One Wheel

I saw and have been messing around with a pair of clip on aero bars that I can't get to work quite right, and I think I've figured out what I want on the front end of my bike. But nobody's selling it, so I must not want it. Anyway, what I think I want:

30 cm across the hoods
38 cm across the drops
Very long (180mm?) Reach
Very short (30mm?) Stem

The goal would be to have a stable position in the drops, a narrow/ aero cruising position on the hoods, and a pseudo-aeroski position gripping the hoods and resting your forearms on the top of the bars. So what am I not getting about how bikes work that make this a bad option? Or is this maybe worth trying to prototype?

Carbonfiberboy 

Here's my guess: Bars are the width they are now and have always been for a reason. One changes what works at one's peril. In this case, the peril is losing control of the bike when the front wheel gets in trouble, which happens for a great variety of reasons. TTers use these narrow bars on swept courses. Another reason is that hand movement of any sort will result in great wheel movement, not always a good idea. MTBers use great wide bars w/r to road bikes because they have to fight greater forces and want more leverage. It's just a matter of scale. There are also issues of muscle fatigue. We like hand positions which are in front of our shoulders to reduce strain. Aero bars work because there's pretty much zero muscle involvement with the elbows resting on pads and there's lots of leverage. That said, being down on the 'bars is not recommended when negotiating even slightly technical terrain or riding around sharp corners.

You're better off being slightly less aero and uninjured. I've seen riders lose a whole season from front wheel disasters.

One Wheel

Thanks for the feedback! Possible counterpoint: tires were always skinny and hard for a good reason, too. Until that reason was wrong. Come to think of it: what if the two are related? Narrow, hard tires = more vibration and a harder job controlling the front end. Personally I'm convinced that the wide bars on mountain bikes have gone too far, but that is a drastically different use case. I don't know if you've ever driven a car without power steering, but the faster you go the harder it is to even notice anything different. MTB requires precise handling over much more technical terrain, at much slower speeds even to the point of standing completely still. There is a stereotype that bikers have scrawny, weak arms, but that's not true of all bikers and may be exaggerated for the vast majority of bikers.

I'm generally very sympathetic to the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" argument, but so far I'm unconvinced on this one. I'm not sure how to go about commissioning a prototype, but I'm inclined to try to find out

Carbonfiberboy 

You can check out the idea on your next long road ride, simply by holding the bar tops with your hands whatever distance apart. Won't quite be the same, but the control issues and muscle issues will be similar to your proposal.

One Wheel

I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me, but testing hood width is probably a great use for the aerobars I can't quite get adjusted right. Thanks for the idea!

The idea of narrower handlebars is certainly not unique to me: I've seen several videos in recent months about individuals and even pro teams experimenting with narrow bars.

There are 3 elements that determine the distance from the steer tube to the brake levers: the size and shape of the hoods, the reach of the handlebar, and the length of the stem. The part of what I'm proposing that appears to be mostly unique, if not, I'm sure, entirely original, is taking the part of that steer tube-to-brakes distance that is due to the stem and putting all or most of it in the handlebars, thus making this position drastically more sustainable:

Iride01 

Of my old bikes from the 70's that were oversize for me, they had narrower bars on them. 38cm or less. So it might be that bars got wider and now there is a shift that maybe they went too far. But like many things that change, it'll probably go too far in the other extreme. And then the cycle will repeat.

My '78 Raleigh Competition GS was 59cm. It's drop bars were 38cm. My 56cm 2020 Tarmac came with 42cm bars. And if I'd gotten the 58cm I believe they will have been 44cm wide.

I changed my Tarmac to 38cm wide bars and stopped my wrists from wanting to bend in toward each other on longer rides. It also seemed to make handling fast downhill twisty turns even more natural a feeling than before.

Going by the dogma that bars should be the width between a persons left and right acromion process, 42cm bars should have been correct for me.

Carbonfiberboy 

Yes. Just remove the elbow pads and bring the aerobars' ends back to your proposed hoods position. Might have to shorten them to prevent hitting them with your legs.

Trakhak

From this page:

79pmooney

Another thing to consider - narrower bars at the hoods will make it harder and more tiring to do the push-pull on bars when out-of-the-saddle climbing. Maybe out of the saddle isn't something that you do or not an important tool in your riding repertoire. But for some of us it is. Some of up thrive on big gear out of the saddle and extra narrow bars at the hoods would get very old. (I raced 38s - my shoulder width. Loved 'em but wouldn't have wanted narrower. On my fix gears I have gone to 44s and wider for the climbing comfort. Arms and shoulders love it. Yes, wider than wanted much of the time but fix gears are all about compromise and hills change that best compromise a lot.)

One Wheel

1. That's exactly what I'm talking about.
2. The UCI can stick its preferred bars where the sun don't shine and spin 'em. That position is used and will be used, adding support adds safety.
3. €1,700 for a pair of handlebars? Holy cow.

