HANDLEBAR WIDTH: A COOL EXPERIMENT
This comes from Dwight Rudder, the expert offroad moto rider who moderates the Off-Road Riding Technique forum on www.thumpertalk.com.
Get down and do 10 pushups. Measure from the outsides of your hands. That’s your position of optimum strength. I get 28 inches. Maybe I should stop cutting my bars from 28 to 26 inches …
NOTE: Wider bars enhance leverage, and shorter bars increase maneuverability — to a point.
NOTE NOTE: Consistency is key. Pick a width and run it on all your bikes. Mark Weir runs ‘em at 28 inches. Brian Lopes runs ‘em at 27.
8 Comments
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Ben Says July 5, 2006 @ 10:47 am
Hey, I am on TT, what is your username on there if you don’t mind telling?
leelikesbikes Says July 5, 2006 @ 10:57 am
leelikesbikes — of course!
I dig that site. I’m still learning about this whole moto thing.
Ben Says July 6, 2006 @ 9:44 am
Cool, glad to see another person getting into riding! I’m lucky enough to have been riding since I was 6, which at the moment, is only 8 years.
stacy kohut Says July 8, 2006 @ 9:53 am
finally someone advocating the use of ‘wider’ bars………………
far too many peeps these days running bars far to small for them………….
Richard Says July 9, 2006 @ 10:49 pm
I’ve just upgraded bikes, and my new one has wider bars. It’s making my riding interesting as I ride a lot of narrow, winding singletrack through closely packed trees.
I can see that for fire-roads and DH it could be an improvement.
Col Says July 11, 2006 @ 4:44 am
Hmmm, that makes my oprimum handlebar width 33 inches! I’ve always preferred ‘em wide but that’s just bonkers. I must be some sort of freak
stacy kohut Says July 11, 2006 @ 11:35 am
i say no bigger than 29″, and no smaller than 26″…………………….
27″ is the bomb for mtbs……………..
Lee Likes Bikes Pingback December 5, 2007 @ 12:40 pm
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