MTB Handlebars: What Width Is Right For You?

what's up guys jeff here from worldwide Cyclery and today we're gonna go over how wide it should your mountain bike handlebars be alright so mount bike handlebar width this widely depends on well a few factors most importantly is the riding discipline so downhill riders are always gonna want a wider bar because it's just more stable and you have more leverage if you look at professional motocross you're gonna realize all of those guys are running a seriously nice wide bar and the to talk a little bit about the evolution of mountain bike handlebars in the early days mountain bike handlebars were pretty narrow road bikes were around first and aerodynamics was a pretty important thing in the road world so that's a whole different segment right but mountain bikes sort of evolved from road bikes you know decades ago and the early days of mountain bikes the bars were super narrow you'll see a lot of old photos of you know legends like john tom mac racing and he's doing downhill races and World Cups and he's got these tiny little skinny bars and it looks hilarious along with a whole bunch of the event stuff on their bike but as mountain biking evolved people started realizing that wider and wider bars or just a lot more stable and a lot more comfortable and I also realized that there were different disciplines is now biking evolved it got into you know cross country and and trail riding and comfort bikes and in downhill bikes and free ride bikes and there's all these different types of bikes now so different with bars will kind of apply to those but you know typically you're gonna see cross-country bikes are gonna have narrower bars and a lot of that has to do with the you know aerodynamics as a factor if you're concerned about that obviously a narrower bars gonna work better because if you're like this on a bike as opposed to like this your chest is gonna be more out and that's just an aerodynamic thing especially if your bike is more lean word you prot like a cross-country bike you're gonna be more comfortable like this and you might like this where I was on a downhill bike you're a little bit more upright and again you're at really high speeds and you want a lot of control and stability so you're gonna want to you know wider stance bar so if you look at you know world cup cross-country racing today and we'll cut downhill racing you're gonna very easily notice the difference in the bar wits cross country bikes like I said are gonna have much skinnier than downhill there is a bit of personal preference in there too so maybe if you came from riding road bikes and cross-country bikes and now you ride an enduro bike or a downhill bike you might just feel more comfortable on a narrower bar that you're used to and typically what feels more comfortable to you is just gonna be better for you because if you feel comfortable on the bike you're gonna ride good and have fun and that's what it's about if you came from motocross like myself I came I rode motocross before I got into mountain biking as a kid so I was used to a pretty darn wide bar on my dirt bike as a kid so when I got on my first male bike I felt like they were pretty narrow and I just like felt naturally like I wanted a wider bar so again what feels comfortable for you is does matter so you'll see some weird preferences there's some different downhill pros out there that run pretty darn narrow bars I guess you could say compared to the rest of their competitors and then there's some guys who run pretty wide bars compared to the rest of their competitors so it definitely depends on the discipline that you're doing and the type of bike that you're riding and what you're trying to do with it and wide bars are gonna be more stable and more controlled so if you're going really fast like you are on a downhill bike typically you know having a good wide bar is gonna be stable and awesome and bike manufacturers have caught on to this as well you know I remember back in 2005-2006 a lot of the the bikes back then we're coming SPECT with pretty darn narrow bars and pretty long stems and again that's because mountain biking sort of evolved off of Road biking so a lot of the bikes you know the first mountain bikes out there were much more like cross-country bikes and then as they evolved into these trail bikes and barrel bikes downhill bikes they started kind of transforming more into like a dirt bike a motocross bike so shorter stem wider bars a little more upright position slacker head to bangles I guess as the bikes evolved the handlebars did too and and that's when people started realizing you know wow I feel much more comfortable so when I was a mechanic at a shop as a teenager a lot of the bikes we would sell would have like a 680 mill wide bar which in today's world is really narrow like you're probably gonna find any trail bike or even a cross-country bike with a bar that narrow and a long stem and you know the customer would come in would feel uncomfortable on it and we would slap something bigger on there which bigger back then was like a 727 40 which is still again kind of small even in today's standards but they immediately feel wow I'm much more comfortable I have a wider bar I feel more stable you know I'm I'm more upright so they