Video: What Handlebar Width Are Racers Using at the EWS Tweed Valley?

 Yes. And a scatter graph :-P

 It's probably more valuable to sell advertising when you have video views and engagement, rather than people scrolling through an article or chart.

 I came to say the same thing.

 And more critically, rider height/wingspan alongside the bike setup. It's like asking frame size without knowing how big someone is.

 @erikober: I understand that, but only if people actually watch it. I've not bothered.

Things like Jesse's run down EWS I'll watch but videos like this, I won't even bother clicking to open. I opened the page to see if it also had words and info, then closed it again.

 @weeksy59: same

 Couldnt agree more!!!

 Bunch of whiny wonkers

 Yup

 Because anybody under 30 only watches videos now, at 8min long none of them will make it half way though so yeah they might as well just make it an article for the rest of us.

 I was thinking the same thing as a scrolled to the comments without even watching the video.

 Itz herd fur peepoll to red dem wurds und stand wut deey meen. MOAR eazyer to wutch a vidoo.

 @warmerdamj: I am 26. They can get the f out of here with click bait ad videos. I want real content.. articles, data, graphs, pictures, whatever. So, yeah.

 YouTube revenue.

 @team-issue: epic. Well, meh, not really.

One day, places like this will see what 'we' are their customers and without the content we prefer, we'll go somewhere else instead.
Sadly in some ways, somewhere else doesn't exist and PB are at times absolutely exceptional with content.
Even more sadly, a lot of it is random clickbait that's barely better than " have you see what sporty spice looks like now" I don't give a toss what she looks like and I don't give a toss about 75% of today's topics being random clickbait.

Will pb care, I dunno, I guess it depends what their eanalytics prog tells them as companies don't listen to customers, just the stats from a random Google not.

 At least it's not paywalled

 Especially for something data centric like this

 @weeksy59: I just googled what sporty spice looks like now, she appears to be more “sporty” I would venture to guess she would ride 760mm bars.

 @weeksy59: PB is basically being forced to compete with the constant flow of shit on the internet. If they aren't putting out video after video of generic content then the masses will get bored here. With things like TicTok and YouTube shorts resetting everybody's brains every 30 seconds they require constant dopamine hits that they only get now from the instant gratification a short video provides and then quickly moving onto a new one. "Reading" is boring to their brains and 'we' don't matter one bit. That's why most print news sites charge an annual fee now, they aren't getting that video revenue because they produce articles and so few people bother to visit a website that's not all video that their website ads are not generating the needed income either because people are just getting their news from YouTube or Twitter. It's brutal, even legitimate newspaper sites are producing more and more video vs articles.

@DANKimball Don't give in!

 @weeksy59: (or you open it for the comments)

 @warmerdamj: this is my only form of "social media". WTF is TicTok?

 @DANKimball: You do not want to know my friend.

 This would have been the perfect write up with a table of data.

 @pink505: hoping someone gives us a summary in the comments…

 Pictures!?! Are you a millenial!?! A table will be just fine thanks!

 @st-lupo: haha
pictures so i can see the different cockpit setups. invaluable

 It's about money and advertising. Beggars can't be choosers.

 I came here to say exactly this. If there’s been anything I don’t like about the Outside acquisition it’s all the goddamn videos all the goddamn time now. I mean, sometimes, yeah but it’s become to goddamn much.

Goddamn.

 We could try to trigger everybody:
*PB poll asking about favorite bar width, rider height, etc
*Results are presented as text, shown as flash-cards in a video by people wearing pit viper clothing
*make sure the e-gravel bike data is over-represented

 "includes paid promotion" is pretty self-explanatory

 So that they can post the video on Youtube and make way more money.

 @willdavidson9595: well I'll admit, 42,000 views is bloody impressive. I don't know how many views a video takes to make money, Google suggests about On an average , youtube pays £1.15 per 1000 views on the video.

