Details, please, in the form of how these high sweep bars affect reach. I took a spin on another brand with more sweep, but they brought my hands back further than I prefer.
My wonky left hand/wrist really wants more sweep. These days, I find myself riding around half the time with that hand wrapped loosely around the end of the bar.
Bring back bar ends!
As a Bikefitter and certified ‘tinkerer’ I am always interested in this topic.
I have a few short replies to your questions/statements and we should certainly discuss more!
Many bars (like the 20/20 bar that @Jersey Skier uses) compensate a bit by offsetting the entire bar to the front, or by only starting the sweep further out to the ends. So reach reduction is often less than you might think. Still, if it is there, it is easy enough to compensate with a longer stem if needed.
For many (smaller) people, the big sweep might actually be required to get the reach to the grips short enough, now that even size S bikes are becoming super long.
Bar sweep is personal, but I find it strange that 8 degrees seems to be the standard. In my experience, about 80% of mtb riders do best between 8-20 degrees, with 10-12 being a safe bet for almost everyone.
NSMB.com is a good resource, with reviews and discussions of several higher sweep bars.
The ’Joy of bike’ YouTube channel has some great videos about Bikefit, including bar sweep.
Besides the Answer 20/20 bar, other brands that offer bars with 11 degree and more sweep are Salsa, Syntace and SQLab.
As you almost certainly know, bar ends are not a good idea on modern, wide, mtb bars: they would hook and catch on stuff all the time and you would need even wider bars to keep your normal grip width. More importantly, the position of bar ends on wide bars would lead to very awkward arm/shoulder positioning.
However, there is a better solution to have your cake and eat it too: Bar-ins.
By putting the bar ends on the inside of you grips and levers you:
- Don’t have to worry about catching them on stuff
- end up with a great, ergonomic position, like a road biker on their hoods: slightly longer than your flat bar position, shoulder width apart and wrists vertical.
Bar-ins: the new bar ends - Lee Likes Bikes
Position your grips for ultimate handling and peak power — and give yourself another position for mellow pedaling. Here’s how. Remember when handlebars were narrow and we all used bar ends? The Onzas gave us extra reach, faced our palms inward and helped us pull with the big muscles on our...
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