Wide bar upgrade?

There is an unwritten rule of bike handling that as stems get longer, bars should get shorter and vice versa so in fitting a longer stem, in order to maintain or improve the handling you should really be looking at fitting shorter bars.

It is, of course, subjective and relies on you having all sorts of other things right in the first place, but at least if you start with wider bars, you can cut them down to suit as others have noted.

yep, this is worth a read for anyone going same route. Though it provokes loads of debates! http://www.bikeradar.com/mtb/gear/artic ... sue-34169/

I was dead tempted to buy some heat treated dmr wing bars at 710 and stick with the 25.4 quite short 60mm stem but figured slightly longer stem will be a good thing, better specially as longer bars will sweep back further. Certainly be interesting to see how much difference it makes.

reanimation":w7ccgzqj said:

yep, this is worth a read for anyone going same route. Though it provokes loads of debates! http://www.bikeradar.com/mtb/gear/artic ... sue-34169/

I was dead tempted to buy some heat treated dmr wing bars at 710 and stick with the 25.4 quite short 60mm stem but figured slightly longer stem will be a good thing, better specially as longer bars will sweep back further. Certainly be interesting to see how much difference it makes.

Click to expand...

I went from a 90mm stem to a 60mm when I widened my bars. It felt quite a bit less controlled with the longer stem. And not as "solid" feeling.

reanimation":2zr0ui64 said:

yep, this is worth a read for anyone going same route. Though it provokes loads of debates! http://www.bikeradar.com/mtb/gear/artic ... sue-34169/

I was dead tempted to buy some heat treated dmr wing bars at 710 and stick with the 25.4 quite short 60mm stem but figured slightly longer stem will be a good thing, better specially as longer bars will sweep back further. Certainly be interesting to see how much difference it makes.

Click to expand...

Do many wide bars come in 25.4mm clamps? I thought most wider bars would be 31.8mm. I think the longer stem will make the bars feel odd because its going to bring your head too far forward (on the basis that your arms are further apart, plus a longer stem).

Mindmap3":3t1gdgp5 said:

Do many wide bars come in 25.4mm clamps? I thought most wider bars would be 31.8mm. I think the longer stem will make the bars feel odd because its going to bring your head too far forward (on the basis that your arms are further apart, plus a longer stem).

Click to expand...

The NC-17s I have are 25.4mm But they are 700mm so not in the realms of the really wide, just wide-ish.

Actually turns out they are 710mm, very light and nicely made. I've got the matching seatpost as well and it's very well made.

http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Mode ... elID=95031

Fair enough. I've never really paid much attention to NC-17 stuff, but it does seem very good value, especially compared to the more well known brands who do seem to charge an awful lot of money for bars and stems these days.

New years do funny things to people! Put the other jobs and projects to one side to work with and play with the Cotic, my all rounder modern.

After suggestions that the 70mm may be a tad too long for the 750 bars I did some reading. seems that hardcore downhillers and jumpers and freeriders use 50mm, Cotic suggest 50-90 depending on size and riding style. so I 'm still in a good happy medium which I reckon works... The old 60 was just off the old bike to get this rolling anyway, it should have been an 80+ to match the width.
Being beteween sizes I did worryingly begin to ponder if I should have got a large frame (only 20mm longer, and 10mm more headtube) with a 50/60 :idea: hmm

My weight from arm spread will be further forward but as you can see fromthis rough visual experiment, they sweep back further than the old 60/680 set up too, so considering my 6ft 2 arm span, I reckon there is not a lot in it.







A mate took me out yesterday to Hebden Bridge, I had no idea what was in store, so prepared for anything, an epic or something rough. after a slow warm up climb, and a loop back down we met his friends who were hardcore downhill guys! so sessioned some steep rocky rooty sections for a while.

The bike felt fine, climbs are strange but down hill and moving faster it feels dead natural and none of the terrain shook me off, feels great on corners, so I'm not trimming the bars. I've got a 5mm spacer to increase the height a bit, after that I'll run this set up for a while. future, possibly higher, shorter stem we'll see, got fork settings to play with too...

Good stuff, glad it worked out. I found the low, wide bar thing odd at first, but now it feels right. Narrow, high rise bars just feel wrong.

Love the forks by the way...I always wanted a pair if them, just because.

Thanks yeah so far so good, experimenting isn't over but it's at a good usable happy medium. Should be fit for longer rides and any tech descents. And ponder other sizes of stem or even frame later. Cotic have reduced large souls! That would be extravagant.

The old set up the stem at least will probs go on my single speed genesis, that's currently got 3" bars on it...! See what it's like swapping between.

Thanks the forks were a bit of a fluke, I got them for my SC Bullit non starter project, but having bits 'in stock' gave me the push to get this frame!

I had a go on my mates 456, which seems noticeably lighter, maybe the choice of gears helped!