 @willdavidson9595: I do watch YouTube? But that’s not why I come to pink bike. I come for the intelligent, detailed content. (And the comment section). Who exactly is asking for more videos??

 @TheRoadWarrior: the comment section has always been the most intelligent content on Pinkbike.

 The hero we need

 @poiuy: And the one we wanted!

 @cxfahrer: trails no, shoulders yes

 Thank you so much for this.

 Grip width is completely irrelevant. Bar width is a good benchmark.

I seems bar width is coming back to reality these days. No one needs 800+ unless you have shoulders like a NFL linebacker.

 @stubs179: I used to think that, but tried 800s just this year. Turns out the extra leverage was helpful because I’ve got scrawny arms.

 ..., 770, 750, ... 800!

 @tabbid: Not sure why you are getting negged there.
I was all over 780 because it worked for me. I literally could not give a flying f**k what the pros use. Then I got a 29’er and found 800 worked better for that size bike. Im a big broad guy.
This whole video article is pointless. Ride with what your comfortable- or is practical where you ride. Not all tree gaps were created equal!!

 @tabbid: So many people miss this. Riders who train strength can get away with narrower bars. Weaker people can't. I remember a while back, everyone in the comments was giving shit to a female EWS athlete for running something like 780-800mm bars because she liked the stability. "Not even Richie Rude needs bars that wide!" etc. No shit, Rude could take off his bars, stick his thumbs through the stem and still have more leverage over the front wheel than her.

Shoulder width and arm length matter too obviously, but lets not forget it's a trade off. Cutting 2cm off both ends of your bar can significantly open up a lot of tight trails.

 @AgrAde: I think there's something to this. The women run proportionally wider bars and have proportionally less upper body strength compared to the gents. Isabeau's bars look demented but they clearly work for her. Richie looks like he's on a BMX bike but it clearly works for him. I'm a 5'3" female and bar width formulas tell me to run 680s, which, from what I recall from like 2010, felt pretty scary.

That said, I run 710s on my enduro bike. Lopping your bars down not only spares you from broken pinkies, it gives you more 'travel' in your arms to shift your weight back or absorb the terrain. (And Isabeau is so light and fast that probably doesn't matter, I bet she just floats over everything.)

 You will never convince me to get rid of my 825s. Who thought that shoulder width dictated bar width? Those people who ride with their elbow locked out straight, thats who!

 @stubs179: Just think of all the crashes where the front wheel gets twisted and riders get catapulted out the front door. Wider bars with more leverage make them less likely.
Iam a bit of a beanpole, so ill take all of the leverage I can get.

 @tabbid: thanks for confirming my lack of upper body strength.

 @AgrAde: I think the reality is that the bar width has very little to do with actual "leverage" as much as it has to do with how easy it is to travel through your "arm travel". try doing a pushup with your hands directly below your shoulders and then try it going narrower or wider and it becomes more difficult to control your body weight as you move through your arm travel, and requires more specific muscles to be stable. now imagine doing that 100s of times per run or on big hits...I bet a lot of people would be surprised how much less arm pump they will get on a more appropriate sized bar.

scientifically I think there is merit in the wider bars produce more leverage but I don't think its the reality of what riders feel and need. not to say there is a right bar width, but I think a lot of people are focusing on the wrong reasoning for bar width.

 @acdownhill: Well, I observe a fairly linear relationship between "stability" and bar width. I think it can be almost directly attributed to leverage - ie with a wider bar I need to move my hands a further distance to turn the bar to the same angle as a narrower bar, and with a wider bar I need less force to keep the bar straight for a given force on the front wheel. Both of these factors should give me finer control of the steering, especially through rough terrain, and that's what I observe.

My ideal bar width when i'm not in shape is 780mm which I choose for stability reasons, and when I'm strong I prefer 760 for the extra tree clearance. In terms of muscle activation etc these widths both feel identical to me when moving through a push/pull motion, and very very similar when turning the bars, so I think i can happily say that i am choosing bar width almost purely due to the trade-off between leverage and clearance.

