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.
Hey, I am on TT, what is your username on there if you don’t mind telling?
leelikesbikes — of course!
I dig that site. I’m still learning about this whole moto thing.
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.
finally someone advocating the use of ‘wider’ bars………………
far too many peeps these days running bars far to small for them………….
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.
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 🙂
i say no bigger than 29″, and no smaller than 26″…………………….
27″ is the bomb for mtbs……………..