Just how narrow were the nineties...?

[walkbythesea]

Wish I had pictures of my old setups as I was discussing narrow bars from the 90's with a mate today - especially after seeing a Klein advertised as having an uncut original 580mm control centre and my buddy not having ridden anything under 735...

I remember back in the day of straight non tapered bars (Syncros Shotguns?) that the only restriction seemed to be the width of your grips and when your controls actually banged together

Pics if you have them, how narrow did you go?!

 

[Supratada]

No pics but stupidly narrow. Onza bar ends, grips, XT kit-kat brakes and thumbies, a pair of Cateye brackets over and under and the stem.

Bars were cut down so I could ride into my dad’s old timber and asbestos garage with only the quarter leaf door open. Brilliant logic, reduce your control to the bare minimum for the last 3” of a 5 hour ride.

 

[Retro Spud]

I’ve had brakes that had to higher one side to the other otherwise they met in the middle

 

[walkbythesea]

I’ve had brakes that had to higher one side to the other otherwise they met in the middle

we were all properly crackers!

 

[jimo746]

Re:

Bar Ends, grips, Gripshift, Magura brake levers, and just enough space to keep the handlebar decals visible.
And that's without cutting the bars down!
540mm wide seemed popular, weight weenie went much narrower...

 

[walkbythesea]

I was definitely sub 500 at times

 

[d8mok]

Re:

I was a early adopter of wide bars and usually ran Azonic back in the day. My spooky bandwagon (which I still own ) has azonic chubby bars which I think are around 700mm from memory and everyone used to take the Mickey as being too wide. Now running 800mm on my modern trail bikes just feels right. However all my retro bikes now are 540 -560 width and it’s just so weird compared.

I also ran a 3inch front tyre (24inch Kujo ) , single chainring and short stem (azonic hammer) and that seems to have caught on now too. I always was telling folk I’m ahead of the times ....lol

 

[walkbythesea]

By contrast to my narrow enthusiasm of youth my JW4 has it's factory bars on at 610 uncut and I can't stand them, my Maxlight runs a Warhead cut down to 690 which I find perfect - go figure.

 

[dirttorpedo]

Re:

I only cut 3/4 of an inch off each side of my bars for comfort. then I tossed bar ends on for climbing/touring. There were some very radical rigs BITD - I recall people saying it was to squeeze between the trees - which suggests they were not riding on established trails.

 

[madjh]

May daily bicycle still use a 560mm bar and it is not a 90´s it is a mid 00´s stumpjumper and feels better than 650 + handlebars.

They used to said that the width of the bar goes with your shoulder width but now all have changed. And sometimes is quite unconfortable. I like from 580 to 600mm, no more.