I have ridden up to 810mm bars (which on paper are far too wide for me at 180cm height, average shoulders and ape index), which felt to me like they had the appropriate increase in leverage over my usual width, and I enjoyed them when riding in a straight line over rough stuff without noticing any more arm pump or working any strange muscles when doing the push/pull motions. My main problem with them aside from the horrible clearance was that my body movement was restricted. During tight corners because I had to move my outside hand too far out in front of me, in flat turns because I couldn't drop the inside grip low enough, and just in general because I couldn't get my weight quite as far back when I needed to.

I've found that arm pump is all about bar upsweep/backsweep, bar flex, grips, and brake levers. I expect that someone's ideal bar angles for a narrow bar would be different than for a wide bar, but i'd call that an angle problem rather than a width problem?

 Since the bikes are getting so slack, you can compromise on stability way more. Which is way more fun too!

 maybe one day, someone will be bold enough to come up with a new smaller wheel size... I know 27.5" is all the rage these days, but what if someone came with, say a 26" wheel !

 yess finally about the ride not the trend

 Man what a great idea, and maybe sum new frame too with components that were like aaall interchangeable with other frames and components that you already have

@f00bar:

 @ryanniker: lol tell that to pinkbike. Bike reviews always have to have "modern geometry" and "tick all the boxes" and they are always marketing all the new sizes and standards to us. Ive never seen them write an article or review that says "this new thing is probably not necessary, hopefully the industry doesn't go this way."

 @f00bar: 26.99 will be the new standard rear wheel in 2023, saw it on the sram website. They claim it offers all the benefits of 29 with 100% more 9s and about 5% more playfulness over 27.5.

 @ryanniker: if everybody is doing it doesn't that make it a trend?

 They've been running "narrow" bars for a while now. There's an EWS video from I think 4 or 5 years ago and the bar widths for most riders were in-between 760 and 740.

 @SeanC1: this is true. But when a bike isn’t on trend and pulls back from the bleeding edge, it gets panned in the comments as being “outdated” and being “from 2016”.

 They could add a bar graph about interactions:

1. Used word person didn't understand and person gives a confused look at camera.
2. Person ignored question and rambled on
3. Person answers question but was gazing into Tom's eyes obviously in love.
4. Other.

Bar graph over videos please.

 @whickyfelps thank for the comment - glad you’re stoked on the interaction with riders. I wanted to show that EWS racers are human and that it’s interesting to hear and see why they run the handlebar width that they are running here Scotland, it’s definitely unique to this round.

 It’s not that I don’t have time, but watching a video needs sound, which just isn’t always practical.

 See above!

 Finally someone gets it

 beer is mostly water

 @friendlyfoe: technically it is about 93.5% water, 6% smile sauce, and .5% magic

 I imagine it's a bit different when you're on a bike that doesn't have a motor/throttle.

 True, never cut my bars either, but rise seems to be pretty important.

 yeah quite amazing how many riders have their arms straight out and wonder why they're shoulders hurt. No, you don't need 780+ at 5'8"

 @hi-dr-nick: *their

 I cut 10mm off my 760mm handlebar and leaning from side to side when turning felt a lot more natural. 1.64m/5'4".

 Truth @hi-dr-nick:

 I heard someone in the bike industry once say you should close your eyes and put your hands out in a riding position at a width that feels most natural and comfortable to you and have someone measure to the outside of each hand and that's your width. Never actually tried this to see if it matches what I run but sounded interesting.

 Just get in a natural pushup position and measure. Same width for your bars makes perfect sense. I'm 6'0 with standard ape index and 760+ grips is a good fit for me. Thought it was pretty funny when everyone started running 800mm bars because it was trendy.

 On my last build a friend convinced me to start with 800 (up from my previous 780) and it was one of the few cockpit changes I’ve made that felt intuitively good right away. We are both on the larger side though at ~186cm.

