the bar is away from you (more so the more rise the bar has). If you look carefully in the classifieds, who knows there might be some 10 and 12 degree bars listed 🙂
As above, I would try rolling the bars back or forward to find a comfortable position. The markings on the bars don't mean anything really, ignore them and just rotate the bars to whatever is comfortable for you.
Sqlabs do more bent degree bars in 12 or 16 degree if i recall and do the sort of grips you're after too 🙂
I have a pair of the 711 grips and they suit me well, everyone is different.
As mentioned the GA2 Fat are tapered. Just be aware they are thicker than average sized grips, not massive or the thickest on the market by any stretch though.
More backsweep is another good call.
I agree with you about straight bars. Since the almost universal use of zero/low rise stems and shorter headtubes they just don't seem the right answer. I can only think of the odd DH bike with a really high stack where they might be necessary, unless you are trying to look like a mint sauce drawing or something!
Ergon GE1s have worked for me, but not without some initial faff. If I set them up with the "up" indicator at the top they were really uncomfortable. Rotated back a bit has turned them into the best grips I've had, but I know of others who have had to rotate them the other way instead