Short bars... yes or no

i had some proper short bars which i loved, they were about 14" wide and they were amazing for basting through tiny gaps, but i had to generally do it on handed with my body turned sideways

Nitto Bellend Edition;

haha nitto bellend the must have in bricklane this season

mine are about 12 inches....am i a cretin? hahaha

yes!

yes!

uh oooo....wouldnt want te be uncool fashion first!!!!!

Unshakeable practice of a pseudo-cannibalistic flesh & blood ritual to underpin a mashochistic belief system and hierachically repressive moral code + riding a tiny-barred crucifixie = cretin.

Bollocks are tiny bars for cretins....what's the argument against them?
mine are 13" and i ride plenty fast, plenty safe, and climb plenty well thanks.
Just because they're not for you personally doesn't mean people that do use narrow bars are cretins.
There are so many occasions where i've been able to carry on going in busy traffic because i've been able to fit through gaps that other people with wider bars weren't able to.
Still...at least all that extra leverage you have will make it easier for you to catch up again eh ;)

I cut my Nitto bullhorns down due to a crash.

My cut-downs are 3" either side of the stem, so fairly short. I've riden racers all my life and have never felt a need for normal riding to move my hands further apart than when my index fingers are inter-locking. Thats just what I find comfortable.

As it is with the cut downs they are now sweeping back slightly and I now have my hands further away from the stem, although obviuosly not much! I question this whole safety issue. I really don't see why having your hands positioned further out would lead to an increase in safety. I never moved them when faced with 'incidents' on the road. I personally find having my hands out extremely uncomfortable and would never (never say never) move them out again.

I was talking with a few people at Souths last night about the whole 'whiskers' thing, and they do. I'm now going for much, much norrower gaps than before and have on occasion found my shoulders lodge between cars, but thats just me taking a risk.

Stick with what your happy with, don't concern yourself with peoples petty opinions as to what they percieve yours bars say about you.... Mine seem to be quite a conversation starter! I've got into clubs for free and got girls numbers as a result of conversations started by others about my bars! Haha ;)

mine are about 12 inches....am i a cretin? hahaha

No.

Haha I bmxed/have been involved in bmx long enough to see wide bars be fashionable, then cut down bars, and then wide bars again, trendsters eh!

Haha, I have moved from tiny BMX bars to widder ones. To be fare though I didn't really wide ones. They were the only bars that had the back and up sweep that I wanted (wethepeople Ashly Charles bars, really nice).

Ride bars however you like to run them. I have drops and hold them right by the stem, when climbing I get on the hoods.

some people cut them down to just fit hand either side of the stem and no more, these people are known as cretins. it really, really doesn't look "cool" mate, it makes you look like a bellend.

I think people who cycle around with their hands out wide looking like their driving a chopper are cretins. Mainly because they always go up to gaps in still traffic and block the path for those of us with the forsight to cut our bars down and who can fit through!

And for the record....if narrow bars are so bad....how come the majority of people with wide bars have a cross top brake lever right up against the stem?
having your hands right up against the stem while doing your braking are you?...whatever next...narrow bars?
;)

I like tiny bars. Only when I'm drinking shorts though.

i had some proper short bars which i loved, they were about 14" wide and they were amazing for basting through tiny gaps, but i had to generally do it on handed with my body turned sideways

I suppose the logical conclusion here is to have asymmetric bars. Oh and a possible redesign of the drive train, to make it more efficient whilst peddling with your body turned sideways.
It might work.

no.

no.

only practical advantage of wider bars is you can get chest wider open, drawing down air into lungs better, hence faster

when people start quoting "bellend" equations and posting pictures of "NJS bellends", it is a cue to assume that the cretin comments are made in jest.

only practical advantage of wider bars is you can get chest wider open, drawing down air into lungs better, hence faster

fine on the open roads..but we ride in london.
Have fun breathing in all those big lungfulls of exhaust fumes as you stand waiting behind that bus cos you couldn't squeeze through the gap that my narrow bars allowed me to slip through ;)

fine on the open roads..but we ride in london.
Have fun breathing in all those big lungfulls of exhaust fumes as you stand waiting behind that bus cos you couldn't squeeze through the gap that my narrow bars allowed me to slip through ;)

He actually rides with narrow-ish bars.

I wasn't really meaning emmeff specifically :)

only practical advantage of wider bars is you can get chest wider open, drawing down air into lungs better, hence faster

or while going at speed and you hit one of londons famous pot holes, the effort needed to pull the front wheel straight is much less, and can be done more accurately with wider bars.

that said i have possibly the narrowest drops know to man.

Having ridden mountain bikes in the past I was always under the impression that riser bars were made wide on the assumption that the purchaser would cut them to their preferred width anyway, that's why some of them have measurements printed on the ends.

Obviously a person with wider shoulders will want a wider bar, people with narrower shoulders just cut more off.

I cut about 3" off the ends of my risers but they are still wider than the tops of the drops I used to use.

Horses for courses innit.
Personaly I only feel the need for wide bars when the terrain is tricky.

Summer bike - narrow 40cm drops.

Winter/utility bike - wide 58cm flared drops (for cycling on snowy/icy roads).
Offroad bike - wide 58cm (well for little me, its wide) flat bars.

One thing that I found dangerous, was using flat bars that were too wide for me on the road. I tended to hold the them 2 inches from the end. Then one day a bus overtook me really close, and rubbed against my bars. I then cut those 2 inches off.

(that last paragraph seems rude somehow)

I like wide bars for polo and for the fast bike. I like widish bars for BMXing.
By BMX standards my 25inch bars are tiny.

But I miss my 10 inch flat bars on my commute. I still see gaps in traffic that I know I used to be able to make but no longer can.

As for the "fact" that narrow bars are crap for longer distances and climbing, precision riding etc. I'd say it's bullshit, I never had an accident due to my narrow bars being too narrow for me to put thew bike where I wanted it and I've ridden to brighton a few times with them (Yes brakeless, helmetless and whilst listening to music too).

There's a legal minimum width of bars in the UK of 350mm by the way, but then there's a legal requirement to run two braking mechanisms and enough people ignore that too.

no

Bollocks are tiny bars for cretins....what's the argument against them?
mine are 13" and i ride plenty fast, plenty safe, and climb plenty well thanks.
Just because they're not for you personally doesn't mean people that do use narrow bars are cretins.
There are so many occasions where i've been able to carry on going in busy traffic because i've been able to fit through gaps that other people with wider bars weren't able to.
Still...at least all that extra leverage you have will make it easier for you to catch up again eh ;)

Oviously each to there own, but i find that with narrower bars, my breathing can sometimes be slightly restricted. Also, wider bars equals more stability. Not too wide, not too narrow IMO.