grolby

Narrow bars don't make any difference worth mentioning in "twitchiness" of handling. If anything, they improve stability. Look up a picture of track racers doing a madison sling, and make a note of where the slinger's left hand is: on the bar tops next to the stem. This is because they can put a lot of pull on the bar from that position without moving the front wheel very much, which would obviously be a problem. Or if you ever want to push another rider, up to a wheel for example - the most stable position is with your hand near the stem. Try it with one hand on the brake hood and you're likely to have a hard time to avoid falling over. The flip side is that wider bars will give you more leverage to move the front wheel more easily to make steering movements. This is why wide bars might be desirable on a loaded touring bike with a relatively heavy front wheel. It's easier to make steering adjustments against the inertia of the load you're carrying on the front wheel. Wide bars can definitely make certain kinds of bikes under certain circumstances easier to control, but when they do it is because they make the steering MORE responsive, not less. And the other side of the coin is that sometimes narrower bars will make the bike easier to handle. It's all about the specific situation.

rekmeyata

https://www.bikeradar.com/mtb/gear/ar...h-issue-34169/
https://blog.centurycycles.com/2009/0...do-i-need.html

What you said goes against the people in the know...unless you can share knowledge that exceeds them and the prevailing thoughts of the last 50 years or more, which echo my experiences, though my experiences don't mean much.

Gege-Bubu

I would go back to Retul for follow up fitting if it is free. The thing is none here knows how long or short your arms are and the same is about your body. You could be fine with either 38-40-42 handlebars, but you went to Retul to get the right fit. I think handlebar width goes along with fitting in general, so if you swap your bars, some adjustments should be/could be made for stem and your position on the bike.
Different cyclist have different experience with their bars, as you can see from the answers.

I would go back to Retul and ask them to explain you why you are given 38 bars, and what needs to be changed if you prefer wider ones. They must be experts (otherwise they wouldn't be so expensive)

Just my $0.02

Ferrous Bueller

Two hands on the bar is a very different proposition than one. When slinging, the objective is to not steer the bike.
A better model is modern mountain bikes. The greater the need for stability, the wider the bars seem to get.

cccorlew

You know you can't find an answer here, right?
For example, my experience is the opposite of hsh101 and we are about the same height. I bought a 52cm Roubaix that came with 42's. They were just ungainly and awkward. I swapped to 40's and all is well.

rekmeyata

What follows is NOT saying that the OP's fitter does not know what their doing, your right though that the OP needs to go back and discuss why he was given 38 bars. What follows has been the experience that I've seen over 40 years of cycling, my experiences may not be like those of others, if you live in area considered to be a mecca for cycling chances are you'll find a good fitter, but if you don't chances are you won't find a good fitter.

Most of what you've written is correct till you came to that statement. Just because they trained some college student on the Retul system, or Serrota system or whatever system does not make them experts. I've known roughly about 45 to 50% of all cyclists that I knew or heard about actually came out worse then they did going in, in addition to spending money for the fitting and more money on accessories the rep recommended. The assumption is that the fitter your dealing with actually does know what their doing and thus experts, but that fails to be true many time. The best thing to do is to get a recommendation for a fitter from a cycling race club, especially if you live in a city where there is more then one fitter available. Where I live there is only one fitter, and the people that I've known or heard about had about a 50% chance of coming out better.

One guy I know went in due to some discomfort and spent over $800 after the first fitting went wrong when a new accessory recommended didn't work, so the fitter not wanting to blame the new accessory put him back on the fitting machine claimed another accessory was needed to make the first one work right. Again failure, goes back in told yet another accessory was needed to get the previous two to work right. By this time my friend was getting a bit leery but bought the third accessory, it to failed. He was worse off then he was going in, so he went back to his original stuff and settings and all went back to his normal discomfort. The LBS didn't charge him for his 2nd and 3rd use of the fitting machine and his labor, but the accessories and the initial fitting charge came to just over $800.

You have to realize too that a marketing rep for a fitting system does not go into the store selling the idea of making people happy and fitted on their bike; no, the sales tactic is that by having a fitting machine and a fitter will bring in additional profits in the form of accessory sales. And the LBS fitter/sales person will do his best to sell you the more expensive accessories rather then a lower costing ones that could work just as well.

