Kevindale

I was recently running my measurements through some of the bike fit calculators, looking to make sure I had my seat well positioned, and the biggest recommended change was in my handlebar width. I have a CAAD10 4 58cm bike, with the stock Cannondale C3 compact bars that measure 45cm across (I'm sure it's the 44cm size).

I'm 6' tall and thin. When I measure across my ac joints and add 2 cm, it suggests I should be using 38cm wide bars. Overall I like the shape of my bars, and am comfortable in the drops, but I do get some shoulder sag discomfort on longer rides. The biggest reason I'm thinking of going narrower, though, is for potential aerodynamic gain. I sometimes struggle to hang with the group I ride with, especially if there's any headwind or if I'm out front pulling, and my guess is that the narrower bars would be a decent aerodynamic improvement. Plus I suspect it will be more comfortable.

My questions are about the potential changes in handling (too twitchy?) and if anyone has done a similar change and noted performance improvements? Anything else I should be thinking about here?

IK_biker

//snip

You seem to have extraordinary body proportions @ 6' tall and 18 mm width between the AC joints....
I'd like to see this - care to post a photo of yourself?

Or you'd rather prefer to start thinking while you type, learn a bit about the metric system, and begin posting correctly?
That way you'd stand a chance of inmates here taking you seriously, and providing you with valuable answers...

ThermionicScott 

Easy tiger, that would be a fitting response if he were programming a Mars lander, but kinda harsh here...

To answer the question, it's not uncommon for tall people to have narrow shoulders, and I would encourage the experiment. After measuring my shoulders, I've gone from the 42cm bars that came on a couple of bikes to 38-40cm and these feel much better. I hadn't even heard of the "measure and add 2cm" rule until recently.

deapee

lol. Yeah that is pretty weird. His shoulders are as thin as my finger.

In all seriousness though, I think thinner bars used to be the norm. Are you sure you measured from middle of the joint to the middle of the joint? 38cm is a pretty thin pair of bars.

Kevindale

Obviously I mistyped 'mm' for 'cm' each time I was referring to handlebar width. Or in your case I guess that wasn't obvious.

Kevindale

Thanks for the feedback. I hadn't heard of that rule till today, when I did some web searches. It seems like a pretty reasonable rule.

79pmooney

I have narrow shoulders. I like 38s to 40s depending on both the bike's handling and the roads and type of riding I'll be doing. The old test was to take the handlebars and fit the ends to your shoulder balls. Exact fit to 2 cm wiser. For me, 38 is an exact fit. I raced a 39 on a very quick steering bike. Not a good combo for a twice a month century bike, but as an every day racing bike, super.

Wider handlebars are better for climbing hard hills in big gears. 44s were a blessing climbing Dead Indian Road out of Ashland, OR. 16 miles with no breaks. Also better for mountain fix gear descents where aero is NOT an plus! (On that bike, I have two "cockpits"; HB & stem, cables and full brake setups. A normal, narrowish road setup for flat ground and a very wide pista setup for climbing.) In races, narrow bars let you slide into narrower gaps, sometimes very useful. Narrow bars are also better upwind when you want to stay near the brakes.

Measure the distance between your shoulder balls. Then you know what to look for.

Ben

Spoonrobot 

Narrow bars also reduce the reach, most people won't notice but it's there and can be useful if you a micro-sensitive style rider.

ThermionicScott 

Just to clarify, it's the adding of 2cm that was new to me -- the old rule of thumb of measuring the bony protrusions and getting bars in that width always made sense to me. (OTOH, maybe I was thinking of the "shoulder balls" as Ben puts it all along, so it works out the same. )

Not like it's an exact thing at the end of the day, you may prefer something wider or narrower than these rules, and you can always adjust yourself around them.

Kevindale

Yes, I measured from the middle of the ac joint, not from the corner of the acromion or the greater tubercle of the humerus (which is what is usually done when measuring for shirts and coats). Of course I'm doing the measurement myself, so I may be off by a bit, but I definitely have a very lean build.

In any event, the comfort issue hasn't been a big one for me. I'm more interested in wind resistance. I've been learning to ride with my forearms roughly parallel to the ground when I'm in the hoods, or else I'm in the drops, because I can feel a huge difference in the aerodynamics. And I see people spending a lot of money on aero bikes that have much more subtle changes in frontal profile than a 6 cm change in handlebar width would make. I've seen the stats for the difference it makes wearing tight cycling clothing, or shaving one's legs, and I know these aren't trivial changes at 20 mph. I'm assuming that narrower bars would give me a small but appreciable improvement in my ability to stay with the group at 20-22 mph.