felt more comfortable on the downhill maybe a little less on the uphill with the shorter stem but that's a whole different video but though the wider bar is giving you more stability it's pretty darn important and people seem to love that myself personally these days I write a 760 so 760 millimeters that's twenty nine point nine inches I like that with I got used to that I guess you you know some again it's kind of an opinion that your next sea rider watching this you're gonna think that's a really wide bar if you're you know modern-day downhill rider you're gonna think that might be narrow you know a lot of downhill riders are riding eight hundreds or eight 20s even which is like what some Race Face and DD bars come in these super wide widths I like a 760 because I like it consistent across all my bike so I have a dirt jump bike and a trail bike and a downhill bike and I ride in different areas sometimes I'm riding in Southern California and there's no trees around other times I'm riding out on the East Coast in Pennsylvania and there's trees everywhere and when there's trees everywhere I kind of like having a 760 because it's not super wide whereas I probably would like the feel of like a 780 or an 800 better but I just feel like it's too wider than that be slamming my hands into the trees and stuff so I like a 760 to keep it consistent in the same across all the different bikes that I have and I ride so that's kind of just been my personal preference and what I stick with these bars right here race face next they come 760 out of the box so I just keep him at that length and don't need to cut them kind of nice rent off a power lights the same thing 760 out of the box and again some people might consider that narrow some people might consider that wide again kind of personal preference and where you came from and what bike you're putting these bars on some of the newer bars these days Race Face six these are 820 millimeters wide so that's a pretty darn wide bar and you know the six line is really made for downhill bikes so that's why they were making them super wide and you can cut them you know down I think all the way down to 770 is do not cut beyond 770 so that's still a pretty darn wide bar but it depends on what you're looking for another thing to factor in with bars is your shoulders so there's your big difference in shoulder width from you know of five foot to rider versus a six foot for rider and people are just built differently and if you have more narrow shoulders you might feel more comfortable on a bar that doesn't make you feel too wide right and vice versa if you've got really broad shoulders you might like a really wide bar because it just feels more natural like when you put your arms out naturally where do they fall and that's gonna be different for different shape and size people depending on your shoulders mostly in your arm length and just personal preference there too so yeah as far as bars go a common bar like actual just the width of it on a just let's say a general trail mountain bike these days 760 is pretty darn comments they're twenty nine point nine inches in width that's a pretty common sized bar once you start going smaller than that you're kind of getting towards the cross country range and if you go bigger than that you're kind of towards the downhill bike range so if you don't really know where to start see what feels comfortable and and the cool thing is a lot of these bars especially aluminum bars you can cut them down a lot so you can always just test it out you know see what feels comfortable for you if you're riding something less than 760 right now and you're not concerned about being aerodynamic and you want a little more stability try 760 or try 780 it's I think you'll be pretty impressed I have personally seen a lot of people you know get into the sport of mountain biking and ride narrow bars like seven 40s or under seven 20s or 700s and slap on a seven sixty or seven eighty and just fall in love with that width bar like I said back in the day bikes weren't really expect with I what I would say is like good barn stem combos they were really like long and stretched out and like cross country focus and that's good if you're trying to race cross country it's bad if you're sort of a general trail rider and you want more stability on a downhill than a little bit shorter stem and a little bit wider bars gonna feel a lot more comfortable for you so yeah that's kind of it on the bars let us know if you guys have any question what handlebars you're running and more importantly what width are you running and why please hit subscribe we'd love to show you guys some more cool mountain bike content and check out the other videos on our Channel take it easy

Channel: Worldwide Cyclery

Views: 527,727

Rating: 4.8248649 out of 5

Keywords: mountain biking, mountain bike, mtb, bars, handlebars, mtb handlebars, bar width, bar wide, handlebar width, how wide, rise, roll, how to choose bar width, width, mtb fit, ergonomics, mtb handlebar guide, bike fit, downhill mtb, enduro, xc, enduro mtb, worldwide cyclery, bar rise, mtb handle bars, riser bars, mtb bars, mtb handlebar, mtb bar sizing, handlebar sizing, mtb handlebar sizing

Id: jrTcf2N4bbw

Length: 9min 45sec (585 seconds)

Published: Wed May 02 2018