noglider 

I notice changing my handlebars can be a dramatic change to how the bike fits and feels. I have a 1971 Raleigh Super Course I've rebuilt several times. It came with drop (racing) handlebars. I put on North Road handlebars in the normal orientation and also flipped them so the grips were below the stem. I tried something similar to bullhorn handlebars. For a long while I had bars that I call all-rounders which are like North Road but with much less sweep. I added bar ends to those, and they helped a lot while climbing. That last setup suited me well.

I've now rebuilt the bike fully again with an indexed-shifting drivetrain which required racing handlebars again. The idea is to ride on the road mostly but also off road some. I have normal drop bars on for now. (I briefly tried mustache handlebars but didn't like them on this bike though I like them on another bike.) So now I want to ask why some people choose flared handlebars like the "dirt drop" or "cow chipper" type. I suppose the added width at the drop gives some leverage for those hairy moments require a bit of force. And then what is the advantage of having the tops be narrower? How do you choose your width with this type of bar?

DorkDisk

I use a 40 on road, and that is my shoulder to shoulder width but for my dirt-y road bike I went one size up at the hoods (42) and really like it. But nothing stops someone from using the same hood width, the idea is that ramps and drops are wider for stability. Another thing with these modern flared bars is that many of them are very compact, with short reach and drop for easier transitions on bumpier surfaces. Combined with a shorter stem, they are optimized for off roady riding.

mstateglfr 

Wider bars slow down steering which helps a lot on loose gravel. A loose descent is definitely a time when I appreciate the slower steering of flared drops.
Think of steering a large steering wheel thats 3' wide or a steering wheel thats 3" wide. The wider steering wheel slows down steering since it needs more input to travel the same % of turn. Same for flared bars. Slower steering is nice sometimes.

I use Salsa Cowchipper bars which are the middle flare of their offerings(cowbell, cowchipper, woodchipper). I could definitely be happy with less flare, so the Cowbell would probably be fine. I have no desire for more flare though, so the Woodchipper wouldnt be great.
Its wild to look at all the different handlebar designs- for paved road and gravel. The small differences are sometimes difficult to see or understand how the changes will affect comfort. Various flare, sweep, backsweep, reach, and drop all make for a seemingly endless number of bar designs. Whats really crazy is how 2 bars with the same drop, flare, and sweep can look and fit brake levers differently since the bend for each bar is different.

I dont use bars with a narrower top. I use bars that have the same width top as my road bars since that is where I primarily have my hands. The flared drops are just wider than drops on my road bikes.

dsaul

Flared bars are beneficial for several reasons and I have now put them on all of my drop bar bikes. I feel like the flare puts the levers in a position where my hand rests more naturally on the hood, without twisting my wrist. This also puts your arm in a position where your elbows are angled out, where they can more effectively absorb impacts by bringing your chest muscles into play, rather than just the triceps and shoulders with a traditional drop bar. With a traditional straight drop bar, your elbows are tucked into your body, which is great for aero, but not so good for absorbing bumps from off road riding.

Flaring the drops also moves your hands out away from the bend and allows you lift up on the bars(as needed for clearing logs or large rocks) without hitting your forearm on the upper part of the bar. It just allows you the unobstructed movement necessary to ride a drop bar bike in an off road environment. I've tried it with traditional drop bars and it was very difficult to reach the brakes properly from the drops and my wrists and arms were very sore by the end of the ride.

I'm not a fan of the radically flared bars, because they just feel too wide in the drops. I like the 12 degree flare of the FSA Adventure bars and I go with a size larger than I would normally use for road bars.

balto charlie

I'm glad you asked the question as I am in the process of either buying a dedicated gravel bike or building one. I am currently using my Miyata 1000 as a gravel bike by swapping out the tires. It does well until the roads become gnarly. I feel I have less control. When I gravel ride on an old 80's rigid mnt bike I am in total control. I feel the handlebars to be the main reason. While I have no beneficial information I will follow this post.

I have followed this cyclist's blog, you might find some good info here.
https://bikepacking.com/index/gravel-bars/

noglider 

I went to Bike Expo in Philly a couple of years ago. I attended a talk that gave Italian bike company history. Cinelli started out making custom handlebars. Racers would go to him and describe the bars they wanted, and apparently there were many different requests. When you experiment with handlebars, you understand why. They can make a big difference.

ober27

A little over a year ago I walked into a bike shop hoping to buy a set of Cowbells. They had Cowbells, but they also had Cowchippers and Wood chippers available. When I picked the Woodchippers up off the display rack, they felt like they had the most natural hand position I had ever experienced with bars. I bought them and have never regretted it, I still think they're the most comfortable drop bars I've ever ridden with.
I hope you find the bars that make you comfortable.

Rolla

The narrower tops of flared bars don't really matter if you set your bike up to ride in the drops most of the time, as was the intention of the original Dirt Drops. If most of your riding is on the road or mild gravel, I'd opt for minimal flare and size the bars based on their width at the hoods, or wherever your hands will spend the most time.

