Nino takes the Scott 780mm bars and cuts them down to 680mm. Lee McCormick has this to say:
- Pushing and pulling the bars as you ride a pump track or trail feature. While wide bars help you push the bars down, having too wide a bar limits your ability to pull up in the second part of the pump.
- Pushing the bars forward as you drop into a technical trail feature. The wider the bar the less you can move your weight back.
- Bike lean and grip while cornering. The wider the bars the less you can lean the bike. To try this for yourself put your arms out in front of you in line with your shoulders. Now imagine the center point between your hands and maintaining the distance between them move them as far as you can to the left and right. Now repeat this with your hands further apart. You will see that the center point moves a lot less the wider your hands are apart; this equates directly to how much you can lean your bike in a corner.
- Pushing and pulling the bars as you ride a pump track or trail feature. While wide bars help you push the bars down, having too wide a bar limits your ability to pull up in the second part of the pump.
- Pushing the bars forward as you drop into a technical trail feature. The wider the bar the less you can move your weight back.
- Bike lean and grip while cornering. The wider the bars the less you can lean the bike. To try this for yourself put your arms out in front of you in line with your shoulders. Now imagine the center point between your hands and maintaining the distance between them move them as far as you can to the left and right. Now repeat this with your hands further apart. You will see that the center point moves a lot less the wider your hands are apart; this equates directly to how much you can lean your bike in a corner.
I got with what feels right which means wider drop bars on road and gravel bikes and a narrower bar on mountain bikes. Height and reach and shoulder width varies considerably with people and so the bar as with the seat/post should be fitted to the rider. Arm strength is another factor as wider bars provide more leverage to keep a front wheel on track.
Going uphill the drop bars are a decided advantage on pavement where there is little rear wheel slippage involved but a different situation on dirt where one needs to drop back to have more weight on the rear tire for added traction. The wider the bars, as Lee mentions, the less far back the rider can be but how much of a difference is a matter of opinion. Nino goes with 680mm bars and he must find that the narrower bars help him with his performance on the trails. And a hardtail is quite different from a bike with a good rear suspension in terms of where the rider puts their weight.
My hardtail bike from the 1980's has a 580mm bar whereas my new Scott hardtail has a bar width of 750mm. I will be cutting back the Scott bike's bars to get them to a 680mm spread. The new Scott Spark suspension XC bike comes with a 740mm handlebar so there may be a trend toward narrower bars.
https://www.pinkbike.com/news/handle...-too-wide.html