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

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

02:43out at 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 whereas

03:04on the road you're really looking for a 40 or a 38 to make the most of that aerodynamic position.

03:11Now for demonstration purposes I've equipped this bike with a salsa cowbell bars which are 38 centimeters

03:16wide hood to hood but then have 12 degrees of flare and hopefully you can see from the camera angle you

03:22can see that coming out at the back. Now one thing to consider with flared bars is the reach and drop and

03:29how that might affect your position because some riders do like to ride with handlebars which have

03:34a bigger drop to the drops than these shallow ones do here so bear that in mind. Now the downside is it's

03:41not exactly like the road market is teeming with flared handlebar options available for people to buy.

03:47There are a few notable options including Envy's SES aero handlebar that measures 35 centimeters at the hood

03:56which is seriously narrow but flares out to 40 centimeters down on the drops giving the rider

04:03the best of both worlds. A more avant-garde option would be the Spiko ABB which stands for aero

04:10breakaway bar and this takes the principle of flared bars to its logical conclusion which is it builds

04:17in an armrest to make sitting in that aero hood's position that bit easier. And the hoods are just 32

04:23centimeters wide flaring out to 37 centimeters in the drops. Now you may have seen these bars used

04:30in the pro peloton because they were designed in collaboration with and then used by Jan Willem

04:35van Schieb and astonishingly UCI actually haven't banned them yet they're still UCI legal but at 1500

04:42euros we wouldn't expect take up to happen that quickly. Of course there are those that argue that

04:49flared bars on the road are not the way to go and Zipp are one of these they say that flared bars can

04:55mess with the brake lever alignment which is supposed to be in a vertical plane and you can see here that

05:01the brake lever is not on that plane it does flare out in the same way that the drops do. They also say

05:08that having your hands in that position on the hoods is more likely to cause injury and it's not going to

05:14be for all riders who might try and force themselves to ride in that position and suffer from discomfort.

05:21That's not to say that Zipp 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

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

05:38of a controlling position and Zipp has done lots of testing around this and they've landed on 5 degrees

05:44of flare and 11 degrees of outsweep being the optimum orientation of relationship between the drop and the

05:51hood before the ergonomics of the handlebars start getting messed up. So are flared handlebars worth it

05:59for your road bike? Well if you're trying to optimize your aerodynamic position without really affecting

06:05the handling of your bike they could be worthy of your consideration however bear in mind there aren't

06:10that many options to buy right now so you could be short suited in the exact spec you're looking for

06:16however we would expect this trend to increase as the lines have blurred between the road cycling world

06:22and the all-road gravel world as we've seen pretty much in every other part of the bike so really it's a

06:29watch this space type of debate so there you go a little introduction to the world of flared handlebars

06:37on the road if you have enjoyed this video do give us a thumbs up don't forget to subscribe to the

06:42cycling weekly channel and if you have any of the questions leave them in the comment section below

06:47now i'll be back soon with some more great tech content and i'll see you then

06:51should i stop the cameras or are you going to be ready to go i'm going to go i'm going to go

06:56shut your mouth i'm going to go am i well are you or not yeah see this is what takes up space on

07:04the server no pause it then can't work in these conditions

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