Also, since I'm not sure I can get the Cannondale C3 compact bar in this size (though I've only briefly looked), does anyone have suggestions for a similar bar that I could get in a 38 cm size? What are the differences in the Cannondale C1 and C2 and C3 bars? Is it just weight?

Kevindale

Measuring between the shoulder balls gives me 38-39 cm. I'm thinking I'll try 40 cm bars, since I see some Cannondale compact bars on eBay in that size. They're C1 series, which I gather is 7075 alloy vs. the 6061 I have now (so technically a slight upgrade), but I don't think the tiny weight difference is going to be something I'll notice.

I'm curious why wider bars are good for hard hills? Does it help open up the chest for better breathing? In any event, I cannot do hard hills, and I'm not going to race, so my goal is to be able to maintain good speed in flats and on gentle grades.

Kevindale

I don't understand this. Can you explain?

Leisesturm

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Oh and how. I personally don't think that other poster was all that harsh actually. In any case I do not believe the issue was personal for them. I was reading through the posts waiting for an opportunity to say much the same thing they said. The cm/mm typographical semantics aside, going from 44cm to 38cm is ludicrous. I am 5'10" and have the classic 42"/34" kind of build. My wife is 5'6". She has the 38cm and I run 42cm on my roadie, but I use a 44cm on our tandem. I would use 46cm if I could find a matching bar in that size. Bigger doesn't hurt anything. Anyone who can use acromion in a sentence should have enough nuance to figure that there would be a point of diminishing returns to making bars too narrow. And... yes.. just as I thought... the o.p. is doing the measurements themselves. Classic. Please, o.p. get someone to measure you properly, do each measurement 3x and average the results and then we can talk intelligently. But, FWIW, I do not think there are enough handling differences between 44 and 38 on a single bike. I noticed a difference between the 64cm (that's correct) flat bars that our tandem had to the 44cm bars that I 'upgraded' to.

Wilfred Laurier

Having measured hundreds of people for bike fittings in a previous life, I cannot recall ever seeing a full-grown man with shoulders narrower than 40 cm. As such, I question the accuracy of the measurement the OP did. I am certainly not saying it is wrong, or that a narrower handlebar wouldn't be more comfortable, but I would definitely try to get a second opinion from another measuring-tape operator.

Spoonrobot 

If you stretch out your arms straight forward in front of your body, your reach gets smaller the closer you get to center.

There's some accounting for this by the way your elbows and hands are positioned and for most riders the difference in handlebar width is not large enough to make a noticeable change but it is there. This is obvious looking at modern mountain bike set-ups. Any upgrade to a wider bar (Which is often 3-4 inches, whereas a wider road bar would only be 1-2 max) comes with recommendations for a shorter stem.

I've dialed in fits by going from wider road bars to narrow bars and keeping the stem length constant, something like 43cm to 38cm is a good example. But a lot of times riders won't notice. More of a "this used to hurt/get tired or sore and now it doesn't" than a huge performance gain.

I think the most practical gains will be in aero and ability to ride closer to riders side-by-side.

79pmooney

In big gears hard hills (life on a fix gear) you are standing and leveraging the bike bake and forth with your arms against the pedal stroke of your legs. Wide handlebars give you more leverage and are less tiring for your arms and shoulders. During that climb I described above, I did gear down to a 42-23 so it wasn't a huge gear but I don't recall seeing anyone pedal as slow as I did and few passed me.

What has the wonderful effect of opening up breathing, I find, is climbing on the tops using pista (track) HBS with their much bigger sweep forward going toward the levers. I find that throws my elbows out and opens my chest. (Something I suspected for decades. When I finally put those bars on 4 years ago, it was "wow!". Drawback is that coming over the top to the brake hoods seated is a big compromise. Out of the saddle, no issue at all. Seated on the hoods isn't a big deal on hills riding fixed because either you want the pure power position of back on the tops or the hill is harder and you stand. (Elegant, efficient road positions need not apply. Climbing fixed is a pretty crude concept. Hasn't changed much in the past 130 years. Look at the really old bikes and you will see wide handlebars. And remember, the brightest minds on the planet weren't designing moon landers or I-Pads. They were designing bicycles.)

Ben

79pmooney

I see zero need for three sets of measurements to get shoulder to shoulder distance. Go to a bike shop, grab a set of drop bars and place them against your shoulders. (No HB plugs works better.) The pair of width to just sit on the shoulder balls will be very obvious. And yes, for me, that is 38s.