3speedslow

+1 good info! I follow this when I set up my adventure bike. I use a modern Specialized Hoover bar with the slight flares for just that reason.

dwmckee

Just remember if you go wider bars you may need a bit shorter stem. Some bars with a bit of back sweep may counteract that a bit.

Rides4Beer

I get the concept, but I've been down some pretty hairy descents and never felt the need for wider bars. I run regular 42cm road bars with no flare, and have had no issues. As always, do what works for you, like saddles, bars can be a very personal thing.

63rickert

Current gravel bikes are high trail bikes. High trail means the bike wants to go straight, is not easily moved off course. Wide handlebars give the leverage that makes steering easier.

From 1971 every Super Course has to be treated as unique. Catalog specs are just a notion. But I will bet you have ample fork rake. Head angle could be anything. On larger frames a good bet that frame has more modern, normal, steeper angles. A 73 head and old large rake gives you a low trail bike. In any case that bike is likely neutral steering or lower. Low trail wants narrower bars. Wide bars will make the rider over respond to everything. Modern practice does not play well with old bikes.

mstateglfr 

Sure...except for all the gravel bikes that aren't high trail(I own one).
Wider handlebars help slow down/stabilize steering on those.

63rickert

I’ll bite. What are you riding? Head angle and rake?

In production bikes I’ve not seen it.

mstateglfr 

I suppose its relative to what one considers as high trail, mid trail, and low trail.

Evil Hagar has 93mm of trail, depending on size.
Giant Revolt has 71-76mm of trail, depending on size.
Trek Checkpoint has 59-66mm of trail, depending on size.
All City Cosmic Stallion is 67-81mm of trail, depending on size.
Jamis Renegade is 60-69mm of trail, depending on size.

If over 75mm of trail is considered high trail(pretty general common view, it seems), only the Evil qualifies(and the smallest of AC's size).
if over 60mm of trail is considered high trail(pretty extreme view, to me), then yes most all common gravel bikes would be high trail.

My bike has 58mm of trail.

63rickert

.
Neutral steering is 57mm of trail. Industry norm forever. Higher than that is high trail. If you don’t care to accept that, fine. The consequence is everyone operates on Red Queen definitions. No discussion possible when everyone makes up their own definitions.

This was about the OP’s bike. An odd case, a ‘71 Super Course to be used for some manner of gravel riding. Spending two minutes on web can find ‘71s reported as 71 degree head angle, 72, and 73. Raleigh was like that. Raleigh forks of era are from 50mm to 70mm. So OP may have 68mm trail on 35mm tires which is totally in line with current gravel practice and will be just fine with Cowchippper handlebars. Or OP may have a bike with 34mm of trail, experimenting with wide bars will fail.

Not many people have ever been on a low trail bike. Most who were didn’t know it. Even in France there never were many low trails. Probably the majority of all low trails ever were old Raleighs. They built huge numbers in multiple factories and threw whatever fork in whichever frame.

It is is possible to look up discussions of steering geometry and understand the physics of why 57mm is neutral. A better way to understand is to ride lots of bikes.

Re-purposing old bikes is a good thing. Modern parts often work well. Modern practice based on mountain bikes and complete unfamiliarity with how old things work leads to silly frankenbikes.

mstateglfr 

Ok, this is what I figured while posting the reply- its all relative and I caused confusion- sorry. I get that 57mm is a classic single point for 'neutral' trail. I have both seen and talked with framebuilders that view 'neutral' as a range give for take a few off that.
Regardless, I view trail as unique to each style of bike. For example, I view mountain bikes as having their own low, neutral, and high trail since the design and intended use is completely different from a paved road bike. This makes sense, to me, because even a mountain bike with low trail compared to all other mountain bikes will be 'high trail' if compared to all bikes. Why categorize all mountain bikes as 'high trail' when there is significant handling differences between them due to trail?
Same thing for gravel bikes. Its absurd to categorize a bike with 62mm of trail in the same group as a mountain bike with 92mm of trail, even though both are 'high trail' compared to a singular number for all bikes. Those bikes will handle completely differently, so why even have such a general category for all bikes(high trail) when it really tells us nothing?

As for riding more- riding bikes is important. Its because of riding that I recognize a mountain bike with low trail compared to all other current mountain bikes still has absurdly high trail compared to a singular number for all bikes, yet that low trail MTB handles differently than high trail MTBs. Its due to spending months building a road frame in a class where we discussed trail for all different types of bikes that I realized having a singular neutral number for all styles of bike is meaningless.

My apologies for replying to you with my way of viewing trail numbers. I didnt even think of it until replying- I should have clarified my comment or not responded and just let your over-generalization of the categorization go.

rosefarts

My shoulders are 42cm and I've always had bars that width. Easy.

I'm in the process of building a new bike (Swiss Cross V2, psyched!) and figured I'd go with flared bars.

I ordered 42 since that's what I've always ridden. They should show up today so I can't say anything yet. But this thread makes me wonder if they're way too narrow. I hope they're 42cm at the hoods and the flare is beyond that.

