Narrow Vs Flared Handlebars

Cycling Weekly

Flared handlebars. They’ve been widely adopted in the gravel riding world, with the wider stance providing greater control on technical terrain—as well as the secondary benefit of getting your hands out the way of your bar bag.

Transcript

00:00Do you need flared handlebars on your road bike? They've been widely adopted in the gravel market

00:06because 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?

00:16Today I'm going to tell you all about it. Before we get into it though we should really talk about

00:22what effect handlebars have on our aerodynamic efficiency as riders. You see I'm not talking

00:27about aero bars here, ones which have prioritised being easy to go through the air with their thick

00:33flat tops. No I'm talking about round flared bars and surprisingly they don't actually have that

00:39bigger impact on our CDA, that's our coefficient of aerodynamic drag. For a rider in a fairly

00:45average position on a bike, so not too aggressive, not too relaxed, 85% of aerodynamic drag is going

00:52to come from that rider. It was only 15% coming from the bike itself. So it goes without saying

00:58that really the best way to optimise any aerodynamic position on the bike is to optimise the rider's

01:04position and the handlebar is the first port of call when you want to do that. It's pretty well

01:10adopted now that the aero hoods position is the most aerodynamic for riding on the road. Now this

01:15position is the one where you sit holding onto the hoods here, like in this position with your arm

01:22at 90 degrees to where you're holding onto the bars and this lowers your frontal section that's

01:27being hit by the wind and allows your forearm to come in line behind your wrist. You'll see racers

01:32doing this more now at races rather than sitting straight on the drops because it gives them that

01:37lower frontal area to be impacted by the oncoming wind. Now a narrower handlebar can reduce your CDA

01:46even further and where once 42cm bars were common you now see 38cm bars and 36cm bars in the pro peloton

01:55as those racers try and reduce their frontal area and their CDA that bit more. But of course it would

02:01be amiss to not mention that bar widths obviously plays a massive part in how a bike handles. The

02:07narrower your handlebar the twitchier the bike is going to feel and that's because the handlebar is

02:12simply a lever through which you apply pressure to turn the bike and if you apply pressure through

02:16a narrower space it's going to happen that bit quicker. Now it is possible to adapt to twitchy

02:21steering but not all riders are going to want to do that. It's very very common that riders want to

02:26ride a nice stable bike and only the pros are going to want the fastest handling possible. So why am I

02:32talking about all of this? Well that's exactly where flared handlebars come in. The principle is you get the

02:37narrower top section so you can sit on the hoods in a nice aerodynamic position but then the flare out

02:43at the drops puts you in that nice controlling position for descending. Now it's worth mentioning

02:50that a standard flared gravel bar isn't going to cut the mustard here because they're simply too wide to

02:56put you in an aerodynamic position. You don't really get gravel handlebars narrower than a 44 or a 42

03:03whereas on the road you're really looking for a 40 or a 38 to make the most of that aerodynamic

03:09position. Now for demonstration purposes I've equipped this bike with a salsa cowbell bars which

03:14are 38 centimeters wide hood to hood but then have 12 degrees of flare and hopefully you can see from the

03:21camera angle you can see that coming out at the back. Now one thing to consider with flared bars is the

03:28reach and drop and how that might affect your position because some riders do like to ride with

03:33handlebars which have a bigger drop to the drops than these shallow ones do here so bear that in

03:39mind. Now the downside is it's not exactly like the road market is teeming with flared handlebar options

03:46available for people to buy. There are a few notable options including Envy's SES aero handlebar that

03:53measures 35 centimeters at the hood which is seriously narrow but flares out to 40 centimeters down on the

04:01drops giving the rider the best of both worlds. A more avant-garde option would be the Spiko ABB which

04:09stands for Aero Breakaway 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

04:21hoods are just 32 centimeters wide flaring out to 37 centimeters in the drops. Now you may have seen

04:29these bars used in the pro peloton because they were designed in collaboration with and then used by

04:34Jan-Willem van Schiep and astonishingly UCI actually haven't banned them yet they're still UCI legal

04:40but at 1500 euros we wouldn't expect take up to happen that quickly. Of course there are those that

04:48argue that flared bars on the road are not the way to go and Zip are one of these they say that flared

04:54bars can mess with the brake lever alignment which is supposed to be in a vertical plane and you can

05:00see here that the brake lever is not on that plane it 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

05:19from discomfort. That's not to say that Zip haven't explored down this route at all and they have but

05:25they called it outsweep rather than flare and this is a bit different because the hoods and the brake

05:31levers sit in a vertical alignment and instead the drops at the end sweep outwards to give a rider a bit

05:37more of a controlling position. And Zip has done lots of testing around this and they've landed on

05:43five degrees of flare and 11 degrees of outsweep being the optimum orientation of relationship

05:49between the drop and the hood before the ergonomics of the handlebars start getting messed up.

05:56So are flared handlebars worth it for your road bike? Well if you're trying to optimize your

06:02aerodynamic position without really affecting the handling of your bike they could be worthy of your

06:08consideration. However bear in mind there aren't that many options to buy right now so you could be

06:13short suited in the exact spec you're looking for. However we would expect this trend to increase as

06:20the lines have blurred between the road cycling world and the all-road gravel world as we've seen

06:25pretty much in every other part of the bike so really it's a watch this space type of debate.

06:33So there you go a little introduction to the world of flared handlebars on the road. If you have enjoyed

06:39this video do give us a thumbs up don't forget to subscribe to the cycling weekly channel and if

06:44you have any of the questions leave them in the comment section below. Now I'll be back soon with

06:49some more great tech content and I'll see you then. Should I stop the cameras or are you going to be ready to go?

06:55I'm going to go I'm going to go shut your mouth I'm going to go. Am I? Or are you or not? Yeah! See this is what

07:03takes up space on the server. No pause it then. Can't work in these conditions.

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