So just because a fitting is expensive doesn't mean the fitter is an expert 100% of the time, and that's where I took exception to what you said.

Just my 2 cents.

lennyparis

Thanks for all the input
I feel better on the bars
But that being said it is probably getting used to them but still not feeling they are right
Feel pulling in back below shoulder blades as if reaching to squeeze to bar width
Hands and wrists seem to roll out away from hoods as if trying to go to natural wider position (i.e. 40cm)
Hands, wrists and forearms angle in and not in straight line with hoods
Are hoods adjustable so that they can be moved outwards a bit?
Wonder if I am really in between 38cm and 40cm so much like overall bike size you go smaller and build up from there (or adjust hoods outwards a bit)

grolby

No, it doesn't. Read more carefully. Wider handlebars mean you have more leverage over the front wheel. That's it. They don't make the bike "more twitchy." They allow easier resistance to unintended or external control inputs, like wind, or the inertia of a load on the bike, etc. Absent those factors, which are important, bar width isn't relevant to handling and having wider bars means an unintentional pull on the bar has a greater effect. The front-end geometry of a bike is what determines its handling, everything else is secondary at best.

See above. The confusion here is about what is meant by "stability." Call me crazy, but I consider stability to be a relative lack of response to steering input - being able to do a madison sling means you're very stable. What you're referring to with mountain bike bars isn't about what I would consider stability, it's about fine control and high leverage over the front wheel.

robncircus

Try bars froma company that will let you return if necessary (e.g. Performace). I'm 5'4 and love a 42 FSA WingPro Compact. These are closer to 40 at the hoods and 42 at the ends due to the flared design. The width adds some nice stability when descending, and they just work for me.

Good luck

Ferrous Bueller

Ok, I will. You're talking about a bike's inherent stability. Which is important, but the topic of debate is the stability of the rider on top of it.
Here's my definition of that: Stability means the ability to absorb lateral forces. When standing, I'm stable with my knees bent and feet apart. When riding a road bike, it's when I'm in the hooks. If I have a side impact with another rider whose hands are tight to the stem, it's he who's going to be affected more. Feel free to call me a language twisting lunatic.
Again, I differ. And I'm not talking about the bike, I'm talking about the rider's ability to keep it upright. A chacun son gout, I suppose, but I like my definition more.

Beneficial Ear

Ride, feel, adjust if needed, ride, feel, adjust if needed, ride...

There is no "directions" to feeling, this is a time where YOU decide.

To help this decision, I add my relatively "extreme" account. I could "feel" the added arm fatigue over a 40+ mile ride with my 42cm bars, I could feel that I wanted more narrow bars - much more narrow. I'm 6'1 and although its kinda odd I measured myself for 36cm bars, extremely narrow! But I got into my ideal comfortable position, measured, measured the bones in the back that are supposed to be measured, checked and double checked... then I ordered and I'm so happy with my deda 38cm (outside to outside) bars.

The ability to put my arms straight makes arm fatigue on long rides a total non-issue whereas before after mile 40 or so my arms were tired and it made me overall more tired. If I want wider I can hold the bars to get wider, if I want yet more narrow I can... but my bars now are lined up perfectly to allow me to comfortably go either way and I've quickly grown to love the overall feel. The aero benefits are likely measurable, but comfort exponentially increased when I got the "right size" bars.

I'd say it took me 5 rides to get used to it 100%. Now I grab the more common wider bars and they just feel wrong.

Beneficial Ear

Going slow making steep turns, sure, wider bars. But on a road bike I'm typically going fast enough where most of my turning comes from my leaning and I barely turn the bars at all... lower speed handling is a small fraction of my riding. STILL I don't miss my wider bars, even when I make tight turns to get onto and around sidewalks/paths etc. Now if I was on a trail and needed to constantly turn at slow speed to avoid obstacles, make super tight turns around trees and what not... I could see why a wide straight bar would be advantageous.

Ferrous Bueller

Actually it's the opposite. Riders hacksaw their bars down if they're constantly needing to ride in that manner. The steering is quicker, and there's less chance of hooking on a tree.
The widest bars are for the downhillers. Big forces from landings and compressions and rolling down unpredictable terrain.