Mine are Ritchey, are all flared bars measured the same? I will find out once the UPS guy gets here.
​​​​​

mstateglfr 

ritchey measures width from the tops(ramps, really). So a 42 with 12deg flare is 480mm at the bar ends.

rosefarts

So they just got here. Compared to a very traditional 42 that's on my shelf, they're wider.

The first bend starts at the same place but by the time you get to where the brakes mount, they're about 1cm wider on each side. With the flare, they get much wider after that.

The bars on my current bike are still pretty traditional. Maybe a few degrees of flare and just as deep as any road bar from the last 20 years. So these are going to be a lot different.

It'll be a good couple of weeks before everything for the new bike shows up, so it's going to be a little while before I can test ride it.

chaadster

OT here, but man, I love low trail bikes, but yeah they’re hard to find.

My Breezer Venturi has a 74.5° HT and 50mm rake for 53mm trail, and my Kinesis Racelight has a 73.5° HT and 45mm of rake for 54mm trail.

noglider 

@63rickert, thanks! I had North Road bars on it, and it was all wiggly. Narrower bars do stabilize it, as you suggest. So how do I measure my head angle and my rake? I suspect I have a shallow head angle and big rake.

63rickert

To measure rake lie the bike down on a sheet of cardboard and trace the outline of a fork blade. Mark center of axle. Place a straightedge on the board going through the middle of upper part of blade outline. Measure from straightedge to axle. Sounds goofy, is pretty easy, will get to within 2mm even if done casually. Or very accurate if careful.

There is a built-in angle finder in iPhones. My technique involves finding a 12 year old with an iPhone. They know how all the apps work, I sure don’t. Measure once, turn the bike 180 to allow for a floor not completely flat. Seems somewhat accurate. If the measure repeatedly bounces from one whole number to next it is probably at halfway between. You won’t get 1/4 degrees. Unless someone has a new upgraded app.

A lot of this comes down to personal preference. Some do get along with big wide bars better than others. For those of us very used to normal road bars going up 4cm or 10cm is real unlikely to work well except on very high trail bikes.

Raleigh both caused major confusion and committed millions of interesting experiments. Continue to experiment. When it is right you will know.

noglider 

@63rickert fascinating. I adapt to different bikes easily, as I've owned countless bikes. I notice my spouse does not. A friend of mine was at my home a few years ago and his car broke down. I gave him my Super Course to get home. That's when it had North Road bars on it. He could barely get it to go straight, partly because he hadn't ridden any bike in many years. He did ride it home but he crashed on the way. I did find the steering quite light and not ideal for precise turns at high speed. Even now I might say that but now with the narrow-ish drop bars and having more weight on the bars, it's similar to a racing bike again.

I'll try the measurement techniques you recommend. Finding a level floor in this 1863 house will be a small challenge, but I think I have a long spirit level.

63rickert

Thank you. Excellent response, excellent information.

Trail is defined by dropping a vertical line from axle to ground. What happens off pavement is the contact patch of the tire is not under the axle, it is somewhere out front. And varies continuously as the terrain varies. To avoid situations where trail disappears and the fork would be happy to spin around like the caster of a shopping cart, add more trail. Trail also gets difficult to define on steep grades. Pavement riders limit that one because pavement is limited, get too steep and it takes lots of special engineering to keep the road from sliding off the hill. The usual limit is 27%, which a lot of pavement riders will walk, while off-roaders see a grade of that steepness as nothing special. Big trail is real helpful on steep drops.

Looking at trail on production gravel bikes the numbers are a good indicator of how rugged a ride they are intended for. Design constraints will include the road or off-road experience of the designer. Design constraints also include the legal department. High trail is plain more stable and works real well for novices. Most more skilled riders will not complain. For legal high trail is a no brainer. Better the customers not fall.

A wide range of trail #s will work well enough. Lots of riders/customers will be completely insensitive. Speaking of insensitive, when I started riding, ages ago, everyone rode gravel. Pavement was not universal, go for a ride and you would meet gravel. Same for racing, road racing meant roads that were gravel. Mountain roads were especially likely to be gravel. We took it all in stride and didn’t make a fuss. That mostly ended in late 70s when every race bike became a crit bike and tires shrank to 20mm wide. Andy Hampsten won the ‘88 Giro d’Italia largely because of a gravel mountain road and a snowstorm. Andy was old school and trained on roads just like that because of course he did. On his usual road bike. The others were pavement creatures. After that gravel was mostly removed from racing.

Those old race bikes we used for gravel did not all work equally well. Some worked notably well. Some would not do well at all on particular surfaces. Bikes were various back then, the builders were not all on the same program. There were always a few who understood how geometry worked, most just rode the bike. All of it worked much better when ordinary tubulars were 28-32mm wide and bigger was sometimes available. Then in 70s it just ended.

So half a century later gravel is re-invented. Some of the new features are really new. And good. Most of the new items are very familiar. Tires are massively better than ever.