biketampa

So my existing bar is a lauf smoothie bar. Reach is 80mm. Backsweep of 3 degrees. And drop of 125 mm. This is the bar I had with my bike fitting done with. My main issue is the drop of 125 mm. I can’t say I’m the most flexible and don’t feel like I need to be uber aero.

so I got a ritchey wcs venture max. It has 75mm reach. 102mm drop. 4.6 degree backsweep. The drop is very nice. What seemed odd on my first ride with it was the bars seemed too close to me. More than I would expect a 5mm difference compared to my old bars. The tops felt too close making me ride oddly upright. The hoods also felt too close.

so I’m wondering how many mm difference a backsweep difference if 1.6 degrees would be between the bars. The one thing I screwed up with ordering the bars is I ordered a size 42 accidentally instead of 44. I assume wider bars have an affect on reach?

I’m trying to figure out if I order the size 44 bars will that make a difference in reach. My current stem is 90mm. So I could put on a 100mm stem. My concern is my lauf bars have a 80mm reach and that’s pretty good for the hoods. So if I put on the 44 venture bars and a 100mm stem that would put the reach 5mm more but that doesn’t factoring in the backsweep difference.

I don’t know if I’m making sense or just rambling.

any suggestions? Get the size 44 bar and slap on the 100mm stem? Honestly I wish the lauf bar just had a shallower drop

Iride01 

Even if you were going from 38 cm bars to 44 cm bars, it will not significantly change your reach. If you are sitting at a desk right now, put your hands on the edge of the desk and straighten you arms. Note your body position, then move your hands either way a few cm. That's what the change will be. Not much.

As long as the reach and drop of the bars is the same, your reach will for all practical and anything on the significant side of the mathematical will be the same.

You do have me a little on the sweep back, but I still think that will be insignificant too. I'll have to look since I've never had drops with a sweep on them. Maybe it'll give us more minutiae to argue. <grin>

What narrower to wider will do for you is make your body more stable against the swaying motion of the bike as you pedal and the bumps you encounter. For me that's a bad thing, makes my arms and shoulders hurt more because they don't share as much swaying force with the rest of my body. So I prefer narrower bars than what I'd normally be recommended.

Like saddles, its a personal preference thing. Use what works for you.

biketampa

thanks. Yeah. I think I’ll just have to play around with some different bars and stem length as well shuffling of spacers on my stem. The size 42 definitely felt too narrow. And the shallower drop was nice. Zipp has a drop at with a 70mm reach which seems like it might fit my needs. I would likely put a 100mm stem on for that. More moderate flare but for me flare is not critical. I’ve tried different degrees of flare and just never felt like I preferred one over the other. Anything under 4 hours I can usually adjust to whatever but for some of my longer events I want to be more comfortable in the drops.