Gege-Bubu

I said "They must be experts" but I did not mean to say "they are" i forgot to add "sarcasm" sign to the end of my post. However, I agree with you, there is fitting and fitting. (I personally have mixed results from fitting)

But as you can see the thread is going in the wrong direction. Everyone is sharing their own experience, which has nothing to do with OP problem. For example, we can be the same height and weight, ride the same bicycle size, but you have wider shoulders, or shorter neck, so the bars that work for you will be completely wrong for me. (and here is another issue - how to measure the shoulders width or neck length )
That is why the OP must go back to his Retul buddy. Thought he may not be an expert-expert, but at least he can see OP in person and help him to figure out what is the problem.

All I know, when I ride, I should not to ask myself all the time: what is my bars size, or what it should be? If OP does, and he feels discomfort after several rides, then yes, he needs to make adjustments to his position. Maybe not to change bars, but turn them up or down, or move a seat forward/back, or I don't know what, I am not an expert

carpediemracing 

Depends. If you're on a trainer you can swap while leaving the old bars dangling. This is how I checked out a few different bar/stem combos (I had to change the stem due to different bar reach/drop dimensions).

If your cables/housing were optimized for the 38 cm bars then by definition they'll be too short for 40 cm bars. You shouldn't be able to turn the bars all the way with a 40 cm bar for example.

However if the fitter/installer gave you a bit of room to adjust things like height or bar width then the cables/housing should be cut a bit long. Then you can swap without much problem. Unwrap the bar tape, slice the electrical tape holding the housing in place, loosen levers, remove bar, then reverse the steps for the other bar.

Personally I'd leave the bars unwrapped for the first hour or two or riding, even outside. I usually test on the trainer though, with a final test outside. You can fiddle with lever height/placement, swap bars back, etc.

If there's no problems with cable/housing length then it won't take long to swap the bars (without wrapping with tape), maybe 10 minutes of real time, 5 minutes if you rush it.

If you have Nokon cable housing then you can "grow" the housing, i.e. if the housing was optimized for 38 cm bars then you can add segments for the 40 cm bar. I use Nokons partially for this reason. The different bars I've checked out have massively different housing length requirements and by simply adding/removing segments I can adjust the length.

As others have pointed out handlebar width is a personal preference, it's one step less personal than saddle choice. Only you can decide the best compromise between the different widths. You haven't even addressed the bar shape which is even more variable!

For me personally I could use a 44 cm bar based on my shoulder width; I tried and decided against a 46 cm. People on BF have asked if I was using a 38 cm bar after seeing pictures of me in the sprint. I use either a 41 or 42 cm bar. I like this range of width because it works in a tight group for feeling like I can squeeze through gaps (1 cm on each side doesn't seem like much but it's like a few inches width on a car - doesn't seem like much until you're squeezing past another vehicle). I also prefer a narrower bar for out of the saddle sprinting.

When I trained outside more in the off season I'd actually switch to a 42-43 cm bar. I felt it was more comfortable for the easy/steady rides I did, a lot of time spent on the tops. When spring rolled around I'd switch back.

Good luck with the bars,
cdr

rekmeyata

Sorry, I now understand what you meant.

It does seem though that your experience with fitters seems to echo the pattern that I've seen over the years...mixed results. But like we both have said the OP should go back to the fitter and have the bar issue addressed. And since he was there before for a fitting they should not charge him for a second fitting, their suppose to make the fitting right so they only thing they should charge him for is a new bar which I'm not so sure he needs but I'm not him.

I've done all my own fittings on all my bikes with never an issue...but in to be honest my body is not particular as long as it's close, and once you figure out how to do your own fitting it gets easier with each proceeding bike. I have bikes with narrow, equal to shoulder width, and wide bars, and my body just doesn't seem to care nor do I notice anything other then my experience that the bike with the narrow bars is a bit more twitchy then the bike with the widest bar, but that was deemed incorrect by another poster.

lennyparis

Going to return 38cm and swap for 40cm
Do other bike shops carry several options to let you feel them on the bike while on their trainer?
Seems I have to order the 1 or maybe 2 I am thinking about
40cm is a common size