On average, as cyclists age, their shoulder widths diminish. Don't believe me? Look at their X-rays. Collarbone breaks typical set back up ~1/4" narrower. With 4, I have some idea what I am talking about.

Ben

Kevindale

Measurements confirmed.

So is it ludicrous that a given bike frame would come with a stock handlebar width that is optimal for every rider? Do you buy your pants just by looking at the inseam measurement? That seems like the rough equivalent of picking a bike frame that fits one's vertical proportions and then assuming the stock bar width is right. My arms and legs are fairly long, and my inter-ac distance is fairly narrow for my height. I weight 160#. I'm built like a rail. I'm not built like you, nor your lovely wife. I ride with a guy who is built like a rugby player. He's 2" shorter than me and his ac-ac distance is several cm wider than mine.

Also, I'm not sure where you got the idea that I want to find a "difference in handling." I find the handling on my bike to be a bit sluggish, and I suspect that might improve with narrower bars, but as I've written, I'm looking for slightly improved comfort and mostly an improvement in aerodynamics, at speed and on the flats.
@Wilfred Laurier, with all due respect, are you measuring from the mid-ac joints? I know a couple of guys who are roughly my height who have even narrower shoulders. I know I'm not an extreme physiologic outlier. My shoulder width, when measured in a way that most people refer to, is 42 cm, if that helps clarify.

Leisesturm

Most of us don't break our collarbones at all. How does the fact that the average senior collarbones have never experienced undue trauma impact shoulder width?

Leisesturm

so what was all of that before we finally came to this confirmation. you could have saved us a lot of time if you just said from the outset that you wanted to go off the beaten path and try something different.

Kevindale

@Spoonrobot and 79pmooney, thanks for the thoughtful responses. Before I do anything I'll go to my LBS and try the shoulder-ball test with various bars. I'm pretty sure I'm eventually getting either 38 or 40 cm bars, likely the same shape I have now. For the kind of riding I do, I think it will be an improvement, without too big an investment in money. And I can always switch back if I'm unhappy. I'm not looking for something miraculous, really just a bit less effort when fighting the wind.

@Leisesturm, by taking careful measurements, I realized I already was off the beaten path, that I've been using bars that are on the wide side for me. The 42 cm "shoulder" measurement is not the ac-joint measurement of the bike fit site, its the outer shoulder to outer shoulder measurement most people casually refer to when talking about their general proportions. Using that number would be like talking about my usual jeans inseam size instead of using a level and a tape measure to get my actual, bike-fit inseam measure. Using accurate ac joint-to-ac joint measurement, a couple of bike-fit calculators suggest I use 38 cm wide bars. Not sure why that's so hard to grasp.

This is the first time I've ever really thought about handlebar width - no one mentioned it when I originally had a bike fitting years ago, and it's not something I've seen in the many discussions of seat height and set setback and bar height that I've read. Hence my original post. I'm proportionally thin for my height, in both hips and shoulders. For an off-the-shelf bike that fits my height, I ended up with handlebars that are a little wide for me. Since starting this thread, I'd found a few good articles testing various bar widths, and it appears that I'm on the right track with this thought:

https://spokeydokeyblog.com/2015/03/...ndlebar-width/
https://janheine.wordpress.com/2010/...ndlebar-width/
Would you benefit from narrower handlebars? - Cycling Weekly

79pmooney

I wrote "On average, as cyclists age, their shoulder widths diminish. ..." If one any riders break collarbones, they bring down that average. Those who do it multiple times bring it down more. (I know someone who has attends both motorcycle and bicycle trade shows. Wheelchairs are common at the first, narrow and crooked shoulders at the second.)

This observation was written in fun but it is straight up fact..

Ben

dksix

I was riding 44CM bars but when measured I realized these were too wide. I only dropped to 42CM bars and could feel a difference. From 44's to 38's seems like a huge just but if you're just riding what came on the bike and have never been fitted I see no reason why the OEM's would be right for everyone. If you find a good deal on some 38's give them a try and report back.


Don't forget new bar tape.

GeneO 

I calculated what this should be. The reach is reduced to your arms length x the cosine of the angle your arm is from being straight. I guess with your hands together the angle is 5-10 degrees. With a 24 inch reach, the difference is between 2-10 mm.

79pmooney

I think your angle (3 degrees) is a little small. 6" from straight out to fists bumping and 24" reach gives 14 degrees. 24 cos (14 degrees) = 23.28" 24 - 23.28 = .72" = 18 mm. But moving your hands in 2 cm (bars 4 cm narrower) would be, as you said, less than a mm.

Ben