 The content may be free, but it's becoming less and less interesting. I don't even click on most of the videos anymore, they just feels like empty filler

 Nearly a 9 minute video and all we had were five measurements. I wouldn't pay for this content.

 @Thirty3: yeah it was actually quite a good wee video, but more “here’s some mid-practice fun interviews where we discuss bars” than the way they’ve pitched it to the punters

 We all really know that it's girth that really matters in the deep dark woods...

 @Erskine-Atom: Or as the Aussies would say, the bush?

 Topics like this deserve to be behind a paywall.

 I've never seen comments at the bottom of an article complaining its not a video.

 Sounds like a real "heartbreak" if your bars are too wide.

 The explanation is: preference.
They run what works for them and everyone else should do that and not copy what others run.

 Is bar width really anything to do with shoulder width? Roadies ride for hours with narrow bars. I've used bars from less than 600mm up to 800mm and it doesn't seem to make any difference in terms of comfort so I use what feels best for handling.

 @kevinturner12: It's going to vary from person to person but for anyone that's had neck/shoulder problems it will definitely matter. For me (at 6'-0") I couldn't run less than about 720mm for any length of time as it causes me pain and tightness across the back of my shoulders because under that width my shoulders feel slightly flexed inward. Road bikes aren't exactly the epitome of comfort, they are more about an areodynamic postion. They do offer the option of multiple hand position though which can help. Again as someone that's had neck/shoulder problems, I certainly couldn't ride a road bike for hours on end.

 @kevinturner12: literally every guide for bar width for roadies suggests starting with your shoulder width to find the right bar. But as the other commenter said, road bikes have an entirely different application where aero is prioritised.
'Feels best for handling' is exactly what I am talking about.
I still bet that if Jack and Isabeau were asked to do as many press-ups as possible their floor span would be pretty different.
It seems no one anywhere can really explain this phenomenon. So, I give up.
It is what it is.

 Roadies don’t rail berms or throw sick tables sir @kevinturner12:

 @Crankhed: that's kind of what i mean, handling requirements dictating handlebar width not shoulder width.

 What would you plot? A scatter plot of height and bar width? Shoulder width and bar width? With 5 data points, it’d be more Rorschach test than scientific visualization.

 @pmhobson: yeah, vid wasn't very dense ones in the past had more ppl.

 I just noticed that too… probably similar to when riders black out maxxis tires

 Yep, same here, although I do live in Cuba.

 Yeah, but I'm assuming you ride there a lot? Most of the ews riders still won't know every trail perfectly. I ran 800mm bars when visiting tweed a few weeks ago and came out fine, but had to turn the bars a lot when going through the trees, would've been pretty tough if I was riding at race pace!

 People were hitting trees in the Tweed when “wide” bars were 675mm Eastons. Lines change to compensate

 @Paluzas: nope

 I run 770mm and a week ago had a gnarly OTB after I hit a tree with the handlebar on a narrow trail. Might cut them down now

 how do they ear extra cash.

 @mtb-scotland: how do they thumb more bunse.

 @browner: pews from mycube

 At 197 cm, his formula also suggests I should be on 865 mm wide bars…

 @alexasu: i love Lees tinkering and his first book helped me a ton, but that formula is whack. He is all about max biomechanical power and when i run a 800 bar as suggested i have clearly a lot less power than running my 765s.

 @optimumnotmaximum: and how did you measure that? And how do you get more power running 765s? Hmmm?

 @alexasu: yes, the 4.4 coefficient is bs. We don't have all the same anatomy. But the theory behind shoulder stability is interesting.

 Needed more yeah bois too.

 Most people could probably ride with their bar 10-15mm off center and not even know if they didn’t look down but go ahead and insist 15mm of 770-800 width makes soo much difference. Strange times. Next thing you know 29’ers will take over.

 www.pinkbike.com/news/loam-lab-counterpunch-bar-ends-double-as-pinkie-protectors.html