Iride01 

2) Unless you are a a pro cyclist and racing in anything subject to the UCI rules, they aren't telling you anything.

One Wheel

If the UCI hadn't banned them, you could probably get very similar concept handlebars for $2-500, instead of one-off custom for $1800+

Iride01 

If there were more demand for them then you'd probably find them for less. But there isn't a demand for them. I certainly don't have any desire for bars like that.

One Wheel

There would be more demand without a UCI ban. Maybe not from you, but it's a pretty obvious thing to try if you're interested in going faster.

oldbobcat

So if the common wisdonm got tire (wheel) width wrong, how much other stuff did they miss? This has the makings of a conspiracy theory.

Look at it this way. If you move your hand 4 cm in either direction on a 40 cm handlebar, you rotate your steerer 11.45 degrees. If you do that on a 30 cm handlebar, your rotation is 15.27 degrees. That's assuming a 0 cm stem. Actually, the longer the stem, the smaller the rotation, which is one of the reasons people in this forum get hung up on stem length for stability. Anyway, it's been my experience that the closer your hands are the stem, the less leverage you have on the handlebar, which means your handlebar inputs will be less controlled, which means you'd better become more skilled at steering your bike using by shifting your weight. Which is what experienced time trialists become very expert at. But wait, you might say, mountain bikers are very good at steering by weight shifting, and they have wide handlebars. Why, yes, a mountain biker carving through a fast downhill corner steers mostly by shifting his weight, but he's using the leverage of his wide handlebars to fight the deflections on his front wheel caused by rocks, roots, ruts, sand, and mud. You'll also notice that a lot of time trialists will eschew the extensions while negotiating tricky corners.

There's also the leverage on the handlebar that's used to propel the bike forward. You'll notice that those expert time trialists move their hands off the extensions when they're sprinting from the starting line, sprinting out of a corner, or jamming up a hill. That's because they're using their backs arms, and shoulders. To demonstrate to yourself, try maintaining a reasonably straight line while climbing out of the saddle with your hands on the top of the bar, close to the stem.

One Wheel

These are excellent points. How much do you think the negatives could be mitigated with shallow but sharply flared drops? Maybe even close to flat? Something like this:

Trakhak

Regardless of stem length on a road bike, your bars barely turn at all at anything above jogging speed. Turn the bar 11.45 degrees while riding at 15 mph and you'll find yourself on the ground.

You steer by leaning. That's why headsets can sometimes develop imperfections where the bars resist being turned away from pointing straight ahead.

Of course you're right that triathletes use the bullhorns to get up to speed and to take corners, for leverage in the one case and stability in the other. But it's also true that many World Tour pros can be seen climbing in the Alps and Pyrenees grabbing the bar with their fists close to the stem at least some of the time. Leverage is a minor factor for steady-state climbing, clearly.

Kontact

Turnin_Wrenches

I find it interesting that the OP is lusting after a ridiculously narrow and unsafe handlebar (evidently for the purpose of "getting more aero"), but there is not a single mention of the actual goal .

Trakhak

You may have misunderstood the OP's slightly vague initial description of the bar he envisioned. See photo in post #8. The OP said of that photo, "That's exactly what I'm talking about." The pictured handlebar is not particularly narrow. Perhaps you can explain what you think is unsafe about the design.

The trend in road bike racing has been to use narrower and narrower handlebars, with flared drops, for improved aerodynamics. The UCI responded by setting a minimum limit of 35 cm on bar width.

Kontact

30cm across the hoods isn't very narrow? Where do you buy your shirts?

One Wheel

The video that I put in the initial post was about handlebars that are 30 cm on the hoods and 35 cm in the drops, and another at 24 cm and 33 cm. The comment of the presenter was that 30 cm felt surprisingly good, but 24 cm was too narrow. To be honest I got my figures of 30 and 38 by straddling my bike with a tape measure, putting my hands where they would be with various width bars, and seeing what just felt right. Handlebars are already made in a variety of widths, and it appears that the range of available widths is increasing over time. I'm less interested in width than the long each handlebar simply because the evolution of width is toward optimizing that. The evolution of bar reach vs. stem reach isn't toward optimizing that, as I now find out that's because both of the brain cells belonging to the UCI are not on speaking terms with the other one.

Kontact

Instead of hoping for an unlikely new handlebar to be engineered, why not just use a normal reach bar and locate some elbow pads behind it to serve as the tops you want to rest your forearms on?





Personally, I tried riding 40cm bars after years of 42s and hated how they felt. But I wasn't trying to use them as aerobars.

oldbobcat

While seated.

One Wheel

First, because it's just not as elegant of a solution. Second, because I might find out somebody is already doing what I want (the Speeco ABB is pretty darn close). Third, because if people start talking about a potential product there's a chance that manufacturers might make it. If I only tell my cows about it then it's not gonna happen. Fourth, because maybe there's an actual good reason why nobody's making it, and I want to know that before I try to make a prototype.