Handlebar width... determining...

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Hi, I'm new to Mt. biking... how do you determine the handlebar width for XC riding? I installed "bar ends" this weekend and find that the positioning is pretty wide. I did not cut any of the bar at this point. I think they are 24 inches wide. On the road, I use a 42cm C-C drop bar...

Any suggestions on determining the HB width on a MTB would be great...

Thanks
Rocket69

it's pretty simple....if you have end plugs in the bar, remove them; you need to be able to hit the end of the bar itself. then, simply measure w/a tape fom end to end. no need to try to follow contours of the bar or anything. the width of the bar overall is what affects the ride, so that's how they're measured. don't go by the road bars as a guide; mtb bars are going to be wider. the easiest way is to measure from shoulder to shoulder, either to the "knobs" on top of your shoulder joint, or to the outside of the shoulder itself if you're a bit more muscular (that matters for lung expansion on the bike). the width of the bar should match the width of your shoulders (for xc-type riding, anyway; fr/dh requires a little more).

Roughly...bars should be as wide as your shoulders. Any less and you restrict your ability to breath.

For a mtb you can't realy go the width of your shoulders because all the stuff on the bars can not move in so far. I only managed to reduce my Ritchey bars from 580mm to 560mm before the shifter gear indecatos started catching the oversize center of the bars. But by just removing 10mm either side made a huge difference.