Originally Posted by staehpj1;22215724[u
]I find it important that I am fitted and ride so that elbows are bent and hands relaxed, shoulders relaxed, and fingers loosely draped over the bar or hoods. If those conditions are met I find bar width becomes pretty forgiving. I don't obsess over it and generally have been okay with what came with the bikes. That means narrower than my shoulders.[/u]
Back in the day when I rode a lot of tight singletrack with a lot of stuff to catch a bar or brake lever on I used to cut MTB bars real short. These days not so much.
Absolutely on the bent elbows, relaxed and loose grip, totally crucial to long term comfort.
re width, with drop bars my early Japanese touring bike 1990 era, had stupidly narrow bars, partly because of the times and probably because of smaller stature Japanese people. Now I'm slight, plus I didn't know any better, but years later when I got a newer dropbar bike (cyclocross bike) with wider dropbars, only then did I realize that wider waa much much nicer.
as for my Jones bars, they are jumbo wide, 720mm I think, but in most regular riding they are fine, but clearly have more sail effect with headwinds. And again they are set up a bit higher than my seat and have a cool upright position that I don't hate..... would I want them riding in Patagonia, hell no! (Super windy place btw in Chile) but on trails and dirt riding where speeds are lower, it's good.
I just got some wider dropbars, same salsa cowbells, but 46cm vs my 42cm. I reckon they'll be good too, with an advantage on gravel rides with gear, but should still be ok on road stuff. I'll find out.
oh, I've done some mtbing lately on my old mtb with average old school wide bars, and it was fine, but can see how wider bars with wider tires would be fun too, and this is pretty standard in the mtb world.