00:00Do you need flared handlebars on your road bike?
00:03They've been widely adopted in the gravel market because they give you greater control over technical terrain and you can squish a bag
00:10In between the drops that bit easier, but are we missing a trick not riding them on a road bike today?
00:17I'm gonna tell you all about it
00:19Before we get into it though
00:20We should really talk about what effect handlebars have on our aerodynamic efficiency as riders
00:26You see I'm not talking about aero bars here ones which have prioritized
00:31Being easy to go through the air as their thick flat tops
00:34No, I'm talking about round flared bars and surprisingly, they don't actually have that bigger impact on our CDA
00:40That's our coefficient of aerodynamic drag
00:44For a rider in a fairly average position on a bike so not too aggressive not too relaxed
00:5085% of aerodynamic drag is going to come from that rider was only 15% coming from the bike itself
00:57So it goes without saying that really the best way to optimize any
01:01Aerodynamic position on the bike is to optimize the riders position and the handlebar is the first port of call when you want to do that
01:09It's pretty well adopted now that the aero hoods position is the most aerodynamic for riding on the road
01:15Now this position is the one where you sit holding on to the hoods here
01:20Like in this position with your arms at 90 degrees to where you're holding on to the bars and this lowers your frontal section
01:27That's being hit by the wind and allows your forearm to come in line behind your wrist
01:32You'll see racers doing this more now at races rather than sitting
01:35Straight on the drops because it gives them that lower frontal area to be impacted by the oncoming wind
01:42Now a narrower handlebar can reduce your CDA even further and where once 42 centimeter bars were common
01:50You now see 38 centimeter bars and 36 centimeter bars in the pro peloton as those racers
01:56Try and reduce their frontal area and their CDA that bit more
02:00But of course it would be a miss to not mention that Barwitz obviously plays a massive part in how a bike handles the narrower
02:07Your handlebar
02:09the twitchier the bike is going to feel and that's because the handlebar is simply a lever through which you apply pressure to turn the
02:14Bike and if you apply pressure through a narrower space, it's gonna happen that bit quicker
02:19Now it is possible to adapt to twitchy steering, but not all riders are going to want to do that
02:25It's very very common that riders want to ride a nice stable bike and only the pros are gonna want the fastest handling
02:31Possible. So why am I talking about all of this?
02:33Well, that's exactly where flared handlebars come in
02:35The principle is you get the narrower top section so you can sit on the hoods in a nice
02:41Aerodynamic position, but then the flare out at the drops puts you in that nice controlling position for descending
02:48now it's worth mentioning that a
02:50Standard flared gravel bar isn't gonna cut the mustard here because they're simply too wide to put you in an aerodynamic position
02:58You don't really get gravel handlebars narrower than a 44 or a 42 whereas on the road
03:04You're really looking for a 40 or a 38 to make the most of that aerodynamic position
03:10Now for demonstration purposes, I've equipped this bike with a Sousa cowbell bars
03:14Which are 38 centimeters wide hood to hood, but then have 12 degrees of flare
03:19And hopefully you can see from the camera angle. You can see that coming out at the back
03:25Now one thing to consider with flared bars is
03:28The reach and drop and how that might affect your position because some riders do like to ride with handlebars
03:33Which have a bigger drop to the drops and these shallow ones do here
03:38So bear that in mind now
03:40The downside is is not exactly like the road market is teeming with flared handlebar options available for people to buy
03:47There are a few notable options including MV's SES aero handlebar that measures
03:5435
03:55Centimeters at the hood, which is seriously narrow but flares out to 40 centimeters down on the drops
04:02giving the rider the best of both worlds a
04:05More avant-garde option would be the Spico ABB, which stands for aero
04:11Breakaway bar and this takes the principle of flared bars to its logical conclusion
04:15Which is it builds in an armrest to make sitting in that aero hoods position that bit easier and the hoods are just 32
04:23Centimeters wide flaring out to 37 centimeters in the drops now
04:28you may have seen these bars used in the pro peloton because they were designed in collaboration with and then used by Jan Willem van Schiep and
04:36Astonishingly UCI actually haven't banned them yet. They're still UCI legal, but at
04:411,500 euros we wouldn't expect take up to happen that quickly
04:46Of course there are those that argue that flared bars on the road are not the way to go and zip are one of these
04:53They say that flared bars can mess with the brake lever alignment
04:58Which is supposed to be in a vertical plane and you can see here that the brake lever is not on that plane
05:03It does flare out in the same way that the drops do
05:07They also say that having your hands in that position on the hoods is more likely to cause injury
05:13And it's not going to be for all riders who might try and force themselves to ride in that position and suffer from discomfort
05:20That's not to say that zip haven't explored down this route at all and they have but they called it
05:26Outsweep rather than flare and this is a bit different because the hoods and the brake levers sit in a vertical
05:33alignment and instead the drops at the end sweep outwards to give a rider a bit more of a controlling position and
05:40Zip has done lots of testing around this and they've landed on five degrees of flare and 11 degrees of out sweep being the optimum
05:48Orientation of relationship between the drop and the hood before the ergonomics of the handlebars start getting messed up
05:56So our flared handlebars worth it for your road bike
06:00Well, if you're trying to optimize your aerodynamic position without really affecting the handling of your bike
06:06They could be worthy of your consideration
06:09However, bear in mind that aren't that many options to buy right now, so you could be short suited in the exact spec
06:15You're looking for
06:16however
06:17We would expect this trend to increase as the lines have blurred between the road cycling world and the all road gravel world as we've
06:25Seen pretty much in every is a part of the bike. So really it's a watch this space type of debate
06:32So there you go a little introduction to the world of flared handlebars on the road
06:38If you have enjoyed this video do give us a thumbs up
06:41Don't forget to subscribe to the cycling weekly channel
06:44And if you have any of the questions leave them in the comment section below now
06:47I'll be back soon with some more great tech content and I'll see you then
06:55I'm gonna go I'm gonna go shut your mouth. I'm gonna go
06:58Am I
07:01Yeah
07:04No pause it then
07:08Can't work in these conditions
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